Dice Tower Con 2016

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Ann

Food Chain Magnate game components This past week, Thinkamingo made its annual trek to Dice Tower Con in Orlando.

What is Dice Tower Con? 5 solid days of board gaming fun! This year had approximately 1500 attendees with tickets selling out within 15 minutes, 8 months in advance. Next year, it expands to 3000 tickets available. The demand is so high that I anticipate another sellout within 48 hours.

Dice Tower Con game bag and badge lanyard This was our third year attending and certainly won’t be the last! Learning new games, meeting people, and reconnecting with old friends is an irresistible combination.

In no particular order, I managed to play Food Chain Magnate, Celestia, Shakespeare, Robo Rally, Potion Explosion: The Fifth Ingredient, Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King, Bruges: The City on the Zwin, Broom Service, Barnyard Roundup, Royals, Codenames, Codenames: Pictures, and Dominion: Adventures. The standouts for me were: Food Chain Magnate, Royals, Shakespeare, and Codenames. Super family fun to be had with Celestia, Broom Service, and Robo Rally! I also volunteered 12 hours this year, so I spent some time meeting new people and giving back to this wonderful community.

As a company, some of our business-related tasks we set for ourselves during this con include a lot of research on: popular apps being used by gamers, new games that incorporate technology into game play, card games, Kickstarter games, and games that lend themselves to upgraded components. We get a lot of ideas during DTC that may or may not be realized through an app, new game, or game component/accessory.

Overall, it’s a great time of recharging and refreshment through gaming. I highly recommend it for a family vacation! Great hotel rates, next to major attractions, great pool, and games for everyone! Tickets go on sale November 15th, 2016 and it will sell out. Conference dates are July 5-9, 2017. Mark your calendars and we’ll see you there!

I’m going to DC!

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Ann

On Sunday, I am traveling to Washington to meet with my elected officials and educate them about the growing mobile economy and tech innovation. My company is Thinkamingo Inc and we make mobile applications for education and entertainment.

I’ll be joining up with leading entrepreneurs from across the country to participate in the Association for Competitive Technology Washington Fly-In. Around 50 of us will descend on the nation’s capital to help lawmakers recognize the incredible impact that small technology companies are having on our nation’s economy.

More than three-quarters of the most successful companies in the mobile software industry are small businesses – and apps are now a $68 billion marketplace. No one talked about apps six years ago, but now a whole ecosystem has emerged creating jobs for software developers, engineers, graphic artists, marketing professionals, and administrative personnel.

I am traveling to Washington to alert lawmakers about important issues including intellectual property and patent reform, data security and privacy, and regulatory obstacles to growth. We also look to areas where technology and policy can combine to meet the needs of industry and consumers.

These are all important issues that the federal government is facing. The outcomes really matter to me and that is why I’m making sure my voice is heard. Hopefully, an informed Congress will allow companies like mine to continue to flourish.

Novel Writing Spot World Tour: Transportation Hubs

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Ann

In my last blog, I wrote about people watching at Fast Food Restaurants. This time, let’s dive into Transportation Hubs. These are great places to get ideas for storylines!

How to get the most out of the experience:

Locate a spot to camp out and watch people. You can do this conspicuously or inconspicuously.
Use your dossier notebook to create characters inspired by the people you see.
Look at luggage/purses, shoes, and coats. These are all high ticket items that reflect economic status fairly accurately.
Observe groups of travelers: singles, friends, couples, families, social/school groups, business travelers.
Are they coming or going?
People who are waiting for passengers are interesting, too. Who are they? A romantic rendezvous? A distant relative? A chauffeur? The spouse of a soldier returning? An illicit affair? A business associate? A boyfriend?
Where are they going? Where have they been?
Business or pleasure? Or family emergency?

Here’s a checklist of transportation hubs to observe people. Which one is your favorite?

International Airport
Train station
Subway stop
Taxi stand
Bus station
Bus stop
Cruise ship terminal/port
Small regional or private airport
Airport concourse or restaurant

Camp NaNoWriMo 2014

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Ann

It’s that time, again! I’m buckling down and getting some real writing done this month with encouragement from the good folks at Camp NaNoWriMo. I’m using all of our writing tools: Lists for Writers, Story Spark, Story Dice, Name Dice, and Spooky Story Dice.

Story Spark

My goal is 50,000 words this April and a complete first draft of a novel. We’ll see how that works out. I’m using a handy web tool call Word Counter to analyze my writing. The writing analysis tool is just one reason to visit their site. You will find a lot of helpful writing advice on their blog, too!

Another thing I’m trying is camping out at new places to write instead of my dining room. Right now, I’m writing from a local gaming store. I’m a huge fan and frequent customer here and they are very generously allowing me to hang out and work at a table today. I think I might have to make this a regular thing. It’s very peaceful here. If there were a lot of gamers here right now (middle of the day) it would be a temptation, but right now, it’s just a great place to concentrate on what needs my attention.

Take the title of “Camp” very seriously and get out of your normal surroundings to boost your creativity!

Happy camping!

Thinkamingo Supports Tampa Hackerspace Kickstarter

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Ann

Congratulations to Tampa Hackerspace for a wildly successful Kickstarter! We are so proud to be a part of such an interesting and fun endeavor!

Tampa Hackerspace is a place you can share what you know and learn something new. There are hackers and makers of all kinds working with all sorts of materials: code, fabric, metal, plastic, circuitry, and much more!

Jon and I had a chance in the Spring of 2013 to help get things going by forming a team for the Red Bull Creation 2013 Challenge. We came up with the concept sport of “Extreme Fencing” and you can check out the video here. This project was a perfect match for our passion for learning new things and sharing that knowledge with others. Hence, our passion for the Tampa Hackerspace.

Every Tuesday night is the weekly Open Make. Come on out and meet the gang, bring your project, or just check out ongoing projects! You will see Arduinos, Raspberry Pi, LEGO, Minecraft, soldering, sewing, quadcopters, 3D printing, and who knows what else!

NaNoWriMo on the iPad

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Ann

I love my iPad. This year, I’m going to do something crazy. I’m going to leave my writing dungeon and get out and about while writing for NaNoWriMo. November weather in Florida is notoriously stunning, so I’m going to attempt to soak in some of that and still get some writing done.

I am pretty handy with my iPad onscreen keyboard, but for this lengthy task, I will be using a combination of bluetooth keyboard with Dragon dictation. Some of you might argue that Dragon is not very accurate, but I will argue right back that the goal of NaNoWriMo is get 50K words of a novel done in November. Once December rolls around, I can start the editing process.

I plan to do the actual writing on my iPad2, and use tools on my phone to help me get past my sporadic and annoying bouts of writer’s block, as well as helping me in the editing process in December, which I will do completely on my laptop.

Here are my favorite mobile apps for NaNoWriMo!

Lists for Writers – Hands down this is my favorite. Yes, I’m biased because I helped make it, but it was born out of our collection of lists from years of working on NaNoWriMo! It has always delivered in time of need!
Story Spark – This app generates scenarios. Most of the time, this app just sparks another idea for the story I’m already writing. However, I have used this to write short fictions to get in the groove or get unstuck.
Name Dice – You can’t beat this free app for realistic name combinations. I use this all the time to create placeholder names when I can’t decide on a final name for a character. You just never know when the perfect name will come up!
Story Dice – Not sure what happens next in your story? Roll the story dice for a random idea/object to weave into your plot.
Spooky Story Dice – This is a special edition of Story Dice with 25+ slightly more sinister die faces included. Great for horror writing or even a lightly spooky tale for kids.
Spy Tools for Kids – This is a new one for me to use with writing projects. One of the tools in this app is a fake ID maker. You can create driver licenses, passports, and spy agency IDs. I plan to use this by creating passports and/or driver licenses for all of my characters. They are really easy to make, and I can save the images to my camera roll to use elsewhere. I might even print them out for fun!

I use a few other apps including Evernote, Dropbox, and Flipboard. If you aren’t already using these all the time, get with the program and get them! Free!

Good luck in November!

Related articles: 9 Packing Tips for Camp NaNoWriMo

I’m headed to Capitol Hill!

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Ann

I’m headed to Washington on Sunday as part of the Association for Competitive Technology‘s Annual Fly-In. Our group of 50 tech CEOs and developers will be meeting with the DC representatives of many Silicon Valley companies to learn about the potential impact that pending government activity may have on our industry. We will also meet with our elected officials and agency staff to educate them about our businesses and how the ecosystem works.

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.

Thinkamingo

mobile apps for education

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