Broad Ripple Back in the Day- photo from SmallBox offices

Greetings Super Bowl 46 visitors, welcome to our fair city of Indianapolis! Once you have settled in and checked out all that downtown has to offer, and I realize that is no small task, I respectfully request that you wander north a few miles and give Broad Ripple Village a visit. Broad Ripple was once its own town before being consumed by Indy. Interested in learning more? Here’s Broad Ripple’s Wikipedia page.

The Broad Ripple of today is a little schizophrenic. Wow, I just spelled that correctly without spellcheck! Totally winged it, must be my lucky day. Anyway, Broad Ripple is one place during the day and another at night. Since I recently turned 40, I have to admit I fall more on the day side of things at this point. But it’s a blast at night as well so you can’t go wrong no matter when you visit.

Here’s some of my favorite spots and things to do:

Indy CD Vinyl: I’m a huge vinyl collector, some might call it a habit, I consider it an investment and so far my wife seems to be buying it, so all’s good. I stop by Indy CD & Vinyl almost every day. Rick, the owner, is a great guy, knows a ton about vinyl and always looks out for stuff he knows I like. Getting to pick through the stacks of vinyl before they go on the floor is one of the highlights of my week. If you have any interest in getting into vinyl collecting or adding to your collection then stop by and see Rick, Annie, Mike and the gang. They will take great care of you.

India Garden: I remember the first time I had the lunch buffet at India Garden. It was a life changing experience. According to some touring bands coming through Indy, India Garden’s buffet is the best in the country. I can believe it. So good. Funny thing, I have never been there for dinner. Might totally suck but I seriously doubt it.

Audio Solutions: if you stop by our SmallBox offices you may note the awesome stereo we have procured for the break room. All we had to do was walk down the street to Audio Solutions, who hooked us up with everything for a great price. They know their stuff. If you want a great home stereo/theater set up go see them. The place is filled with mouth-dropping gear. Ask for Graham.

Monon Coffee, Starbucks and Hubbards & Cravens: I have to admit I am pretty hooked on Starbucks these days but if you want to have an authentic Broad Ripple coffee shop experience then go to Monon. Great baristas, excellent espresso drinks and usually the coolest music around outside of Indy CD & Vinyl. The Starbucks here is one of the best around. How Starbucks finds people with these amazing memories is beyond me. They usually have my drink ready before I can even speak. Great place to meet for business as well. Hubbards & Cravens is a little out of my normal path but they are a solid local coffee shop, more upscale vibe than Monon but great wifi and excellent coffee. There is also Perk Up off the Monon trail that some friends swear by but I never seem to make it over there. Regardless, you will not be lacking for coffee in Broad Ripple .

Wellington: having a bar directly across the street that feels, and looks, like a real English pub is a beautiful thing. There’s always great music, incredible beer on tap and a cool staff – a recipe for…awesomeness! The Wellington can be hard to find, even when standing in front of it, and is about the size of a postage stamp but well worth a visit.

Monon Trail and White River: when it’s nice out I usually find my way to the Monon Trail for a walk. I particularly love the overhangs on the bridge across the White River. I just wish there was a way to see the Broad Ripple dam from the trail but unfortunately it is obscured from all views unless you’re standing in the woods or on a boat. A real shame since the river is a major, and often overlooked, asset to the city and Broad Ripple. Wish I could see that damn dam!

Short list of other cool places to check out:

Brugge (Belgian beer and food), Petite Chou (awesome food and great place to work in the mornings) Bungalow (great for gifts), Good Earth (a real health food/vitamins store), LaPiedad (the fastest, if not the best, Mexican food ever), Marigold (gifts for the ladies in your life), Broad Ripple Brew Pub (the original microbrew bar in Indy), Naked Tchopstix (best sushi in town),  Just Pop In (their Indy Mix of cheddar and carmel is addictive) and Union Jacks (love their personal pub pizza for lunch, also great for beer). I know I’m missing some here…

Oh, did I mention our SmallBox offices? We are in the middle of Broad Ripple, overlooking Westfield and Guilford. Personally I think our offices are the best bar in town when we decide to throw parties- planned or impromptu. But I may be a little biased.

Mostly I would encourage you to get out and explore for yourself. The only place I would recommend you avoid is Brothers. That place just bums me out. Wish it would pack up and leave so a better bar/restaurant could take its place.

Welcome Football Fans and Party People!

It’s finally here! After years of planning and preparing for one of the world’s largest sporting events, Indianapolis is finally starting to get cozy with football fans from all corners of the globe for Super Bowl 46. Between the celebrities and media in town, all of the events throughout the week, and the actual game itself, there’s plenty to see and do for the next week.

This is Indianapolis’ first time hosting the Super Bowl, and although the city’s never hosted this event, some people believe it’s set up to be the best host city ever!

If you’re from out of town, and want to take in all of what Indy has to offer, SmallBox is here to help! We like to think we collectively have our finger on the pulse of the city and what makes it special.

Whether you’re looking to head to the big events throughout the week, or would like to get away to the places that make Indy unique and awesome, check out our list of places you should check out!

Here’s where some of us at SmallBox think you should be headed during Super Bowl week:

Some of Indy’s Best Grub Spots and Watering Holes

Elizabeth – When visiting any city, I think one of the best things to do is check out local restaurants – not those crazy chain restaurants that you can eat at when you are basically anywhere – but the local restaurants that bring a unique flavor and personality to a city. Indianapolis has some fantastic local restaurants, some of my favorites being in Broad Ripple. This is a super short list of some of my faves, and thankfully Indy has plenty of tasty local food spots to feed you during your visit. Happy eating!

• Monon Food Company or 3 Sisters Cafe for brunch or lunch
• Bazbeaux for pizza
• Mama Carolla’s to feed your Italian cravings
• 10-01 for some delicious dinner entrees.

Jon - Yats is a good cajun place to eat, and Brugge makes some of the best beer in the world.

Leigh – Brugge Brasserie and Mama Carolla’s Italian cuisine in Broad Ripple

Sara – If you like dive bars, you must venture to South Broad Ripple, or SoBro as the locals call it, for the Red Key. This legendary Kurt Vonnegut hangout is best experienced well after the sun has gone down. The staff is amazing, so long as you don’t break the rules. No swearing, no moving the furniture and gents are expected to give up their seats to ladies if the bar fills up. With model airplanes dangling from the ceiling and Patsy Cline on the jukebox, the Red Key offers a welcome step back in time, plus they make a mean manhattan. Two more things: bring cash and beware that smoking is allowed.

Leigh – The Sinking Ship on North College Ave and The Wellington in Broad Ripple are great bars

Neil – Fountain Square in general is a great – especially with it’s close proximity to the downtown area and Lucas Oil Stadium. Lots of great restaurants and drinks and a bevy of arts & culture hotspots:

• Red Lion – English Style Restaurant
• Siam Square – Thai Cuisine
• La Revolucion – Mexican
• Calvin Fletcher – Coffee Company
• Brass Ring – for Cocktails
• New Day Meadery – tasty treats

What is there to do around here?

Neil – One great part of the timing of the Super Bowl will be that the big weekend falls on First Friday.  So I would have to say that for those interested in the arts community that venturing to Fountain Square and some other downtown art spaces would be an awesome way for visitors to spend their Friday nights – it is also a great way for Indianapolis to flex our collective creative muscle.

Jon – Excellent record shops:

• Luna Music
• Indy CD & Vinyl
• Vibes are all worth checking out.

And I can often be found at Half Price Books on 86th Street. It can be a treasure trove – mainly for vinyl, sometimes for books.

Leigh - I like to shop at Silver in the City on Mass Ave, Luna Music and Indy CD & Vinyl. I’ll check out bands at Local’s Only (Indie Rock, Blues), Melody Inn (Indie Rock, Metal, Punk), Chatterbox (Jazz), Slippery Noodle (Blues, Rock)

Dan – I love visiting the Indianapolis Museum of Art. During the summer the gardens surrounding the building are lush and vibrant and they’ve recently opened an “Art’s and Nature Park” just west of the grounds that is perfect for picnicking.

During the winter, browsing the various museum galleries is a wonderful escape from my every day routine. A recent special gallery has opened dedicated to Native American art and artifacts, which provides an amazing perspective on humanity and how our culture has evolved (or devolved? heyoo…).

Factory Week allows for our entire team to stretch out creatively and take on new challenges. Factory Week is also about getting things done so when one of our developers, Jordan Wilson, pitched the idea of making a video game tied into SmallBox culture were we extremely excited even though a lot of questions surrounded the execution of the project itself.

Read on to find out the story behind our video game.

The Jackal Contest

UPDATE – We have our winners. You will be notified shortly on how to redeem your prizes. This contest is now closed. Thanks for participating!

Starting today. Play the game – Musée de Bobby Pin: The Return of The Jackal – where you take on the role of international thief extraordinaire, The Jackal, and successfully outwit and out maneuver the security of the Musée de Bobby Pin to abscond the most prized bobby pin in the entire museum. After successfully jumping, sneaking, and stealing your way to victory the game will display a special phrase. The first 5 individuals to email us the phrase proving the success of their caper before Monday, January 30 at 5pm EST will win an Indy grab bag. Our selection of prizes Just Pop In popcorn, local music, tshirts and other goodies.

What can we do? What will be fun to play?

The most important aspect of the video game project actually happened weeks before Factory Week: Jordan’s project pitch to Jeb and the team. At first the idea of developing a video game seemed a little out of place. We took the idea a bit further and came up with a concept for the game that tied it directly into SmallBox culture by focusing on the Musée de Bobby Pin and its nemesis, the thief known as The Jackal. The light went on and the excitement level immediately rose as the project was green lit.

With a general concept and goals defined, there was still work to be done leading up to Factory Week to ensure the project was possible. Jordan used his spare time to research platforms and game engines that match his skill set. The final selection ended up being an ActionScript 3 code library that specializes in 2D platforming (running and jumping) games called Flixel. With our tools chosen, our concept defined, we were ready for the first day.

The first morning of Factory Week Jordan and myself as project manager met to define our daily goals. Our initial issue was that we had to flesh out our video game concept so that it had the potential to scale based on our progress throughout the week. What was the simplest version that would still be a complete game, but also leave room for expansion if we wanted to add onto the game? That answer led us to concepting several levels of museum security that The Jackal would have to conquer in order to unlock his prized bobby pin as the end goal. While our final version ended up having 3 puzzle rooms total, we left room initially for creating an additional 5 rooms.

Welcome to the Musée

Midway through the first day we felt we had a solid concept so Jordan began work on a prototype game with placeholder artwork to put our ideas to work. Our goal by the end of the first day was to commit to our game concept or know if we needed to simplify it further. We could not move forward with specific design elements until we knew exactly what elements we needed to create until the game concept was locked down.

Coloring with Legos

While Jordan began his prototype, I brought in our lead designer and culture advocate for the project, Leigh Marino, to get her up to speed on where we were headed with the game. We decided to work on the overall style by looking for inspiration for the museum design and The Jackal character himself. Based on the strengths of the game engine, we decided to pursue a sprite based or 8-bit art style reminiscent of early Nintendo video games. The most interesting aspect of this was that even though the graphics themselves look relatively simplistic, Leigh cautioned that designing these elements could be very time consuming. It became very obvious that designing a video game in a week is possible, and developing a video game in a week is possible, but the real challenge would be combining the two in the same timeline.

Our initial interactive prototype proved successful enough on Day 2 that we could nail down our design wish list. As with any prototype some features worked better than others (the lasers) while features that seemed relatively simple (going through doors) proved to take more time and others had to be scrapped entirely (an inventory and gadget system). Overall though, we were happy with where the game was headed and had confidence that we would be able to make a complete experience by the end of the week.

Now that the design elements were defined a bit more clearly, we brought in additional SmallBoxers that had time to spare to assist with the pixel art, namely Justin Shimp and Emily Watkins. The team hammered away at this project as well as the other Factory Week projects and several personal hours were spent at home to keep the video game on track. It is safe to say that no other Factory Week project had so many different people working on project features they had never done before. While Jordan and myself were the “most experienced” in video game development neither of us had completed a Flixel game to this point so communicating what we needed from the design team was a challenge because most of the time, we weren’t sure what we needed until we were able to work with it. Thankfully, we have a very patient design team at SmallBox.

The prize bobby of the entire collection.

A major breakthrough occurred in the afternoon on day 4 when Jordan completed a fully featured prototype. At this point we had a complete game, the only factor being the graphics we were using were placeholder graphics so it wasn’t exactly presentable to the public. However, Jordan was now free to work more directly with the design team and customize the graphics as needed. By the end of the day, the first version of the game with our design assets was sent out to the team and we considered it a success when Jeb found the game challenging without being frustrating.

The final day actually found the video game with more art assets than we knew what to do with. In applying the artwork we had to make some tough choices that did not allow for some of our hard work and detailed design elements to be displayed in the final game. Instead we opted for using fewer design elements that had a more consistent look and feel. By mid-afternoon the video game was finished. That just left play testing and fixing relatively small issues throughout the rest of the day. After one final step of incorporating the game into the Musée’s homepage on the SmallBox website, the project was complete.

Completion is no small accomplishment

I could not have been more proud of our team on this project. Not only did we complete a project outside of our normal skill set, but just talking about the game brought about a sense of pride from the entire company. Passion projects are notorious for never having an end, and our team did a masterful job of producing a truly finished product. The video game project went from not even being an option for Factory Week to becoming one of the most tangible and entertaining representations of our company’s culture.

Recently I introduced Freedom as SmallBox’s 8th core value. Here’s an excerpt from my recent 2011 wrap up speech:

Starting February 1st, 2012 we now declare all SmallBox employees to be free.

Free to come to work when they want for however long they want. Free to take as much vacation time as they need for whatever reason. Free to work and live the way they want to.

With freedom comes responsibility. The responsibility to do our best work. To hit billable goals. To go above and beyond when needed. To thoughtfully communicate. To plan ahead. To think of others. To hold each other accountable when we stop growing or lose focus.

If you need help knowing where the lines are, ask. If you want personal structure, create it.

And we’re off!
Day one of the January 2012 edition of Factory Week is in the books. We got our assignments for the week in our first huddle on the mezzanine of the Speak Easy, our HQ for the week. After one day, I can’t say enough good things about this space. If you’re interested in co-working space in Indy, you’ve got to check it out.

What we’re up to:
With 18 projects queued up, we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re tackling everything from planning for the team trip to SXSW, to taking new team photos, to developing a video game for our culture page. Good thing there’s plenty of white boarding space for all of these projects -  224 sq. ft. to be exact.

Keep on the up & up!
We will post a recap of the week here, but you might want the whole nitty gritty. If so, follow along on the Factory Week blog and the twitterings @factoryweek. We also started an instagram account, so look for SmallBox there!

Or should I say, Que PASA?

I’m going to give you 15 seconds to mentally prepare yourself for another post about SOPA. Perhaps this video will help relax you:

In today’s news about SOPA: Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo, and Wikipedia are planning to go offline temporarily in protest of the bill sometime in the very near future. This is being called ‘The Nuclear Option.’  It’s an action intended to represent the type and scale of interruptions that we are likely to experience if the bill passes.  If this comes to pass, I suppose I’ll get the day off work along with millions of my fellow countrymen.  It might be nice for a day or two, although I daresay it may cause some ripples in the economy.  Then again, it’s not really very nice at all when you think about the fact that the bill could, in the long-term, present a major threat to my whole industry(one of the most resilient sectors in the US economy).

For those who don’t have a really solid grasp on what SOPA is, but might just have heard a few things about it through the grapevine, here are some of the basics:

Representative Lamar Smith, R-Texas, introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act on October 26.

The bill is designed to protect copyrighted materials. It is intended to crackdown on pirates bootlegging music to make loot from advertising, or just for the hell of it.  On the face of it, it doesn’t sound that radical.  The provision of the bill which punishes third party purveyors—entities who provide access to sites that provide pirated materials—is likely to have some extremely negative unintended consequences, however.

The whole discussion about this bill is clouded under a great deal of stress.

Artists and promoters (some, not all) are stressed because it’s hard to make a living these days, with practically everything they produce being available for free on the internet. Internet professionals are EXTREMELY stressed because the level of havoc this law would create on Google by essentially requiring them to dump any site about which there is a complaint—legitimate or not—is likely to cause far more economic chaos than the architects of the bill are probably able to even imagine.

In short, there may be something to the spirit of the bill but realistically its an economic time-bomb. Artist’s should ideally be able to get paid for the work they produce if it is being consumed by large numbers of people who would, in theory, be willing to pay for it if they couldn’t get it for free.  But in practice, it really is a little bit late in the day to be contemplating this kind of sweeping and intricate regulation into a sector that already employs such a large percentage of the total US workforce.  The direction in which the internet has been heading has already changed the direction and organization of our economic infrastructure more than congress is likely to be aware.  Disrupting the operations of the sector by attacking its organizational axes (re: Google, Facebook etc.), is likely to be disastrous.

Soon after the bill was introduced, one of the largest flame wars in Internet broke out.

GoDaddy voiced support, lost millions of customers, and then decided to change their minds. Yahoo quit the Chamber of Commerce due to their irreconcilable differences. Now the well-known hacker group, Anonymous, claims it will punish Sony’s support of SOPA with attacks designed to “dismantle its phantom from the Internet.” Upon hearing this, Nintendo quietly rescinded its support of the bill.

In fact, many of the companies and organizations published on the House of Representatives list of supporters have requested to have their names removed after the repercussions of support were made clear by consumers and activists.

The problem is that SOPA gives the U.S. government power to issue death warrants  to effectively annihilate any website that they want to, via your internet service provider. There will be so many claims that Google will basically have to honor all of them, or else risk being shut down itself.  Your internet service providers will be bound by the law to shut offending websites down if they are deemed to be non-compliant with the rules set forth by SOPA.   To put this into perspective: Google is going to have a GREAT deal of trouble trying to stay compliant which means that, in theory, it could be shut down any time the idea strikes Congress’s fancy.  Effectively, this gives the government the power to decide what you can and can’t look at, which apparently doesn’t sit well with folks in the Land of the Free.

Any site that displays, hosts or links to a media that is not owned by the first party and not used with permission of the copyright holder is subject to blackout. If you are a site that is selling music legitimately, and you have a comment section on your blog, and someone leaves a link to their Pirate site in your comment section, in principle, your site is subject to black-out.

If you had to guess what percentage of time you spend on the Internet looking at original content displayed by its owners or their officially sanctioned promoters, what percentage would you guess? Tumblr would pretty much be wiped out.   Quite a few blogs devoted to news commentary would likely be wiped out.  That relaxing YouTube video up there? Gone.

What about Wikileaks? Would the next WikiLeaks be able to blow up in the environment that SOPA advocates are seeking to create? Forget about it.

SOPA is essentially a Trojan horse law entering under the guise of protection for Hollywood, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. It will certainly protect them, but it will do so at the expense of…well, free speech and the spirit of the Internet we know and love.

Of course, SOPA supporters don’t believe that, and truth be told, you hear a lot more about people who hate SOPA than love it. The language of the bill does not actively seek to terrorize the world, but it’s so broad that “terror” could easily pass for “enforcement”. CNET addresses this directly in an excellent write-up:

The thing is, Google already does an amazing job of filtering out and assigning low rankings to shady sites. Why would we assume that the government can do a better job than one of the most motivated and innovated companies in the history of commerce? Don’t they already have enough on their plate without taking that on?

Section 103 says that, to be blacklisted, a Web site must be “directed” at the U.S. and also that the owner “has promoted” acts that can infringe copyright.

Here’s how Section 101 of the original version of SOPA defines what a U.S.-directed Web site is:

(A) the Internet site is used to provide goods or services to users located in the United States;
(B) there is evidence that the Internet site or portion thereof is intended to offer or provide such goods and services (or) access to such goods and services (or) delivery of such goods and services to users located in the United States;
(C) the Internet site or portion thereof does not contain reasonable measures to prevent such goods and services from being obtained in or delivered to the United States; and
(D) any prices for goods and services are indicated or billed in the currency of the United States.

Some critics have charged that such language could blacklist the next YouTube, Wikipedia, or WikiLeaks. Especially in the case of WikiLeaks, which has posted internal documents not only from governments but also copyrighted documents from U.S. companies and has threatened to post more, it’s hard to see how it would not qualify for blacklisting.

Congress will return later this month to vote on the bill, and at this point they are expected to pass the bill.

Thomas Doane is a prolific blogger who writes about SEO, social media, email marketing and legislation that starts flame wars.

For some reason, ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to visit Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Maybe 2012 will be the year to make that happen!

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

One of my favorite things about SmallBox are the conversations we have with each other that aren’t related to the work we do every day. Don’t get me wrong, conversations and discussions about our work are fun and rewarding. But it’s these side conversations that provide insight into the passions that help make us well-rounded people. I love learning about what my workmates love to do in their spare time.

Many times these conversations steer toward food. We have many talented cooks on the team (as evidenced by the number of tasty chills we sampled during our Chili Cookoff). Many of us randomly bring in cookies or other baked good experiments to share with the group, and we regularly share stories of our latest culinary adventures at home or a dinner out that was just delightful. Because of these conversations, I have learned new ways to prepare quinoa, made my first reduction sauce with great success, and become aware of the joy of thumbprint cookies and their infinite possibilities of variation.

Inspired by my workmates and our food chats, my goal this year is to learn to cook in a cuisine I don’t normally cook. Choosing what cuisine was easy: for Christmas, my sister gave me Madhur Jaffrey’s At Home with Madhur Jaffrey, and I’ve always wanted to learn to cook Indian food (having enjoyed it the past few years, courtesy of India Garden). Jaffrey’s book is recommended by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of The Splendid Table and a woman (and food genius) I have long admired, so I figured it’s a good place to start. My goal is to dive in, study and explore Indian food and learn all I can about the history and culture of food in India. Over the course of 2012, I’ll prepare every recipe in the book (supplementing it with the previously mentioned history and culture explorations) and hopefully (very likely) find a few dishes I can add to my regular cooking repertoire. I’m really excited for this new adventure! (And if you want updates over the year, I’ll definitely blog about it over at my personal blog: wanderlydia.com.)

So, anyone have advice in the world of Indian cooking?

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

This question is another one of those questions that I have so many different answers for and they all change depending on the day or what I am currently pursuing hobby-wise. So instead of a particular person I am just going to describe the type of new person I would like to meet in 2012.

In 2012, I would like to meet someone who will challenge me to think, question my beliefs, and inspire me to keep creating new goals for myself and staying on track with them. I am easily distracted at times because of my wide interest in many subjects. I have found myself reading a wikipedia article and then 3 hours later looking up from reading and seeing that I have 50+ tabs open for reading more into the original subject that I was looking at. Just last night, I went from trying to find out when a particular movie I had seen recently came out to reading the inner traditions of Hanukkah and its various traditions I have never been exposed to.

Emett Otter's Jugband Christmas is my favorite christmas movie

So in 2012 I would love to meet someone that I could share my interests with but also someone that could help me focus more on some of the other things that I want to accomplish. Some of those things include recording more music, drawing more, and helping out in my community.

Lots of my friends already fill this role but I say the more the merrier!

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

I would have to say that the thing I was most grateful for this year were all of my friends. Looking back I feel like 2011 was a year of lots of events, excitement and growth.

I had a blast all year long this year. Whether it was snagging last minute tickets to a show, talking in circles at the wellington on a slow night, trying to put together the best music festival in broad ripple, or playing Risk on a sunday afternoon, I found myself and my friends in plenty of exciting and interesting situations that has lead to a lot of personal and communal growth.

I am blessed with many talented friends and family that make a lot of interesting things happen in my life and in the lives of a lot of people in the Indianapolis community, and that is what I am most grateful for this year.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.