By David Capelli
Miami is on everyone’s radar, as the NewCo movement sparked heightened interest in the Magic City’s bustling ecosystem. I was able to go behind the scenes of Newco San Francisco and Oakland earlier this month. While there, I made the case for why Miami should be the next Newco city in 2016.
NewCo is a movement celebrating people in a city sharing a new narrative of business and culture. From a selected applicant pool companies, non-profits, and initiatives open their doors to the public and share their space, story and experience with an interactive crowd, catalyzing a narrative of collaboration, culture and ecosystem building for a more resilient economy.
“Business is changing” NewCo CEO John Battelle said at Newco’s open house in the Bay Area. “75% of millennials say they prefer working for a company focused on positive change. Technology is not a vertical, it’s horizontal.”
Read More: Start Up Miami-LiveAnswer Leads The Way In South Florida Tech Innovation
At a time when the economy is rapidly changing from an industrial to innovation economy, Newco empowers communities to celebrate and spark new positive change. Battelle, a former media executive with several successful exits, was inspired to start Newco for the Valley to “see a world bigger than them.”
After a while, Battelle realized he needed to “ stop being half- pregnant and go. Just do it.”
NewCo is now in 17 cities and rapidly expanding, with their newest media platform featuring Newco companies around the world on their daily newsletter, building community around the new innovation economy.
NewCo experiences cost at most $500 for the VIP level. The aim is to engage the entire community in the experience. For included companies and non-profits, there is zero cost to host and much to gain, most notably, exposure, customers, and connections. Being selected as a Newco city is a rigorous process.
“Although I don’t know Miami well, I know Miami has a strong connection to Latin America. To me, that is an interesting narrative for Miami.” Chris Redlitz, Managing Partner at Transmedia Capital said.
“We look to see the city’s narrative, their unique companies and extensive team of various leaders that can pull off all components of hosting a Newco experience,” Lee Ann Mariglia, NewCo’s Communications Director said.
During the NewCo event, I was able to meet the CEO’s and go behind the scenes of Slack, Lyft, BetterDoctor, EatWith, NovaEd, the City of Oakland, Comrade, and Uber. Each session has Newco “ambassadors” that assist with the open-house experiences in the companies.
I served as an ambassador for EatWith, an in-house restaurant experience concept. The next day their team and I grabbed coffee and discussed their interest in entering the Miami market, along with other plans for the Miami ecosystem to spur more food entrepreneurs. Experiences like these connect cities and people together for stronger economies, something Miami has been doing for years for tourists.
Sitting next to me at the Newco session was one of Newco’s first investors, Chris Redlitz, Managing Partner at Transmedia Capital. I asked him what about Miami excites him as an investor and what he hopes to discover in Miami.
Read More: In Miami’s Wynwood Art District, A 25 Year Old Artist Is Ready To Take The City By Storm
“I am interested in discovering global market trends early on and nurturing that unique, fresh talent” Redlitz said. “Although I don’t know Miami well, I know Miami has a strong connection to Latin America. To me, that is an interesting narrative for Miami.”
Miami has a narrative that truly resembles the mission of NewCo of identifying, celebrating and connecting engines of positive change in our society. The entrepreneurial community, governments, and tourism/travel groups all contribute to our developing ecosystem and are critical to having a successful NewCo festival in Miami.
Miami has a new narrative to share with the world: the most diverse and bustling entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country at the nexus of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Let’s tell the story together and make Miami a Newco city in 2016.
David Capelli is Founder/CEO of TECH Miami and a contributor to Rise News.
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Cover Photo Credit: Vladimir Kud/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Student at University of Miami Wore a Tiara Every Day For 8 Years
You may know her as “Tiara Girl” on campus. Annie Rudd, a senior at the University of Miami, has worn a tiara on her head every day for the past 8 years.
August 25, 2007, was the first day she ever wore a tiara at her 13th birthday, and the last day she left the house without it.
“The tiara was just too good of a look to let go,” Rudd said. “I don’t even realize its been 8 years of my life. It sort of just became my thing, and it worked.”
Before even realizing it, wearing a tiara became a daily routine.
Now 21-years-old, Rudd will graduate soon from UM with a major in psychology and a minor in art. She hopes to purse a master’s degree in family and marriage counseling.
Annie Rudd
Annie Rudd
In 2012 , Rudd was featured on lifetime’s reality show “Prom Queen,” crowned prom queen at Miami Beach Senior High School. At University of Miami, Rudd has become a sort of local celebrity to students at the campus.
“At UM, I’m known as Tiara Girl,” Rudd said. “We have this Facebook page called UMiami Secrets and they would post about me a lot. There was one that said, ‘OMG I just saw tiara girl for the first time. Now I know how Hogwarts felt when they first saw Harry Potter.’”
Annie Rudd
She never leaves the house without her tiara, she may forget but it never takes more than a few steps out of the door to remember.
“It’s basically second nature.” Rudd said. “I don’t even realize its on when I go out, but people will give me ugly looks sometimes. Some people don’t get the tiara and assume the worst, but once they meet me they understand I’m not stuck up.”
For Rudd, the tiara exemplifies that she enjoys everything life has to offer and lives with no regrets. Her story is a reminder that it’s okay to be who you are without living in fear of what others think of you.
Annie Rudd
“The tiara is a great conversation starter,” Rudd said. “Meeting and making friends is super important at our age. It’s all about the connections we have later on in life.”
Rudd said that although she enjoys the tiara as a fundamental part of her life, some people don’t take her seriously as a result.
“People definitely think it’s a little immature, but I don’t care. I only have one life,” Rudd said.
The tiara isn’t coming off anytime soon.
“I definitely can’t see myself not wearing it, it’s just a part of my identity now,” Rudd said. “It’s all a learning experience. I like it and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing to regret about it.”
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Here’s The Ugly Truth About Conservative Talk Radio
This article was originally published on agconservative.wordpress.com and is republished below with permission from the author.
When I first got on Twitter, I was a big fan of conservative Talk Radio. I knew several people who became huge advocates for conservatism only after listening to Rush Limbaugh.
I doubt there were many converts from Hannity or Levin (despite L & T being one of my favorite books), but I assumed it was always a good thing to have people with large audiences promoting conservatism.
However, over time, I started to notice a theme: These hosts were often more dedicated to promoting outrage than conservatism.
Sometimes the outrage was justified and helped bring about necessary action, but it was the other times that started to bother me. Most importantly, it seemed the more victories conservatives won, the more these hosts preached despair.
The Republican Party was adopting conservatism to a greater extent than ever before, but these hosts constantly tried to make it seem like things were worse than ever.
Most importantly, they would create the impression that we were always losing by latching on to misinformation and spin.
I would see the same pattern play out constantly. Random blogger misinterprets something or reports a rumor that makes R’s look bad, radio hosts seizes on it and promotes it as proof of Republican betrayal, rumor turns our false or exaggerated, host moves on to the next cycle.
Even the liberal media, which these hosts would often attack as dishonest, would issue corrections, but these hosts seemed to have no interest in the truth.
At this point, I still believed these shows were a net positive, but I also recognized that these hosts were making millions from stoking unnecessary outrage.
This is when I personally gave up listening. These hosts were abusing the trust their audiences placed in them and treating their audience like they are dumb.
Before I go on, let me give a few examples of this phenomenon:
1) After the Boston bombing, Glenn Beck spent months accusing an innocent Saudi kid of being responsible and the Obama admin of covering it up. He based this on an early report about the kid being at the scene.
Every time Beck would provide some new bombshell piece of evidence to prove his theory, I would debunk it with some basic research.
However, every time I would post such a debunking, Beck fans would viciously attack me for questioning him. They weren’t interested in the truth.
As far as I know, Beck never apologized for this accusations. He simply moved on to the next story.
2) One example relevant to today is the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. I wanted immigration reform, but was wary about this bill given what had happened under Reagan.
I ended up being one of the few people who actually read the whole bill, which made it easy to recognize when someone was saying something false.
There was a period of several months where on almost a daily basis some blogger would misinterpret something or some rumor would come out about the bill, Drudge would promote it, talk radio would seize on it and tell their audience to get outraged, it would be debunked in the days that followed, talk radio would move on to the next controversy without correcting, and their listeners would repeat the debunked rumor for months.
I found this particularly frustrating because there were plenty of real issues with the bill. I ended up opposing it, even though it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is currently perceived among most conservatives. It probably was the best we could have done with a Dem Senate and a Dem President, but I figured we would be better off waiting for a Republican to be in the WH.
There are hundreds more examples of this pattern. It has become fairly common. I still see it all the time. Breitbart, for example, has several reporters that consistently and purposefully print false things about Marco Rubio. Talk radio spreads them without even attempting to confirm.
It bothers me to see fellow conservatives who rely on and trust these sources being deceived in this way.
I was silent about all this, but these last 4-6 months were the final line for me and many other informed conservatives.
Talk radio actively started defending and advocating for someone that is the antithesis of everything conservatism stands for, Donald Trump.
It was one thing for these hosts to hinder conservative wins by saying they weren’t good enough, but now they were promoting the exact opposite of conservatism.
Trump is a con man. His con is aimed at a lot of different group, but the only way he could win conservatives is with assistance from people conservatives actually trust. These hosts chose to give it.
The two biggest issues for conservatives over the last few years were healthcare and the debt.
While these hosts attacked Republicans for not being aggressive enough on fighting Obamacare, they stay silent as Trump promotes single-payer.
While these hosts attacked Republicans for not fighting hard enough to limit Obama’s deficit spending, they stay silent as Trump opposes and demagogues entitlement reform.
These hosts were willing to completely abandon conservatism, and dragged their audiences with them. For me, that was the final straw.
I was silent about their previous dishonesty, but I won’t be as they make a mockery out of the beliefs they claim to represent.
It may not matter what I think, but conservatives shouldn’t be prone to group think. They shouldn’t define conservatism by what Rush, Levin, or Hannity say. Especially when those hosts keep saying things that are dishonest.
It’s time people who care about conservatism actually took a stand against the frauds in our midst. I know I am doing my part, and I hope you will too.
Read the original post on agconservative.wordpress.com
Cover Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Use This Scientific Technique To Get More Bang For Your Buck At Chipotle
This story was originally published on risemiaminews.com. Because seriously, who doesn’t love Chipotle? The original piece has been adapted below.
By Dylan Grosz
Intern at ApartmentList.com
It’s basically a universal truth that the only thing better than Chipotle is…more Chipotle. I’m no religious scholar, but I’m pretty sure heaven is just one big Chipotle restaurant where the guac and chips are ALWAYS free and hell is just some Taco Bell. So when one of my co-workers at Apartment List brought up the question of how to hack Chipotle to get the most burrito for your buck, I was intrigued. If ever there was a noble intern task, this was obviously it.
Through a lot of burrito research and even more company write-offs and office burrito donations, I’ve discovered these 6 tips that can increase the size of your burrito by 86% without spending any more money.
You’re welcome, world. Please send the Nobel Prize to my mom’s house.
The Experiment
So I took my geeky love of data and my black hole of a belly to Chipotle for several days and ordered 5 burritos each day (35 burritos total), then returned to the Apartment List office to meticulously separate out and weigh the ingredients. Finally, I combined all the best methods to confirm the total burrito size increase. Additional methodology footnotes are below, but for now – on to the meat of the experiment (pun intended).
Tip 1: Get a burrito bowl with a tortilla on the side
At its onset, Chipotle introduced the innovative burrito bowl that combined its authentic Mexican cuisine with the ease of knife-and-fork dining. Burrito legend has it that the bowl’s lack of tortilla constraints influences servers to give burrito bowl customers huge portions in general.
In my experiments, I found that this method alone gets 15% more ingredients across the board, without changing anything else about the order. Still craving that full burrito experience? No problem – you can easily ask for a tortilla on the side. Which leads to our next tip…
Tip 2: Double wrapping (asking for two tortillas)
This method of calling in tortilla reinforcements was initially introduced by Chipotle to save burritos that busted open their first tortilla, but Chipotle sometimes lets you ask for a double wrap for free, which adds another 4.25 ounce tortilla to your burrito (ask for the tortillas at the end, when the staff just wants you to go away).
Congratulations, your burrito just became 25% bigger. Ordering tortillas on the side and wrapping it yourself may be a daunting task for some, but if you value the time it takes you to wrap the burrito at $0 per hour (hey, burritos are worth your time), then you should add this method to your burrito maximization arsenal.
Tip 3: Order both kinds of rice
The next time your server asks if you want white or brown rice, request both types – you’ll get almost 93% more rice, at no extra cost. This carbo-loading method increases the overall weight of the burrito by 23%. As an ancient American proverb puts it: more burrito, more food, more happiness.
Tip 4: Order both types of beans
Just like rice, there are two different types of beans we can choose from: black and pinto. If you really want to maximize burrito weight, asking for both kinds gets you 92% more beans (another note: we aren’t responsible for the gas you’ll be having afterwards). With this method, you get a 16% burrito weight increase.
Tip 5: Half/half meats
In theory, asking for half chicken, half steak should yield one full serving, but our tests showed that you actually get 54% more meat – basically 3/4 scoop of each. This increase in meat grows the burrito’s weight by around 9%.
You must note, however, that you’ll be charged for the more expensive of the meats, but we’ve put the many finance and accounting degrees here at Apartment List to good use and determined that it’s still financially worth it.
Tip 6: Ask for fajita veggies and corn salsa
Hidden away and rarely mentioned by servers, the fajita vegetable mix and corn salsa are free to add, and taste good to boot.
These underappreciated ingredients will cure any feeling you might have that your burrito might be lacking in terms of a balanced Food Pyramid. Grilled veggies and corn not only add more color and flavor to your burrito, but they also add around 2.55 ounces, increasing the weight by about 15% (vs. the standard burrito).
Not only do you have more burrito, but you can also tell your friends and family that your burrito is totally 100% healthy.
Add it all together and you get….
There you have it. By using each of the six tricks I suggest, you may end up with a little less cheese and salsa (that comes at the end, when your bowl will already be pretty full), but you get a lot more rice, beans, and meat. My final burrito weighed 86% more than the control. Sounds like it’s time to go to Chipotle!
Find out more about Dylan’s study here.
Photo Credits: ApartmentList.com
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