October 22, 2010:

Live Blog:

Whew. The charismatic and hilarious Matt Slaybaugh is almost impossible to keep up with and his elegant discourse today describes the technological innovations that are happening right here in Columbus Ohio.

I am paraphrasing, of course, but his presentation went a little something like this…

“I’m too busy wondering ‘what it’s all for’ to worry about ‘what’s next’ I wake up read onslaught of news stories overwhelmed by Social Media gurus and dudes in suits yapping about how can we monetize ugh what’s next I want to throw it all away and see if creativity can swim on is own then I begin to despair and am feeling very down when an employment opportunity takes me on a tour of U.S in 10 days wrapping up at a 500 acre farm in Shenandoah Valley where Polyface farm is rebuilding our environment I walked around the farm and came home inspired and started looking for whats next everywhere and lo and behold there is a lot going on here in Columbus Ohio let’s see I have created a list with the following: C12 Lacrosse makes an indestructible lacrosse stick what does this have to do with anything well little innovations lead to bigger innovations I took a trip to Resource Interactive and they told me that the future will be mobile the future will be social the future will be layered the future will be connected the future will be a game and speaking of games there is one called Super Meat Boy and it is super popular oh by the way people spend 3 billion hours per week gaming and there are more Farmville players than there are Facebook accounts and people have already spent 1.3 million online years playing World of Warcraft but what are some other things happening here in Columbus Ohio well there’s Wonderland check it out and obesity therapy at OSU is breaking new ground in study and EXCMR study at OSU is developing treadmill testing in an MRI environment and then there’s Dublin’s EcoCab and Battelle (oh wait can’t talk about that, just kidding, no seriously) and then there’s BalletMet’s double take and The Couch Fire collective and Mobile Expeditions and their platform that allows media and brands to develop location-based-service oriented apps for iPhone and iPad and holy cow I am not depressed any more because we are living in a midwest innovation Mecca except there are more like Joe at Freshbox catering and fudha.com where you can get a great deal from local columbus restaurant and there are also the good people at http://www.local-matters.org/ and the unmistakeable Veggie Van that delivers fresh foods to the under served (and kids totally love it) and alas this tour ends here on the campus of THE COLUMBUS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN and I am filled with immense hope and will be going out into the world to do some game changing of my own…will I see you out there?”