April's been a busy month, without a doubt. You'd be hard pressed to find a day where the whole team is in the office and not attending an event - or planning for one at MindComet.

I think I speak for the entire team when I say we're looking forward to next Friday's SUPAFRI and State of the Company, where we're taking the afternoon to connect, recap Q1 and partake in some team-building. It's a little bit like a mini-retreat, actually. This month we'll be celebrating the Kentucky Derby, so expect photos of us in our track-day attire to come.



We got an early start to the month at BarCamp Orlando, an event without a conference schedule where community members show up and sign up to present tech topics of their choice. These events happen in most major cities around the US throughout the year. You can click here to see what's happening in your neck of the woods. Slides from many of the presentations are available at barcamporlando.org.



Just days after, we were proud to host the first Social Media Club Orlando event. It had been months in the making, and was made possible by the dedication of our own Jeremy Hilton, along with help from other MindComet team and community members. We had well over fifty attendees to the event, drawn almost solely through social media chatter. It goes to show the true desire for this type of organization in the Central Florida community!



Panel members shared their biggest mistakes in social media, as well as others that they had witnessed, so that attendees wouldn't fall victim to the same blunders in their professional endeavors. And as we were hoping it would, the discussion expanded beyond the panel and grew to be a truly interactive event, as panel members addressed questions from the attendees. We're looking forward to another event and continued growth of the organization in May. I know we're all excited to see this initiative really take off!

Next, some members of the MindComet Executive Team attended the Mirren New Business Conference in New York. This is one of their favorite events, as it allows them to rub shoulders with a ton of industry peers that are bursting with as much creativity as they are. You can catch some takeaways from the event by reading the #Mirren Twitter stream and also on Marcelle's blog, Pink Lenses.



Fresh out of Mirren, David had to switch gears to meet and greet members of AIGA Orlando, a local creative association, as we welcomed them to our office for a studio tour. We talked about our work, but also provided fresh perspective on attendees' portfolios to help bring them to the next level in their digital careers. A big thanks goes out to Daissy, an active AIGA member, who arranged the event!



David wasn't the only one jumping from event to event. Jeremy also lent his time and expertise to the 2010 Hispanic Business Conference, where he shared his expert social marketing strategies with local business members to help them enhance their business potential in our community.



And as I am typing this, Peter and Chris are returning from DrupalCon 2010 in San Francisco. This is the premier Drupal event in the country where developers gather to learn the newest and greatest technologies and methods for using the open-source content management system to its fullest. If you're not familiar, we're huge fans and advocates of Drupal. We hosted the first and second Florida DrupalCamp events at our office, with the Central Florida Drupal Users Group and Andrew at the helm.



But that's not it! The month isn't over just yet. We're looking forward to another invigorating Refresh Orlando event next week at Strayer University. This technical group will be discussing CSS3 and educating the community on its uses, sharing tips and tricks along the way.

Whew, what a month! We're happy to be able to give back to our community and welcome future opportunities, so stay tuned to see what's next. We're excited about the recent announcement of TEDxOrlando and plan to be a driving force there as well.



See you around the community, or maybe at our next MindComet-hosted event!

First thing every Thursday morning, the entire MindComet team grabs some coffee and crams into our executive meeting space, known as Donkey Kong. We use this time to get everyone on the same page and discuss projects that we're working on or have just launched, community events, outstanding team members and the like.



Each week, the facilitator rotates between our leadership team members. Aside from compiling and presenting all of the week's data, they're also responsible for providing a nugget of interesting information to educate the entire team. This can be a look into their area of expertise, new technology, a design critique or a number of different topics and formats. This supplements our daily individual efforts to keep current and innovative in the digital space and often serves as an appetizer to our brown bag lunchtime learning sessions.

Today, I'm going to share a few topics from the last month. First, Mark shared with us a quick video about listening by Tom Peters. Listening is something that we all could benefit from learning to do a little bit better. Check out the video below to find how you might be able to improve your skills.



Next, on the heels of the team's return from SXSW, Dean shared some neat learnings about HTML5 and his thoughts on the opportunities it opens, as well as its adoption.

A lot of the really cool things surrounding HTML5 that I've seen are surrounding motion and video content. Carney shared a sweet example that you can find and interact with by clicking here or on the image below. Note that you'll probably need a relatively recent browser (not IE6) to play with it.



Andrew started off the team's next Thursday off with a laugh by educating us on internet memes. What's a meme you ask? Good question. If you're not familiar, check out the definition from The Daily Meme. By the way, it rhymes with 'cream' not 'them' - you wouldn't want to mispronounce it and give your colleagues an excuse to laugh at you when they could be laughing at this classic internet meme shared by Andrew.



If you're looking for more, or just want to make sure you're not out of the loop, you can find them all at Know Your Meme - The Internet Meme Database.

Finally, Marcelle shared some takeaways from her experience at the 2010 Mirren New Business Conference. You can find more info on her blog, Pink Lenses, about her favorite presentation where David Droga presented on the topic of taking risk and having the courage to ask clients to push their comfort levels. You'll probably enjoy this hilarious Shiny Suds commercial from the presentation.



Well, there you have it, all of our company secrets out in the open! OK, not really, but they do help form our frame of mind when concepting engaging solutions for our clients. Without innovation, we'd be just another design production shop, and without interesting perspectives like these, it wouldn't be as easy to get the creative juices flowing.

So... do you share anything similar with your team? How do you hone your competitive edge?

For a start, if you're not already, you can follow @MindComet on Twitter or see what our team is tweeting by following our MindComet Team Twitter List. Happy learning!

Cathleen, the rowdiest cowgirl this side of the Rio Grande, was the proud sponsor of March's SUPAFRI. We took it to the Ol' West with some fine BBQ, cerveza and even Cowboy Bingo. She set the mood with some rip roarin' country tunes, proclaiming: "Y'all best be ready for a hoedown or bring some ear plugs!"


Daissy won herself some cowboy bingo, taking home some new fangled e-lec-tronic video game. Sara took the next round, and won a spin of the Wheel-O-Destiny, which landed on pudding in the face. This splattering was a little too hot for TV (even this little TV you city folk spend all yer time clickety-clackin' in front of), so we're keeping it off the air to protect her good name. Cause that's no way to treat a lady.

Doug played some Russian Roulette with the Wheel of Destiny and found himself at the wrong end of a water pistol with nothing but a towel to protect himself. You're going to need more than a towel to keep yourself safe from these villans!



And watch as Mark, the new sheriff in town, does a little rain dance...



Yep, that's how we welcome new folk here at MindComet Gulch.