Unquiet Desperation

Podiobooks.com has been nominated as the Best Audiobooks site in the 2006 Beggin’ and Choosin’ Award presented by The Stingy Scholar. The Stingy Scholar is a blog/site dedicated to spreading the word of free educational resources on the web.

How cool is that? This is great stuff. Audio books are used by people all over the world to immerse themselves in a non-native language. Syntax and grammar are one thing, but learning inflection, pacing and even slang is difficult to do in a classroom environment. By listening to our free audiobooks, non-native speakers get a great handle on the way the language flows. In fact, we’ve had several libraries from around the world ask if they could distribute our books. They’re all under Creative Commons licenses, so naturally, we were happy to tell them “Yes.”

Perhaps you’d like to vote for us?

Well, you’ve seen me alluding to the big project I’ve been on since late November of last year, and now I can finally talk about it.

In Cleveland, we have a local non-profit called Jumpstart that works to pair investors with entrepreneurs to grow local businesses. About a year ago we¹ started talking to them about an idea they had which would allow these folks as well as service providers and business mentors to put profiles into a system and then, not unlike a job search or dating site, would match all of these folks on the basis of compatibility.

The final result is IdeaCrossing.

IdeaCrossing allows an entrepreneur, investor, service provider, or business mentor create profiles for their business. if you are an entrepreneur or an investor, each night an engine runs which match you with your opposite. Investors then have the choice of contacting the entrepreneurs to learn more and perhaps take the working relationship to the next level². Service providers (non-profits or businesses offering a service for a fee) can enter their information into a directory where folks can get in touch with them. Business Mentors will be matched with suitable investors, so that they may impart their wisdom to the next generation.

Additionally, there are syndicated and local news articles, a full events calendar, and in the next version there will be discussion forums and user-submitted white papers and articles.

I’ve been the tech lead and one of the architects on the project, and I have to be honest: I believe this to be my best work to date. I cannot take credit for every line of code: I had a solid team³ of talented and dedicated developers to manage. Even though it’s been a lot of extra time at the office, I have to admit: this project really excites me. The possibilities and ramifications of being able to put businesses in touch with one another on such a granular level could be very powerful if people take advantage of it. And if it can help Ohio pull itself out of the economic gutter…well…I’ll be proud to say that I had a hand in it.

Location: http://www.ideacrossing.org

Client: JumpStart, via Optiem

Technologies used: ASP.NET/C# 2.0, MSSQL 2005 + Reporting Services, Elise, Ektron

Site Launch: January 25, 2007

1. We=Optiem[back]
2. In keeping with the dating analogy, I suppose[back]
3. Kudos to Adam, Andrew, Bran, Mike[back]

Here’s a snap a buddy at work sent of the main East 9th & Carnegie Ave. intersection at 9:00 this morning: