Senator Marco Rubio and Ann Adair

Ann Adair from Tampa-based company Thinkamingo Inc traveled to Washington on Sunday to tell Capitol Hill lawmakers about the positive impact the technology industry is having in our community. Adair was in the nation’s capitol May 19-21 with 50 other small business tech executives to participate in the Association for Competitive Technology’s Congressional Fly-In. 

Ann Adair is the President and Co-founder of Thinkamingo Inc that makes educational and family-friendly apps for the iPhone, iPad, iPod, Android, NOOK, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. Their literacy-focused apps Lists for Writers and Story Dice have been featured in the media including National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, BoingBoing.net, and Cult of Mac. Thinkamingo was a featured company in a recent edition of the digital magazine The Educationist.

“I went to Washington to make sure that lawmakers and regulators heard the voices of small business tech companies,” said Ann Adair.  ”The pace of innovation right now is remarkable, but overreaching laws or regulation could bring industry growth to a screeching halt.  I explained to my elected representatives the success our company is having in our hometown and what we need that will allow us to continue to grow and create more jobs.  Specifically, Washington should:

• Allow internet companies to implement new solutions for data transparency; Congress should resist the urge to apply broad regulatory restrictions that would deny consumers many of the products and services they rely on every day;
• Implement a program for our schools to provide students the computer science education that will help them qualify for rewarding careers in the tech industry.  This would build a larger workforce of American software developers and address the shortage we face;
• Allow small software companies to protect their intellectual property without having to fight patent trolls and speculative lawsuits;
• Ensure that the government does not impede efforts to strengthen and expand our internet infrastructure so consumers can benefit from more reliable mobile and fixed data connectivity.

“These are issues that the federal government is facing.  I met with my elected officials and others in Washington to educate them about the technology industry so they can make the right decisions about our future.  Hopefully, an informed Congress will help companies like mine continue to flourish in our community.”

“Specifically, I met with the offices of Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson. Senior Advisors from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Federal Trade Commission’s COPPA (Child Online Privacy and Protection Act) team. Through a series of productive meetings, I shared my experiences and concerns as a parent and tech executive. We want to continue making innovative products for kids and we want our kids to be safe. These are not mutually exclusive, so how do we make this work in the most effective and parent-friendly way?”

Thinkamingo Inc is a member of Moms With Apps, a family-friendly developer community of 1500+ members.

Links for additional information:

• http://thinkamingo.com
• http://momswithapps.com
• http://parentswithapps.com
• http://actonline.org

As part of that, we travelled to Miami for an event at the Miami Science Museum with Will and Jaden Smith to promote the challenge as well as their new After Earth movie. It was quite an experience for the kids – walking the red carpet, talking to media, and getting on stage with Will and Jaden to talk about robotics and the XPRIZE After Earth Challenge.

If you can pull together a team of 1-4 students ages 13-17 plus an adult team captain, check out the challenge and give it a shot. The first phase of the challenge is to create a two-minute video. Brick Buddies posted a list of tips on creating the video. You can learn a lot and you never know where it might take you.

We owe a big thank you to all of our Thinkamingo customers and supporters for giving us the opportunity to take time to participate in things like this.

One of the main messages I will bring to Capitol Hill lawmakers is that the [software/app] industry is having a tremendous impact on our local community. ACT did a great study on the revolutionary changes happening right now as America is increasingly becoming a mobile economy. Software companies are finding success in every part of the country and those that are most successful in the mobile space are overwhelmingly small companies and startups.

We need to make sure that lawmakers and regulators hear the voices of small business tech companies.  Innovation is taking place at a remarkable pace, but overreaching laws or regulation could this industry growth to a screeching halt.  I plan to explain to my elected representatives the success our company is having in Tampa and what we need that will allow us to continue to grow and create more jobs.  Specifically, Washington should:

• Allow internet companies to implement new solutions for data transparency; Congress should resist the urge to apply broad regulatory restrictions that would deny consumers many of the products and services they rely on every day;
• Implement a program to improve computer science education in our schools to help students qualify for rewarding careers in the tech industry.  This would build a larger workforce of American software developers and address the high skilled worker shortage we face;
• Allow small software companies to protect their intellectual property without having to fight patent trolls and speculative lawsuits; and
• Ensure that the government does not impede efforts to strengthen and expand our internet infrastructure so consumers can benefit from more reliable wireline and wireless data connectivity.

These are issues that the federal government is facing that will impact my business.  I’m looking forward to meeting with my elected officials and others in Washington to educate them about the technology industry so they can make the right decisions about our future.  Hopefully, an informed Congress will help companies like mine continue to flourish in our community.

Related Articles:

ACT Members Coming to DC for Annual Fly In Event

QI IQ – our app to learn two-letter words for word tile games like Scrabble, Words With Friends, and Bananagrams – has been updated. The Words With Friends dictionary has been updated to match the latest Words With Friends valid words. The app also takes up a bit less space on your device.

For our family, November means National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) where we’ve all attempted the challenge of writing fifty-thousand words in a month, or one- to ten-thousand words for the kids. This year, the Office of Letters and Light has added Camp NaNoWriMo events in April and July. Word count goals for everyone can range from ten to fifty thousand words. For me, this means I have an excellent chance of completing my meager ten thousand word goal. (Fifty thousand has always eluded me!)

Many excellent Kindle Fire apps can help you accomplish your novel-writing dreams! Here are a few of our top picks:

• For actual writing, there are a number of word processor apps, but it’s hard to beat  QuickOffice Pro if you need a full-featured word processor.
• Evernote organizes your writing and many other things. It’s even more useful paired with Skitch, a drawing tool that works with Evernote, for making maps, family trees, diagrams, and even crude character sketches.
• Having a photo in mind of what each character looks like helps a lot, but for younger writers, an app like WeeMee Avatar Creator lets you create cartoon avatars for your characters.
• We built the Lists for Writers app based on our experiences with NaNoWriMo. We took our collection of lists and organized it into a handy app that we can access all the time.
• Our Story Dice app is a brainstorming tool to develop story plots. With a roll of the virtual dice, you could add a twist to your plot, or get an idea for your main character’s backstory.
• Our free Name Dice app makes character naming easy! This free app has a million different first and last name combinations. The source lists have been carefully curated to produce believable names.
• Movie soundtracks can be a an incredible source of inspiration while writing. Set up Pandora with some movie soundtracks! Also, creating playlists for each of your main characters helps explore them in greater detail and can help you really get into the writing as the character when it comes to dialogue.

We hope you enjoy your Camp NaNoWriMo writing experience as much as we will!

Good luck!

• Our Lists for Writers app has dozens of lists to help quickly develop characters, settings and plots.
• Our Story Dice app uses combinations of pictograms to help brainstorming of plots.
• Our Name Dice app gives instant inspiration in the form of random character names. It’s really surprising how much the right name can shape the character’s personality in the writer’s mind.

Sometimes, using an app to throw some random ideas into your writing can really help spark your creativity! Good luck with Camp NaNoWriMo this year!

Camp NaNoWriMo is a spin-off program of the very popular NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) In the single month sessions of April and July, you can get some encouragement to get significant chunks of writing done. Visit campnanowrimo.org to join! It’s free!

1. Set a reachable goal (with mini-goals.)

With Camp NaNoWriMo’s lower end goal only being 10,000 words in a month, this is an easily reachable goal for most people. If you have plenty of time on your hands and think you can turn yourself from a couch potato into a writing machine, maybe 50,000 words is within your reach. Once you set your word count goal, it’s very important to have some checkpoints along the way. If your goals is 10,000 words for the month, you need to write 2500 words each week, and around 500 words, five days each week. Print out a blank calendar and mount it somewhere you will see everyday. Cross off each day as you complete your word count, and make a note of your daily word counts.

2. Set up a regular writing spot.

Do you work best at your desk? Dining room table? Recliner? Window seat? Library? Park? If you have one productive spot, take some time to clean it up and refresh your supplies. If you need a variety of places, make a list of those now so you don’t have to think about it later.

3. Assemble resources.

Some writers need paper, pens, dictionaries, thesaurus, etc. Others need a laptop and an iPad or phone with apps. I’ve been in both camps and can do it either way. I highly recommend that if you work on a laptop, that you turn off your internet connection during your scheduled writing time. This will increase your productivity greatly!

4. Schedule time to write.

Gaining skill and mastery requires regular practice just like playing the piano or fencing. When is your brain firing on all cylinders? Early morning? Late night? Find a time and carve it out on your calendar. Don’t skip it. Just do it. Even if you write nonsense for an hour, you might write one great sentence that will help you accomplish your goal tomorrow. Legendary composer Aaron Copland said that he found the greatest time of inspiration to compose between the hours of 8am-4am, Monday through Friday. Get busy and just do it!

5. Get to know your characters.

Who are these people you are writing about? Spend some time making character profiles, family trees, relationship flow charts, and finding reference photos. The more fully you envision your characters, the more easily dialogue will form between them. If you write a brief backstory for each character, that will help you find their motivations for the way they behave with your other characters.

6. Do your research.

Researching setting improves the process by providing a great deal of credible information to draw from. Is your novel set in 18th century France? You might want to study! Is your main character a neurosurgeon? Read up on it! Are your characters from a modern-day Chicago suburb? Get on Google and look at the satellite and street views of some Chicago suburbs! Print out some houses for your characters to live in. Draw a map. Lay out a house design so your action makes sense.

7. Tell no one, someone, or everyone.

I go back and forth on this one. I either tell everyone I know that I’m working on something, or no one, and do it secretly. This is up to you, but make a decision and stick to it. If you decide to keep it to yourself, keep it! This is most difficult to do if you are married or otherwise committed to a significant other (or have a parent living with you.) You can choose to tell that one person only. That seems to be a good choice, but only if that person is supportive and doesn’t cast judgment on you.

8. Determine your reward.

What are you going to do when you complete your goal? Go out to dinner? Buy new shoes? Go sailing? Whatever it is, find a picture of it, put it in a cheap frame, and keep it nearby during camp. When your internal motivation hits a wall, look at your reward for some external motivation.

9. Assemble a writer’s block first aid kit.

I have two kits: physical and virtual. My physical kit contains a dictionary, a thesaurus, story dice, pipe cleaners, unusual pens and pencils, assorted paper, number dice, lists I’ve kept over the years, a couple of current magazines, creativity card deck, and a stress ball. My virtual kit contains: iPad, iPhone. I use brainstorming apps on my iPhone and use my iPad as a sketchpad, notepad, and timer. Thinkamingo has a toolbox full of apps that help me with my brainstorming process, including: Lists for Writers, Story Dice, Name Dice, and Story Spark. Other apps I use for organizing my writing, sketchbooks, and productivity are A Novel Idea, Penultimate, Simple Pomodoro Timer, and Dropbox.

—

Ann Adair is the President and Co-founder of Thinkamingo Inc and makes mobile apps with her family. She has participated in NaNoWriMo for years and never crossed the finish line. Following her own advice, Ann plans to write at least 10,000 words in April’s Camp NaNoWriMo.

I wanted to share with you a little bit about something different we did this past weekend. We had a booth at the Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire.

We have several interests that intersect at an event like this: robotics, makerspace, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and general creativity.

We did not do this to sell anything. In fact, we set Story Dice to go free all day Saturday resulting in over 12,000 downloads and Top 10 rankings in Education for both iPhone and iPad, and a Top 200 ranking in OVERALL iPad Apps. After all that, we still had a great sales day. We did this to get practice talking about what we do, explaining our apps, interacting with a variety of people, and watch people interact with our apps.

Our activities:

Activity #1 – Roll the Story Dice using one of our devices, and create a Flash Fiction on a postcard to take with you. This engaged guests to actually play with the app on a device (iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire), write a short fiction, and have a souvenir that had our company name and logo on it.

Activity #2 – Group Fiction Project called Mini Maker Faire-y Tale. Participants were invited to add a sentence or illustration to an ongoing story throughout the day. This was extremely popular and attracted a lot of attention. Kids and adults were excited about it all day.

This was the first of four completed Group Fiction projects throughout the day. It was a smashing success and I will likely do this at future events.

Activity #3 - Spark Your Creativity workshop. I gave an informal talk about brainstorming and different ways to get unstuck. I shared a lot of my own secrets and demonstrated our newest app Sketch Spark at the end of the talk.

Specific things we had at the booth: pipe cleaners (we made flamingos with them!), baskets of pens/pencils/markers, postcards for the writing activity, iPad, iPhone, Windows Phone, 2 Kindle Fires, sign stand with a listing of all of our apps and platforms, easel with a company sign, email signup sheet for newsletter, hand sanitizer, media feature book containing articles/reviews/coverage, roll of paper for group fiction project, marine battery in a rolling backpack for recharging devices throughout the day, business cards with holders, lanyards and nametags, flamingo necklace, camera, QR code stickers for Story Dice, and sparkling personalities! We also packed our lunch/snacks/drinks.

Results: We gained newsletter subscribers. We spread goodwill in our maker community. We acquired photos of us actually doing things with other people. I am ready and willing to give another talk/workshop about Creativity and Brainstorming. We finally got business cards, a large sign and easel for future talks, and started a physical media feature book.

We had a ton of fun and learned a lot. If you have an opportunity to do something like this, go for it!

This post would be incomplete without a shout out to Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make magazine, and the founder of the popular Boing Boing blog. He and his daughter, Jane, featured Story Dice on NPR and Boing Boing because they love playing with it!

Available now for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch in the App Store.