Keynote Speaker, Marketing Technologist, Columnist, Futurist, Smart Ass

Posts in category Technology

How to Explain Big Data to a Five-Year-Old

June 30, 2014 Leave a Comment Written by Travis Wright

One of the biggest buzzwords ever, it seems, is “Big Data”. But what EXACTLY is big data? It might seem a little condescending, but for those who aren’t in the industry, explaining big data requires some “dumbing down.” If you’re in the position to explain this to someone with zero experience in it, who isn’t tech savvy, or who comes from an entirely different field, leave the jargon out and instead focus on explanations and similes they’ll understand.

A perfect example is when the CEO asks for a quick rundown—and her background is in corporate leadership, she uses an old smartphone, and simply isn’t on the same page as you. Don’t get frustrated. This is your time to shine. READ MORE »

Business, Marketing

Lessons from my First Tech Startup Failure, Ten Years Ago.

April 10, 2014 2 Comments Written by Travis Wright

Screen Shot 2014-04-10 at 3.36.46 AMMy first tech startup, MethodLaboratories was a big web project that started with an idea from my good friend, Jonathan Shaun.

Methodlabs was where we featured artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creatives, gave them free webspace, showcased their work and even created t-shirts for the artists and designers that submitted their work.

To make the project a reality, I learned and mastered HTML, CSS & Javascript, as well as designing the whole project.

We also brought in the talented Alexander Petrides, who helped do all of the tough, custom modifications on the code.  He actually built the Dropbox-like feature, and helped customize our user profiles system and many other things.  Together, we grew the concept into a large web property with tens of thousands of members.

In many ways, we were a bit ahead of our time:  READ MORE »

Business, Life, Marketing

Funniest Vine Video Clips and Vine Comedians

July 8, 2013 Leave a Comment Written by Travis Wright

Travis Wright VinePeople have been debating the virtues of Vine vs Instagram video, but they are missing the point. There really is room for both. Vine has created a whole new form of entertainment. People are tapping into their creative juices in ways never before displayed. Creating a Vine video is like creating a real-time gif with audio. It’s untapped hilarity.

Instagram is already an avenue to display photos and getting people to change their habits will be difficult. I, personally, love taking cool photos and editing them to upload on Instagram. My gallery is all photos that speak to me emotionally through the use of filters, colors and edits. I love using it for photography. I don’t want a lot of videos on my Instagram feed.

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Comedy, Life

Innovation and Inspiration at Big Kansas City

March 31, 2013 Leave a Comment Written by Travis Wright


There is a lot going on in Kansas City, these days. Google has launched it’s “Google Fiber” product and the entrepreneur community is buzzing with activity. It’s a hot bed for startups, and it’s being coined as “Silicon Prairie”. In 2008, Silicon Prairie News was founded to discuss the developments in the startup scene in the flyover states of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. SPN, launched Big Omaha a couple years ago, and today was the inaugural Big Kansas City conference kickoff, where top innovators, startup founders and digital disrupters share their wisdom in an old school airplane hanger, that is now the Airline History Museum.
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Business, Marketing
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My Experience Working With Yahoo! And Why Marissa Mayer is Right about Not Letting Employees Work from Home.

March 2, 2013 20 Comments Written by Travis Wright

ydunce1Everyone has been busting Marissa Mayer’s proverbial balls over the past week over her decision to make Yahoo employees work at a corporate office and stop working from home. My work commute is approximately 66 steps from bed to work chair. It works for me. I work for a silicon valley company from my basement office in my Kansas City home. Living and working in Silicon Valley is too damn expensive so living there isn’t really an option. Having said that, I understand why Yahoo! totally needs to do it.

In the past summer, the company that I consult with was working on a partnership with a well known movie producer on a joint venture with Yahoo and my company. Meaning, we had to work together closely to make it happen. They had a distribution partnership with Yahoo! Screen and we had to work with it.

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Business, Marketing
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11 of the Best TED Talks Every Human Should Watch

February 25, 2013 17 Comments Written by Travis Wright

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 7.30.46 PMTED stands for Technology, Education and Design and if you’re not familiar with them, by now… LOL, you sux0rs at the interwebs. [OK, it’s actually Technology, Entertainment, and Design. But, it should totally be Education, instead]

This is only the greatest repository of speeches and presentations by the most brilliant minds, most fascinating people, education radicals, tech geniuses, medical mavericks, business gurus, and music legends of our time.

Awhile back, I made a goal to watch every TED Talk.  So, I watch at least one daily.  The more good shit that goes into your mind, the more good shit comes out.  Feel free to bookmark this so you can come back and watch each one of these.

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Life

Best Android Apps to Install on your New Android Phone

February 23, 2013 15 Comments Written by Travis Wright

Screenshot_2013-02-22-11-50-23So Travis, why should we listen to you about which apps are the best Android apps to install on our new Android devices?

Well, good question. I got my first Android device when the original Motorola Droid came out. And since then, I’ve had a Samsung Charge, Samsung Galaxy SIII and now, I’m rocking the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Since this is my 4th Android device, let’s just say that I’ve had plenty of time to figure out which apps are a must to install when your get your phone and which apps you should probably pass on.

As a general rule of thumb, only download apps that have good reviews and comments. If an app has only 1,000 downloads… pass. There are many, many apps out there that have viruses, malware and madware on them. So, be smart and diligent when installing any Android apps. It’s a jungle out there. I’d definitely recommend checking into some mobile security for your Android device.

There are tons of sites that recommend Android games, but I won’t be doing that here.  I try not to waste much time playing games on video consoles or my phone. So here goes, 35 of the Best Android Apps!  Enjoy and please share! READ MORE »

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The Hidden Benefits of the @BurgerKing Twitter Hack for Burger King

February 18, 2013 4 Comments Written by Travis Wright

If you were watching the interwebs this morning, you may have heard that Anonymous hacked the official Burger King Twitter handle @BurgerKing and changed all of it’s branding to McDonald’s logos and imagery. This could be catastrophic for the agency or the BK Social Media team who manages these accounts.

Screen Shot 2013-02-18 at 11.43.11 AM

While I watched this play out in real time, I was astounded at the sheer velocity of growth that the @burgerking Twitter account was experiencing. From my estimation, @BurgerKing was at about 77,000 followers to start the day.

Once “Anonymous” hacked the profile due to an alleged “whopper123” password, the buzz started spreading, the amount of @burgerking twitter followers begin to grow.
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Business, Marketing

Travis ‘Rides Bitch’ on a Big Wheel in Video Edited in Each of the Past 5 Decades.

February 18, 2013 Leave a Comment Written by Travis Wright

Screen Shot 2013-02-18 at 2.18.45 AMI’m turning 40 in May and I have had no video footage of me as a little kid. My mom just gave me a Super 8mm tape a couple of weeks ago, of some footage that my grandparents had of my biological father holding me when I was 2 weeks old. Haven’t figured out where to go to get this footage converted yet. Yesterday, my Uncle Jeff sent me a Facebook message informing me of some some additional footage that he had of me as a little kid. Awesome news! And what’s really interesting to me about this footage is this footage has been edited every decade since the 70s… and transferred to many platforms.

The original was a Super 8MM movie shot in the 1970s. copied to VHS in the 1980s, copied to DVD in the 1990s, copied to Windows Media by DV camera, then converted to MPG in the 2000s. and my uncle sent it to me via a Facebook message attachment today. Here in the 2010s, I edited the .MPG in iMovie and did the voiceover with my Macbook Mic. And now it’s exported it to YouTube… This movie has been edited and stored on products and tools of Kodak, Microsoft, Sony, Apple and Google.

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Life

Verizon Early Upgrade for Samsung Note 2 is a Win for Amazon.

February 17, 2013 Leave a Comment Written by Travis Wright

Let’s face it, gadgets make the world go around now. After all of my extensive research, it was time to upgrade my phone to the Samsung Galaxy Note II. I looked online at my Verizon Wireless account and noticed that on Feb 17th, my main line became eligible for the upgrade. I figured that I could use my charm and good looks to get the hook up and get my phone a week early. The following chain of events showcases how poorly different divisions of corporations speak with one another.

Samsung Galaxy Note II

First of all, I admit that I’m a geek. My line of work entails that I interact with technology, online, mobile, social, search… you name it. I need a phone that allows for effective multi-tasking.

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Life, Marketing
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@teedubya

Travis Wright is a Venture Catalyst, Public Speaker, Digital Disrupter, Marketing Provocateur, Stand Up Comedian, Tech Blogger & Brand Awesomeizer.

This Travis Wright guy shares marketing resources, industry analysis, interwebs strategery & random hilarity along w/ occasional sport or political rants. If you can stand his jokes and want his opinion on something, feel free to connect with him.

email: tw [at] traviswright [dot] com

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