I’ve been kicking around an idea for an “app” (actually, let’s call it a tool). I’ve been calling it a bespoke information filter, which means it’s a tool that prioritizes and filters internet content to provide a user with content stream based on their interests. (I just heard this referred to as digital intuition; I like that term for it.)

As I began thinking about this tool and how I envisioned it working, the name CURRENTBLEND seemed to fit. So, I decided to change directions (pivot, for you buzzword fans) with CURRENTBLEND and use it’s domain as the tool.

Things are scheduled for launch in September and I’d love for everyone to head over to sign up to be on the list for notification on the CURRENTBLEND website.

I plan to be very transparent with things as they happen, but am not quite ready to share how I think predictive tools for content should work — I’m not sure I have the right answer and want to see if my theories will work first :) For what it’s worth, I think my answer to how this works is a bit different from what is currently out there. As I get a working demo together, I’ll share the roadmap and future plans and open up the tool to collaboration and feedback.

One last point: I’m still providing digital strategy services under my own name (I’ve not quite figured out how I’m going to arrange content for the Work section — premuda.org? — of this site but will notify you when I figure it out). Feel free to contact me if you’re interested in working together; I’ve got lots going on, but still love thinking and creating things in the digital space.

Founder Collective is something I’d love to work/start/emulate: angel investors that are more business partners than investors.

Founder Collective offers an average of less than $200,000. In exchange, it takes less equity. But it provides more in the way of personal support to the entrepreneurs than a VC would.

Digital strategy seeks to bridge the gaps between technology, the creative idea, the target as user, business objectives and the brand – and brings grounded creativity to technology

Great definition of digital strategy (a/k/a what I do).

From my vantage point, 4Food is the future of restaurants (or social media is just getting out of control and I’m a nerd). This interview with Rex Sorgatz is pretty informative on what 4Food is planning to be. It’s a lot of stuff I’ve dreamed up before (innovative loyalty programs using social media) and some stuff I haven’t (get 25-cents if you make your own burger and someone else buys it) along with the standard game mechanics.

And, if you’re interested in who is putting this sort of thing together, this Business Insider piece on Sorgatz does a nice job of detailing things he’s doing (with Kinda Sorta Media). God I’d love to get currentblend to a similar spot.

I haven’t announced much client work here lately and thought that now would be the perfect time to tell you about something we (currentblend) has just completed: Swing Juice Summer Twitter Contest.

Drink. Tweet. Win.

It’s that easy. With the help of Gary Petro, who was the anchor for Turkey Twitter, we worked with Swing Juice to create weekly, monthly and summer-long point mechanisms to encourage tweeting about purchases of Swing Juice. The more you drink and tweet about SJ, the higher on the leaderboard you land.

When you tweet about Swing Juice (@swingjuice), you will receive a point value based on your twitter activity, the more you tweet about SJ, the more points you will receive. Here’s the breakdown of points:

2pts = @swingjuice–You will receive 2 points when you mention @swingjuice on Twitter. Let us know when you buy or see Swing Juice at an event!
3pts = #swingjuice – You will receive 3 points if you use hashtag #swingjuice when mentioning @swingjuice
3pts= @swingjuice +#FF – You will receive 3 points when you mention @swingjuice on Follow Friday

Now here is the innovative part. In order to track our friends/fans/followers mentioning @swingjuice and calculating those with the most points, we have created a real-time leaderboard (updated every 15 minutes) to keep a running total. This can be found at www.swingjuice.com/contests.php

As an aside, if you’re interested in putting some of the game and tracking mechanics that we’ve done with Turkey Twitter and Swing Juice, we’re kicking the tires on “package” of this sort of thing with Twacker. Sign up and contact me if you have any interest in working on this stuff.

I’ve mentioned my dream of a coffeeshop before. Sometimes when I get too excited about the shop I’m dreaming up, I (re)read Bitter Brew: I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life. Great article that helps keep things in perspective. And, if you don’t want to read the article, you can listen to the mp3 instead.

I have the same/similar idea.

So I came up with this twist on the idea: a very horizontal organization that consists of a loose collection of talented but disparate people (designers, developers, marketers, content specialists, product managers) to crowd-source projects. We borrow a trope from cloud computing: finding the resources for the task at hand. Some projects are huge and involve hiring dozens of people, whereas others are just me helping someone figure out a solution to a problem.

So I have a shoe-string core staff, but a huge network of affiliates. It’s working pretty well. I get calls every day from companies who say they are frustrated with their creative agency.

Since I’ve been (re)thinking of different ways to do the more formal stuff for currentblend, I thought I should mention that our Annual Report will (hopefully) be a breath of fresh air. I’d like to do something similar to Feltron, but the recent Finnair Report is something to be inspired by.

I agree with The Scout and (also)

wonder if Winkreative is behind this initiative – dressing up the pages with colorful illustrations, articles written in the form of Q&As, and a fashion review on past Finnair uniforms. Tyler Brule even makes an appearance, contributing a column of his own.

When currentblend is large enough to warrant some important (Board?) meetings, I plan to hire one of the artists mentioned in this post on Visual Note-taking to record sketch our meeting minutes/notes. I don’t want the typical, boring notes to be passed out afterward.

I’m definitely keeping an eye on the Ace Hotel group for inspiration such as this as I start to put plans together for CurrentBlend [Coffee]. I like this as a potential counter/table top.