We just did a fun interview with Pam Perry, Award winning producer and Marketing expert. We talked with her about cieCap, blacks in technology, startup strategies and of course…GAMIFICATION!

The potential of this industry is so exciting and we are happy to have opportunities to talk to industry experts about how impactful social gaming will be on business and brand marketing.

Check out the above video from Mashable on the lean startup movement

The importance of getting customer feedback as early as possible can not be underestimated! The lean startup machine as well as accelerators and thought leaders evangelically promoting the lean startup movement are unlocking the true potential of entrepreneurship.

At cieCap we have been in a pilot testing phase for the past month or so. There is of course the sheer pleasure of seeing folks using what was once a seedling of an idea in your brain. Then to see them dig it, in ways you expected and in ways you hadn’t…Dopamine overload is what that is! You just earned points in the game of life…

Following the ebb of this first internal shot of dopamine, you begin to see that many of your own assumptions about your product, customers, users and market are limited in scope if not completely wrong. Points deducted?

No, not really. This is where your next challenge begins, and where you actually begin developing a real product. All your work beforehand? That was developing a case test, a structure that can deliver the functions of your product in the most real situation possible, between and before your real-life potential users or customers. Now that you are testing that case, your product (be it a prototype, MVP, beta or final) will itself be as far as necessary from your original plan and as close as possible to what your customers need and your users will extract value from.

I’m paraphrasing, but the best way I’ve heard this summarized is that a team not talking to their customers is missing the beat, they are “flying blind.”

Put your specs on before you fly. That’s where the second shot of dopamine kicks in.

Here’s some of us working with one of our pilot customers Razzy Fresh, in Pittsburgh, PA

(Source: meglaz)

The most poignant highlight of this article from The Next Web is the quote from TechStars’ David Tisch in which he states that “We are finally seeing the tech industry recruiting away from other industries in NYC, such as lawyering, banking, consulting, etc.”

One of the major contributing factors to the current global economic malaise is the imbalanced concentration of talent AND wealth within the three above-mentioned industries. With their highly inflated salaries, these three industries have literally drained the nation’s top talents from our universities and drained us of our creativity and zest for a fulfilled professional life.

Information and community technology has always been a medium of opportunity and growth, however this shift in human capital to the high-tech entrepreneurial sector marks the turning of a corner socially and economically. In fact, “as New York goes, so goes the nation” or “as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation”. I guess it all depends on which coast you represent. Either way, we should all do our part to steer the rest of the nation in the direction of info & comm tech based and aligned entrepreneurship.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It might be YouTubed though.

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

Change agents are finding that public service and social change are not exclusive to any one sector, but that true change and social progress will come in a multi-sector form. Enter the Social Enterprise