Ann Adair Talks Tech on Capitol Hill

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Ann

The Washington Monument – Photo taken during the 2015 AppCon.

At Thinkamingo, we spend most of our time producing useful apps that spark creativity. We help our customers tell stories with apps like Lists for Writers and Story Dice. We also want educators and families to feel confident using our apps and know about our commitment to transparency and data privacy.

However, as we continue to grow and provide the best products possible to our customers, there are important conversations happening in our nation’s capital that could have a significant impact on the tech industry.

As policymakers consider action around critical issues including data security and encryption, government access to digital information, and the expansion of computer science education, they must understand the perspective of small tech companies. In all of these cases, federal laws could change how Thinkamingo does what we do best – building apps for education.

That’s why I’m heading to Washington, D.C., April 17-19 for ACT | The App Association’s App Economy Conference. There, I’ll join tech executives from across the country to network, learn, and engage elected officials on the most pressing issues facing the internet economy today.

This will be my fourth year attending the App Economy Conference (formerly known as the ACT Fly-In.) I think it’s important to participate year after year because business is all about building relationships and that takes time. Over the years, I’ve met many different people including the Federal Trade Commission, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and Florida congressional offices including Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Bill Nelson, and Rep. Gus Bilirakis.

I’m eager to tell the Thinkamingo story and educate Washington about how decisions on the Hill impact the future of small tech companies like mine. I know from experience these decision makers appreciate hearing from constituents directly and engaging in an ongoing conversation about issues that directly impact us.

You can follow me as I talk tech on The Hill next week on Twitter (@thinkamingo and @tampamom) and by following #AppCon16.

Ann Adair Goes to Washington

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Ann

This Sunday, I’m traveling to Washington, D.C. to meet and educate elected officials and regulators on the booming tech industry.

As part of ACT | The App Association’s annual fly-in, I’m joining more than 50 small tech companies from across the country to advocate for an environment that encourages innovation and inspires growth.

Our message is simple. Small companies like Thinkamingo Inc are creating solutions that are improving lives, creating jobs, and invigorating our economy.

But, policymakers in Washington must understand issues threatening small tech companies to ensure growth continues. The concerns we will raise next week include data privacy and security, internet governance, intellectual property and patent reform, and regulatory obstacles to growth. These are important issues for which the federal government is considering taking action.

I look forward to meeting with my elected officials and others in Washington to educate them about the tech industry so they can make the right decisions about our future. Hopefully, an informed Congress will help entrepreneurs like me continue to flourish.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with nearly all of the Federal Trade Commissioners, including Chairwoman Ramirez, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Senators, and Representatives from Florida. I look forward to having many fruitful conversations about children’s privacy and other technology topics.

Ann Adair is the President and Co-founder of Thinkamingo Inc.

Slate: Can an app make you more creative?

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Jon

This week Slate covered our updated Lists for Writers app in an article about creative writing apps. It’s a good look at the differences between writing productivity apps and apps that help you come up with creative ideas for your writing.

Read the Slate article here.

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.

Thinkamingo Celebrates 2014 Data Privacy Day

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Ann

Thinkamingo of Tampa, Florida, a leader in the online privacy arena, celebrates Data Privacy Day on January 28

The app developer members of the Know What’s Inside™ program, including Thinkamingo Inc of Tampa, Florida, extend support to Data Privacy Day, an annual event promoting data privacy education. Members of the Moms with Apps Know What’s Inside™ program are thrilled to participate in the effort to empower and educate people to protect their privacy online.

“Making apps for kids is a lot of fun, but it is also very serious business. I take the privacy of the children that use my apps as seriously as my own child’s privacy. My job as a parent and an app developer is to protect the privacy of our users as if they were my own kids,” said Ann Adair, co-founder of Thinkamingo. “In the current climate of data management missteps, I congratulate the efforts surrounding Data Privacy Day. As a Moms With Apps Know What’s Inside™ member, I pledge to continue to protect the privacy of my consumers and to be completely transparent in regards to my policies and data collection in my apps.”

“Moms With Apps members are excited to celebrate Data Privacy Day. Our members have pledged to take online privacy very seriously,” said Sara Kloek of Moms With Apps. “Their apps are designed especially for children with special attention to online privacy. A lot of our members are parents themselves. They believe in the importance of protecting their children’s privacy, but also educating others on how to provide the same protection by being transparent about their apps and their data collection policies.”

Moms with Apps is the largest community of family friendly app developers in the world. Moms with Apps and the Know What’s Inside™ program are a part of ACT | The Apps Association, and are dedicated to helping family-friendly app developers implement best practices around privacy and comply with privacy rules, including the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA). The program provides developers with guidance on best practices, and requires each developer to implement those best practices in order to display the Know What’s Inside™ seal on their apps. For more information, visit momswithapps.com.

Lists for Writers in Parent & Child Magazine

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Ann

Our Lists for Writers app is featured in this month’s Scholastic Parent & Child magazine: The Best Children’s Reading and Book Apps.

Great to turn to for inspiration for any part of the story you’re telling — character names, places, myths and magic, specific words, and more. Plus, choose from different kinds of plots, conflict types, and issues. For iOS and Android.

ACT Fly-In Wrap Up — Press Release

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Ann

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:

Thinkamingo + Maker Faire = Fun!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Ann

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!

Story Dice featured on National Public Radio

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Jon

Our Story Dice app was featured on NPR Morning Edition. It was a segment with Mark Frauenfelder and his 9 year old daughter Jane. They have a podcast, Apps for Kids, that reviews apps. Most exciting for us, in addition to co-founding Boing Boing and being an editor at Wired, Mark is the editor-in-chief of Make Magazine. We’ve been fans of Make for a long time and were proud to hang out and help at the Tampa Bay Mini-Maker Faire last year. Jon even has a Make button on his laptop bag.

Thinkamingo

mobile apps for education

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