Developments like PhoneGap – the HTML/Javascript bridge to the iPhone’s APIs – a project that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise and may be the reason I finally pick up one of these crazy devices.

They also have an interview with Hampton Catlin – the famed Ruby developer behind iWik (Cullect says it’s MobileOrchard’s most important post).

“Aaron Weiche of Five [Technology] wanted a home for the great web design work close to home here in Minnesota.”

There are only 14 designers listed in their directory, so, I encourage all of you to add yourselves and those designers whose work you love, same for blogs².

1. I’m hoping this isn’t just part of their heavy SEO campaign visible on the fivetechnology.com site, e.g. linking the phrase ‘Minneapolis, Minnesota area web design’ to yourself….yeah, um, could you at least link it to Websota. kthxbye.

2. Cullect – one of my projects – has an number of reading lists aggregating Minnesota-based blogs in a number of categories. Minnesota Design, MN Local, Twin Cities are just a few.

They’re $599 each, and if you’re interested, sign up at http://axuretraining.eventbrite.com/

First, on the advertising side is Space150′s Mobile Marketing Workshop, it’s all afternoon on Monday Aug 11th with presentations from lots-o-places including; Nokia, Weather.com, and Yahoo!.

Then, on Tues we’re having the regular MNteractive User Experience Meetup at the Monte Carlo, 5pm. Topic: the mobile user experience.

No agenda, just a wide open topic. I’m hoping we’ll have respresentation from DoApps, FanChatter, Refactr, and everyone that’s working on low-bandwidth optimized or iPhone versions of their apps.

Update:
Big thanks to every that attended for making this our biggest event in memory, and to Kathryn Pfriem from The Creative Group for picking up the tab. It’s been a week and I’m still stunned with the conversation and mix of attendees.

Flashbelt’s line up of speakers, topics, and workshops is as good as any other conference you might consider flying out of town to attend.

I had to go New York a few years ago to see people like Erik Natzke, Rob Reinhardt and Jared Tarbell speak. These and many other nationally known guys will all be at Flashbelt with our home town Flash hot shots tackling both cutting edge Flash Platform topics like AIR and 3D in Flash, as well as the things you might be trying to study up on like Actionscript 3 and Game Production.

Check out the line up

I’ve been going for the last few years and it’s always been a really good time. The networking opportunity alone is invaluable. Also, plan on consuming at least $80 worth of free food and drinks.

Last time I checked, there were only 100 tickets left and you’ll be get a copy of Flash CS3 Professional Video: Studio Techniques for signing up in May. They added a new video workshop with the author of that book and I’m sure it will be popular. There are a few different pricing options.

Hope to see you there.

Where does this experience come from?
From my perspective, the fastest, safest way to get the experience is working for an established player. Then once you gain enough experience, maybe you want to try something different – you leave and start your own thing. In the design world locally – Target is a great example of this. Larsen Design also comes to mind. Less of an industry or community, more of an ecosystem.

This combination of established players and fresh startups has made Minnesota’s design community one of the strongest and most reputable in the country. And it factored highly into my move here a few years back.

Dan Grigsby says, it’s time to do the same for the software business. I agree. There are a few players here as Dan mentions; Adobe, Dow Jones, and others, with Microsoft on the way.

There’s room for quite a few more.

“All in, fully loaded, it costs less than half as much to build software here as on the coasts.” – Dan Grigsby

“onshore work is often qualitatively higher, is created faster and innovation is higher.” – Steve Borsch

“By encouraging startups on the small end as well as trying to bring more established companies to the state, both ends of the spectrum are covered.” – Luke Francl

Wow, already 16 people on the presenting list (only 6 slots) and 73 people on the RSVP list.

Bring 2 non-perishable food items for the Second Harvest food bank and you’ve got 3 free drink tickets. Excellent way to end the year.

“On Saturday, October 20, FanChatter will be on the big screen at the University of Minnesota-NDSU football game. So if you’re there (or following along at home), send your photos to gophers@fanchatter.com (or ndsu@fanchatter.com). We’ll pick the best photos from fans to put up on the big screen!”

I took a look a FanChatter.com a while back and was intrigued with what I saw. It feels like a niche, affinity-focused, social network platform (versus a general one like FaceBook, etc) for building even nicher communities. Sure, it supports NFL, NHL, NBA, etc, but I think the smacktalk sent back and forth about rollergirls, kickball, or bocci ball is far more interesting.