Visiting Our Northern Tech FriendsAn Evening with Spreenkler

I was invited to come speak to an active and growing group, Spreenkler, in Milwaukee. Threadless' Harper Reed also visited the group a few months back. Their mission:

"Spreenkler is comprised of Milwaukee’s creative, marketing and technical professionals and entrepreneurs. We gather each month to share experiences, best-practices and new ideas to utilize the collective knowledge of the group to move those ideas forward."

Founded by Steve Glynn (pictured above), Spreenkler is just another example of a thriving organization in the Midwest that aims to grow the talent of entrepreneurs, start-ups and other creatives.

I was flattered that they wanted yours truly to come chat about my career, which includes the evolution of Chicago Tech Report.

The meeting took place at Bucketworks - a large inviting creative space that lets anyone and everyone use it. From plays to the upcoming Barcamp Milwaukee event, Bucketworks is a non-profit entity that is yet to need a grant to stay in operations. I love this concept and would love to see something like this down in Chicago.  I also met some Twitterai in person, which is always fun, including the team behind Actions Talk.

I sensed some light-hearted 'second city' feelings, similar to what Chicago may feel about Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley. I think this is natural, but at the same time, I left the evening feeling more camaraderie about helping our overall region versus competing city versus city. Heck, we in Chicago are still working through the difficulties of getting financing for early stage companies, along with opening the 'Boys Club' circle of VCs.

Bottom line, my visit to Spreenkler confirmed that cities across the country are 'getting it'.  Keeping current talent, drawing new talent and creating a hopeful environment for up and coming superstars is the "new black".  I'm also seeing more participation between individuals and civic organizations in this quest.

I left Milwaukee with new friends, more encouragement and the confirmation that we are all working towards the same goals.  Thank you to Spreenkler, Steve Glynn and Sara Gehl for picking me up from the train station and getting me back there in time to catch the last train back to Chicago - where I had to get up bright and early for this fun Chicago 2016 event.

Comments

[Ryan Graves]

Blagica - So great to meet you in person! Thanks for the linke to ActionsTalk.

Hope to talk to you soon.
Cheers!

[Blake Samic]

Completely agree with Ryan - your talk was extremely relevant to what we are trying to do with ActionsTalk. Thanks!

[miltownkid]

Healthy competition is a good thing. :) That being said, Milwaukee will be the leader of the Web 3.0 movement. We've decided to just skip the 2.0 stuff.

And I too highly enjoyed your talk. It's nice to know that there are "scatterbrains" out there that end up bringing everything together.

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