Rust Belt Startup

https://youtu.be/GWFRxwGx_Ec?si=GBDoKBkbPIey7cnh On this episode I sit down with Katie Aiello for a long overdue conversation about local government, civic engagement, and using data to empower citizens. Katie is the founder of Character Coffee in Utica, NY, and found her calling in public service when she decided to run for Common Council. Now she's using social media and open data tools to shed light on the inner workings of her city. We talk about how she's leveraging digital platforms to educate constituents and apply pressure for transparency. Find out how Katie is mining municipal data using Instagram and TikTok to help constituents think more critically about budgets, ARPA funds, and getting involved local politics. This is a must-listen for anyone interested in innovative approaches to civic participation and government accountability. Learn more about Katie at KatieforUtica.com and @katieaiello on all the socials. Rust Belt Startup · Coffee, Councils & TikTok Civics with Katie Aiello

I recently had the opportunity to take a 40 min demo of the Apple Vision Pro - while there are tons of tech reviews out there already about the specs, what it can and cannot do, I wanted to add my thoughts on what makes this device special, some of the most impressive experiences, the drawbacks I see - and weigh in on the AR/VR debate. Remember, I was a Google Glass user for about 18 months and I'll get into what I see as the bifurcaton of use cases rather than one device that we'll use in our daily lives. This was recorded almost immediately after my demo while it was fresh in my head. The bottom line - this is an amazing device that's the beginning of a whole new category of devices. Rust Belt Startup · Vision Pro Demo Impressions | Killer Apps and the AR/VR debate eo.

My guest today is Leon Etienne. He is a world renowned illusionist, and he's rolling through upstate New York, doing a show this Saturday at Stanley theatre. He's the creator of Magic Rocks, has been featured on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, America's Got Talent, Penn & Teller's Wizard Wars, and much more. We had a fantastic conversation about why we need a little bit more magic. In our lives. We talk about the business of magic and how he started from learning some simple tricks at home when he was 12, to building this career, where he travels all over the world, showcasing one of the kind illusions. We talk about his trajectory of making magic a career that's become a full fledged touring operation that goes all over the world. We'll talk about some of those big breaks, whether that's America's Got Talent, or working with Penn and Teller, meeting his heroes, bringing magic to the people during the pandemic and much much more. It's a really wide ranging conversation and it was awesome to catch up with

This is a special episode of Rust Belt Startup because it was taped in front of a live audience this past July at MVCC’s thINCubator. This event was a partnership with The Rising Tide Society of Utica and featured a fireside chat with the founder of Utica Coffee Roasting Company, Frank Elias. It’s a conversation that focuses on not only the origin story of the company, but how they've experienced growth. We spend a lot of time talking about building a culture and cultivating talent within your network and within your region - instead of importing that talent. How do you create a culture where people want to be a part of the business and gve them opportunities for growth? We spend a lot of time here but also as UCR has expanded they now do a ton of their business online. We get into that strategy and using partners like Shopify and Amazon and the pros and cons of each as it comes to online retail and distribution. So hope you find this conversation interesting and thanks to everyone that came out to this first

Hilda M Jordan is the founder of HMJ Equity Consulting, an anti-racist social equity firm that helps organizations attract and retain more diverse talent by identifying systems that stand in the way of helping members of the team be successful. She is a graduate of Harvard University, and honestly one of the most inspiring your people I’ve every met. Our conversation today centers around her personal journey from upstate NY to Harvard University and back again - learning to navigate systems from colleges to courts to companies that can stand in the way of her (and YOUR) success. This is one of the most inspiring conversations you’ll hear  - It’s been a great privilege to get to work with Hilda in building HMJ Consulting but a greater privilege to call her a friend. Rust Belt Startup · Building Equitable Environments From Colleges to Companies to Courts with Hilda M. Jordan

Rust Belt Startup · Finding Career Superpowers, Building Online Communities, and F-Words with Scott Grates It’s great to be back and welcome Scott Grates to the podcast. Scott is first and foremost in the insurance business - but this isn’t a podcast about insurance. It's a conversation about how do you figure out how to reverse engineer a career that helps you live how you want to live. It’s about building systems that can save you from yourself, and it’s about essential advice from a dad to a son. He’s created a robust online community and service called Insurance Agency Optimization, that leverages his superpower of building efficient processes for agency owners that are trying to optimize their own businesses. So we spend time discussing how you build, grow and nurture an online community.  Finally we talk about Scott’s new book - Essential F-Words for Teens: The 117 Things You Need to Know Before Graduation. https://www.amazon.com/Essential-F-Words-Teens-Things-Graduation/dp/B0BW2MGVJW/

Rust Belt Startup · Making the Comfortable Uncomfortable - Mike Ballman Today on the podcast, Pastor Mike Ballman returns. It’s a follow-up conversation 3 years after our first conversation (which was one of my favorite episodes ever - listen at the link below). Mike is the founder and chief operator of the Morrow Warming Center - a low-barrier shelter in Utica, NY.  What Mike has done has made the problem of homelessness visible - and the challenges that come with it.  We talk about the founding of the Morrow Warming Center, homelessness in small cities, potential solutions, opposition to what he’s doing, being uncomfortable, and building community through connection as we come out of the pandemic.  This is a heavy conversation but an important one.  Learn more about The Morrow Warming Center via their Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/430038701543837 Donate or Support the Warming Centerhttp://morrowwarmingcenter.org Mike Ballman - Invest, Commit, Dig In (Rust Belt S

Rust Belt Startup · Rust Belt Toolbox - Download, Digest & Delete Today on the podcast I want to talk to you about data - specifically your data - well, specifically MY data…. but it just as well might be your data. We all know that tech giant and social networks collect TONS of our personal formation and that they have become intregral into so many parts of our lives. And they collect a LOT of data about you. But have you ever tried to take a look at just how much of your data you’re sharing? Have you ever tried to take any of it back? Today I’ll tell you about some of the tools I’ve used (and that you can use) to view, download, digest and if you so choose - DELETE some of the data that is stored via social media and other tech giants. Specifically we’ll look at Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I’ll tell you what I’ve found and how easy (or impossible) it is to remove your data. Resources:Scott Galloway’s TED talk on The 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRL2vVAa47I Google Takeout: Takeout.Googl

Rust Belt Startup · Are NFT's stupid or is it just early? What's coming next? NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are reaching a fever pitch with some digital artwork selling for tens of millions of dollars. The landscape changes daily and so today I want to give you a brief primer on how you might think about NFTs, what they are, and what could be next in the space.  In this podcast I reference a great interview with Kara Swisher of the New York Times and Beeple - whose recent NFT of a collection of his daily works sold at auction for over $60 million. It's a fantastic interview and you can check it out here: What do you think? Do you own any NFTs? If so, what made you decide to take the plunge?

Today I'm sharing a conversation I had with chef Tim Hardiman of The Tailor and the Cook. And we're talking about his experience over the past 12 months. What is it like to be in the restaurant business as everything collapsed around us? Tim takes us through T&C's core philosophies and what has made them successful over the years, but we also spend time talking about how he pivoted during the pandemic to create innovative virtual dining experiences, the difficult decisions he had to make as an entrepreneur and the lessons learned over 2020. We talk about the importance of service, detail, and stepping back to make better decisions. Rust Belt Startup · A Chef's Journey Through the Pandemic - Tim Hardiman

Rust Belt Startup · Building More Meaningful Relationships and Being Connected From Afar - Kat Vellos Today’s conversation is one I’ve been really looking forward to sharing. I’m talking with Kat Vellos about UX, building (and maintaining) community and connection. Kat is a UX (user experience) designer, the founder of the Bay Are Black Designers, Connection Club, a facilitator, coach, and someone who is obsessed with community and connection. She’s also the author of two books - “We Should Get Together - The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships” and “Connected From Afar - A Guide For Staying Close When You’re Far Away.” In our conversation we talk about User Experience - what makes good UX and how do you apply that to your app, business or city. We talk about building and maintaining healthy, resilient communities - and probably most important, we talk about connection. We talk about “platonic longing” which probably encapsulates a feeling that many adults are feeling in this time of isola

Rust Belt Startup · Venture Caplital and Leveling The Playing Field - James Shomar On today’s podcast I’m having a conversion with Mr. James Shomar. James is a partner at StartFast which is a venture accelerator program in Syracuse NY.  I reached out to James after reading one of his LinkedIn posts about how he’s re-thinking startup funding and economic development as it relates to startups.  In our wide ranging conversation he gives us a primer on angel and venture investment and the kinds of companies that this investment attracts. Ever wondered why your company isn’t attractive to angel or venture capital? We’ll talk about it.  We also talk about leveling the playing field when it comes to opportunities for entrepreneurs of color, and much more. You can learn more about James on LinkedIN. On my end - I’m a partner in a new initiative called the Mohawk Valley Micro Seed Fund that’s looking for it’s first investment. You can learn more about that venture at our website.

Hey everyone - I was going to say Happy 2021 until things all went sideways las week. Regardless this the first episode of Season 3 of the Rust Belt Startup Podcast. On today's episode I'm actually reading a blog post in it's entirety that I really enjoyed which was featured in Tim Ferriss' newsletter 'Five Bullet Friday'. It's originally by Conner Barnes over at Ideopunk.com, and while I don't agree with everything, lists like these I think are useful as we start a new year or if you're looking for a change. They prompt questions, challenges, and might make you improve in some small way this year.

Today's pod is a super-shorty episode (I'll be experimenting with more of these) where we're talking about the Trojan horse that is the Nike Run Club app. This app started as a sensor you'd put in your Nike shoes (Nike+) and evolved as smartphones entered the market to a full-fledged and full-featured digital community. And there's key feature/Trojan horse methodology that we can all learn from that can use to grow your revenue as well. Let me explain... Rust Belt Startup · The Trojan Horse of Nike Run Club

Today on the podcast it’s a little lighter and I’m chatting with a colleague of mine - Bernie Freytag. He is the Creative Director at Romanelli Communications and he has a new book called ‘Find Wonder In The Ordinary’, which is sort of a memoir mashed-up with New Yorker cartoons. So in this conversation we focus on creativity - how to harness your own creativity , how do you be creative when it’s also part of your job, how he thinks about creativity. And we also talk about the genesis of the book, how he decided to put it out into the universe and much more. You can learn more about Bernie and the book project at Find Wonder In The Ordinary and on instagram at instagram.com/findwonderintheordinary and instagram.com/medraw Rust Belt Startup · Bernie Freytag - On Creativity and Finding Wonder in The Ordinary

Today - a short reflection on the past several weeks and the role small towns and cities can have in meaningful change. Imperfect and incomplete. Rust Belt Startup · Storytellers and Story-Changers - Some (self) Reflection on Social-Justice

Rust Belt Startup · Functional Speed and the Evolution of Ice I'm in week 9 or 10 of work-from-home and quarantine at this point, and things are settling into a rhythm. At least the sun is starting to come out and working from home also includes working in with the laptop in the back yard. Today is another toolbox episode that was inspired by a Scott Galloway post on what he calls Functional Speed/Functional Acceleration. It's this idea that when everything around us is slowing down or on pause due to the COVID19 pandemic, how can you accelerate or speed up to grab market share or build what's next for your career? That doesn't necessarily mean just doing MORE. I'm combining this line of thinking with a great TED talk from Guy Kawasaki where he uses the history of ice to illustrate how to think about where innovation comes from. So this pod is very much a remix and I hope you enjoy. Stay safe.

Today we’re going a bit tactical. I’m taking with Gary Maples about chatbots - now before you tune out, we should start to understand what a chatbot is and what it isn’t and most important - how the tech is really democratized and how small businesses and organizations can build their own with minimal expertise.  We’ll get into what goes into building a chatbot, what you can do with it and where the tech is going in the future. Thanks to Gary for his time and you can learn more about what he’s up to at http://garymaples.com

Over the weekend I wanted to catch up with urbanist Arian Horbovetz in Rochester, NY. I’ve been enjoying his podcast The Urban Phoenix and wanted to dig into what cities might be like after the COVID19 pandemic. We get into urban planning, last mile transport, remote work, the changing commercial real estate market, and the impact of EVs on cities amongst other topics. If you’d like to learn more abut Arian and his work, visit him online attheurbanphoenix.com

Devin Mahoney is a Utica, NY native who spent a decade working and writing for TV and Film in LA, on shows such as Scrubs, before returning to upstate NY with the mission of taking over the Uptown Theater and turning it into a punk-rock version of a Fine Arts School. The theater is now known as the Uptown Theater for the Creative Arts (UTCA) and has become a hotbed of comedy, improv and music within the city. In our conversation we talk about working and writing for TV, why network TV has gotten so bad, the decentralization of media, and how improv can build a community. To learn more about UTCA visit their website at https://utcany.org and maybe even consider a donation.