The Spreenkler group in Milwaukee is one of the more creative, driven sets of people that I’ve ever met. In this video, Brian Artka gives a little taste of what the crowd is like. Great work Brian.

As you may have noticed, the activity on my blog tends to wax and wane. If you’d like to get some more frequent updates, you should check out blakeju.mp. The site aggregates most of my online activity into one place.

In other words:
This blog + ActionsTalk + Twitter + Posterous + Flickr = blakeju.mp

What do you think?

Time check: 2:41AM … and I just finished a complete overhaul of this site’s design. What do you think?

Old design:

New design:

As some of you may know, ActionsTalk has been evolving.  Two months ago, we set out to create a conference in the Milwaukee area that brought together three key pieces of successful tech companies:  1. Tech saavy developers/engineers,  2. business minded entrepreneurs, and 3. venture capital.  Ryan Graves and I saw the potential for the idea when we realized that such a conference didn’t exist in Milwaukee, even with the obvious potential of the community.  So what did we do?  We outlined a plan (loosely) and took action.  We called our first ActionsTalk meeting at Alterra and it felt like the idea really had legs.  Since then we’ve spoken before three local organizations (thank you!), picking up supports as we moved forward.  As we began to speak to people, to hear what they wanted, it became obvious that this would be no small under-taking.

After some serious deliberation, we finally came to the conclusion that the time might not be right for us to organize such a conference.  We revisted our goals.  We want to seek out, promote, and educate local startups and future entrepreneurs.  We want to meet the best and brightest this city (and the Midwest) has to offer. We’ve come up with a new plan…

We believe we can make a more immediate impact, and reach our collective goals by making ActionsTalk a site dedicated to highlighting the successes and struggles of the local entrepreneur.  We’re both obviously very interested in technology, but we aren’t limiting our scope there.  No startup is off limits.  By meeting the people and telling these stories, we will bring the community together.  We see this as a venue for you to check out what’s new, who’s making moves, and to learn the tricks of the trade.

A Call to Action!
* If you’re involved with a startup in Milwaukee (or know someone who is), send us your story.  If we think it makes sense, we’ll interview you, do a write-up, and bring new attention to your business.
* If you can write decently, and you’ve got a passion for this, like we do, let us know.  We’re looking for a few more contributors to energize this movement.  As a contributor, you can cover the local businesses or write relevant education pieces for our readers.

We’re excited for the new direction, and we’ll be publishing our first batch of content soon…  stay tuned.

The summer in MKE will now truly be that much sweeter. Check out my new ride… I went with the Specialized “Allez” (French for “Go!”).  I’m counting on a lot less of this.

Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms ripped through Milwaukee this weekend…

aside from the obvious health benefits, of course…

 Update:  I got one!

If you haven’t yet, check out the new, improved saynoradio.com — Saynoradio is a site I’ve started with some friends, dedicated to the Indie Music scene.

I put this little diddy together today with Animoto (which is an awesome site)