The Gift of Food

Since the holiday season is upon us I thought I would take a moment to discuss gift giving. As you know, there are generic gifts that are always appropriate for certain occasions. For example, if you're going to a house warming party a nice bottle of wine is usually a safe bet. But, if you really want to make an impression you need to give something that has specific relevance to the recipient.

Recently I received an awesome gift from my sister, and part-time dishKarma camera women, Marla. She sent me the book Everything I Ate - A year in the life of my mouth, by Tucker Shaw. Yes, it's just like it sounds. A day by day account of everything Tucker ate in one year. For example, on this day last year Tucker had the following:

- mixed fruit salad, cherry yogurt from Time Inc. Cafeteria
- chicken and barley soup from Hale & Hearty Soups at Time Inc.
- bread + butter, Manhattan clam chowder, grilled halibut and
mixed vegetables at Grand Central Oyster Bar, NYC
- chocolate animal cookies
- Wheaties to round out the day 11:00pm

It's a fascinating book (notice he had two bowls of soup and a bowl of cereal) and extremely relevant considering my work on dishKarma. Now the pressure is on me to find something she'll really love. The problem is I have no idea what it will be. Drop a comment if you have any thoughts on a gift for Marla or general gift giving advice. I see a restaurant gift certificate in her future....

99 designs on the wall...

Working with the good folks at 99designs has paid off and we're excited to roll out our brand spanking new logo! While the colors aren't finalized, I thought I'd share the design we came out with. Big thanks to all the designers for their hard work and great concepts during the contest window. The winner is nueromancer. The logo just kind of makes you feel good. I'm excited to look at it everyday!

What are your thoughts?

Escape

When I was younger it was always a big deal for our family to go out to dinner. It wasn’t because we couldn’t afford to eat out; we just didn’t do it that often. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I enjoy dinning out so much.

I grew up in a fairly small town where we thought there was nothing to do (cliché, but true). So, when we were finally allowed to drive, visiting restaurants was definitely a form of entertainment. We had our regular spots, favorite waitresses, and of course, our go-to menu items. I can remember hanging around these places for hours even after the bill was paid. Thinking back, this was probably our attempt to be cool and the closest thing to experiencing the actual bar scene. Most importantly, it was an escape.

As news about the economy gets worse by the day, I think people will be looking for simple ways to escape and forget their troubles. In my mind, checking out a new restaurant and trying a new dish is one of the best remedies. It worked as a teenager and it still works today.

All this reminiscing has me thinking about my ultimate appetizer at age 15. After wasting a few hours at the Crystal Mall, there was nothing better than the clam chowder in a bread bowl from Charley’s in Waterford, Connecticut. What was your ultimate meal at that age?

Stop teasing me.

Yikes, last post: November 9...There's been a lot going on over the past 2 weeks and we're excited to be launching our teaser page VERY soon. The teaser will be simple, yet serve a very important purpose: Allowing users to connect / share with us and view a little more into the world of dishKarma. Our master plan is to get some feedback this weekend from our greatest critics -- close family and friends. Spread good karma and tell a friend...

99 problems

Now that we've established a name, it's time to logo and brand it. We've sent the logo part of this task to the designers @ 99designs. They've got a solid pitch (word for word from the 99designs website): 99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.

We're psyched to be working with the almost 30,000 designers that are currently members of the 99designs community and look forward to posting their results right here on our blog!

Hi! My name is...

It's an election year...

There are only a few days left before the 2008 Election date of November 4th. Regardless of your political choices, we've been actively working on our name and brand and have a very important vote of our own to tally. As Brady mentioned in a previous post, we have a collection of 60+ possible names to be voted on by our team -- let's hope for no hanging chads.

We plan to have the official unveiling of our name and brand with a video blog at which time we should be able to share our tagline and sketches of our logo. Looking forward to sharing more soon...

What's my name?

Here’s a quick video from my buddy Kyle’s wedding a few weeks back. This Reginald Dwight (what’s in a name?!!) tune closed out the night in honor of a custom the bride and groom started in college. Listen for the unsolicited UMG shout out at the end…..classic.

The Name Game

Well the search for a name continues. As Justin posted two weeks back, we’re considering options other than the Ultimate Meal Game.

While we all agree this name works, the concern is that people might get hung up on the word game. Aspects of what we’re developing could be referred to as a game, but we want to make sure this isn’t confused with a contest or competition.

There are so many different schools of thought when it comes to naming something. Should we go the abstract route like Yahoo or Kazaa? Perhaps something more 2.0ish like Flickr, Twitter or Digg? Then there are the user focused names like MySpace and YouTube. If we want to get really cheeky we can snag something from another language like Mahalo or Akamai? The choices are endless.

The current list stands at about 60 different names and each member of our team member is working to come up with their top five. We plan on voting within the next few days, making a decision and then beginning to develop the creative look and feel. I know we’re all looking forward to nailing this down and beginning to bring this brand to life.

Grind bruddah.

In yet another classic Hawaiian moment in our past, I wanted to share a little taste of our first authentic Hawaiian Luau experience. Pay no attention to the plate on my right, apparently I hadn't eaten in a while. By the end of this thing we were dancing on stage with the band. Just another day as a mainland haole.

Six years ago this week we ventured to Maui for a diving trip. We're lucky we didn't sink to the bottom after all this food. An early morning aboard with our friend Captain Gayle and the Scuba Shack gang took us to Molokini where we first encountered sharks and I was sold. If we only had Pure Digital back then.

Give it a name.

We're in the midst of naming and branding. This is an important step for our project. What if Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had stuck with their original name of "BackRub?" Would "BackRub" become a household staple owning 65% of the US search engine business?

As much as we want to be clever and catchy, we have to get down to simple terms and really embrace what our concept is after. We strive to be the ultimate portal for personal dining options while providing resources to our user community and giving back to the world in which we all live in (how's that for a one floor elevator pitch?).

Read: The Playboys of Tech

Video Killed the Radio Star

For the last three months we've been filming (or 'Fliping' as we like to call it) everything from road trip brainstorms to backyard bbq's. After reviewing hours of footage we now have literally hundreds of random clips that begin to tell the story of the Ultimate Meal Game. We also have hours of ridiculous antics that have no relevance to UMG, but we'll save that for another post.

On Friday I met with our good friend Ben to share some of this material. Ben's background is video production and he's agreed to edit the footage for us.

One of the reasons I enjoy working with Ben is because he's also really into music (shameless plug for his band - www.pilotgroove.com). We discussed the soundtrack for the project and decided that generic tunes just wouldn't do. However, Ben knows the rules and we can't just use any song we want without paying for it. Enter - Girl Talk. If you haven't heard of this DJ before then your last party wasn't as good as it could have been. He's know for mashing up multiple tracks and pairing artists that would never find themselves on the same stage . He also does this without permission, so we figured it would be safe to use his tracks. Ripping off the guy who's known for ripping off others....how much trouble could we get in?

Stay tuned for the video which should be ready for prime time in about two weeks.

From Rodeos to Groundswells

As we continue blogging about our current project and the progress we've been making, amidst the wire framing, we thought we'd reflect on some past food experiences of our own. See left photo: Brady and I in the kitchen at Rodeo Cantina. Looks like another quesadilla dinner after the infamous Tequila Tuesday.

When you're tossed a set of keys to a restaurant overlooking Honolulu harbor and told to run the show, life gets interesting...and so the story continues...much more to come...here's to everyone that chowed on the $1 tacos, chugged our $2 margaritas and danced the night away with the mixes from DJ Dyk, this Tuesday's for you!

Ultimate Meeting of the Minds

Thanks to the magic of conference call technology, we had another great meeting on the Ultimate Meal Game (UMG). As always, brainstorming was in full swing and there was no shortage of BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Fortunately we're all on the same page and realize the need to nail the core functionality before we go any futher.
We also kicked around some thoughts on what the look and feel of the brand should be. If done right, the UMG will be a cool lifehack that is fun, social and satisfying. We also want to tear down all barriers to entry and find a unique way for people to join. Rather than the normal 'create a profile' first approach, we want users to find the site and dive right in. That will be challenging but I think we're on the right track.
On Thursday we're going to review updated wireframes and some initial creative ideas. Looking forward to seeing the progress and sharing some early sketches with ya'll.

Ultimate

Ultimate: adjective: not to be improved upon or surpassed; greatest; unsurpassed.

We intend to be the most powerful, personal dining tool one could ever have. The key word is personal. Imagine if you could sit down at a restaurant and not even look at the menu..bring up the ultimatemealgame mobile app - search for the restaurant and via your preferences, it will populate what you're most likely to order. That's power. That's ultimate. That's also down the road, but we're trying to keep our ideas and concepts as transparent as we can to share everything we're doing on this project.

Get inspired by Bob Garfield of Adage as he takes you on "Your Data with Destiny."

Read: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=130969

Logging...

It's been a big couple of months...


Things all started falling into place when we got our curious little hands on the Flip Mino. Needless to say, we both had to have one and it's changed the way we've gone about this entire project. Way to go Pure Digital for creating such a useful gadget!



The next step is logging all the footage we've taken over the past 2-3 months. Why a video and who cares? We're taking this thing to the podcast world where video will speak to the progress we attain. Our vision is that shortly the site will have at least our story, a place to enter your e-mail for updates on UMG and a video to launch this and tell ya'll a little more in detail of where we see this project going and how you can make a difference by becoming a user.

Read: Getting Real

Inspired

Just finished reading 'Getting Real' by the guys from 37 Signals. It's a great read whether you're trying to build an online application, run a business, or just be more efficient in whatever you do.

The book was recommended by a friend who is always good for some words of wisdom when a challenge looms. He and his business partner have agreed to help my friend Justin and I with a project we're calling the Ultimate Meal Game, or UMG for short.

The UMG started as a verbal icebreaker that my friends and I would use to kill the awkward silences that plagued us when we were in the presence of the opposite sex. Although the UMG is about food, conversations inevitably turned to travel, family, etc., and it was a great way to break the ice.

Over the years we continued to use the UMG and so did our friends. It seems that even those who are over their pubescent fear of women find it's a fun way to share their experiences and learn about others.

What is the Ultimate Meal Game? Stay tuned. It's going to be a big week and I look forward to sharing more about the project.