BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - National Popcorn Day got things popping for Marlo Anderson, Mandan’s self-professed “Guru of Geek.”
More than a century ago, Charles Cretors, a candy-store owner, developed a machine for popping corn with steam. By 1900, he had horse-drawn wagons selling fresh popcorn all over Chicago.
Most people wouldn’t know that. But it was pondering the origins of National Popcorn Day (Jan. 19) that drove Anderson to create a digital database for anyone searching for a day celebrating their favorite things and their history.
“Celebrate every day” has become the National Day Calendar slogan.
“If you’re a tech nut like me, or whether you love sangria, that’s what it’s about,” Anderson said.
And the site has gone through a meteoric rise. National Day Calendar’s social media posts trended more than 300 times in 2016.
“No one else comes close,” Anderson said.
The Bismarck Tribune (https://bit.ly/2jXb6IF) reports that Anderson now travels the country making presentations at national day events, and he’s collected some stories of his own along the way:
. A woman wrote to him about her son with Down syndrome. The home where he lives has adopted National Day Calendar for its daily celebrations.
. The late Dr. Henry Heimlich, originator of the Heimlich maneuver, called Anderson after National Day Calendar’s National Heimlich Maneuver Day information was featured by NPR.
. Vice President Joe Biden dropped by for a National Beer Day celebration.
“It’s amazing,” Anderson said.
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Tech on the rise
National Day Calendar’s notoriety has shone a spotlight on North Dakota’s tech scene. The number of technology startups in the state is on the rise - and National Day Calendar is just one example of the state’s tech potential.
Since the start of the last biennium, 67 of the 120 companies enrolled in the Department of Commerce Innovate ND program have been tech-related, according to program manager Jared Stober.
Among them is Aerez, started by a Minot husband-and-wife team to sell routers loaded with custom software for parental control of internet access.
Candice Perea said her husband, Marc, tells the story of getting up in the middle of the night to find their 8-year-old playing online video games. They knew they needed some security controls for their family’s internet use. She said they wanted something easy to use that wouldn’t slow their access.
“We couldn’t find anything that really worked for us,” she said.
The Pereas both work in the tech industry - one is a software developer, the other a network engineer - and they decided to design a control system and share it with other parents who might be looking for something similar.
“As we started to test our parental control software with families, many were asking: Why is our internet so slow?” Candice said.
Her husband knew how to fix it by tweaking a few settings. They decided to make that an automatic feature of their product.
The next step for the Pereas would be to create a mobile phone app to make Aerez even more convenient. In the meantime, the web page is mobile-friendly.
When customers log in, they can see all devices connected to their internet to track who is using it. The program gives users the ability to pause access and filter accessible sites. This can be done on a device-by-device basis or for the whole house.
“We’ve got boys age 9 and under,” Candice said. “When we want them to come to dinner, we just pause their internet.”
The bedtime blocker, which sets a timer to pause internet access for the night and restore it in the morning, is another popular feature.
The Pereas are finishing beta testing with 50 users and plan to start selling Aerez online soon. They would eventually like to get their product onto store shelves.
By the end of this year, they hope to have five people on staff.
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History made easy
Shawn Brannan partnered up with Anderson on another venture, serving as creative director for Talking Trail - an application that provides an in-depth, podcast-like oral history lesson for historical sites.
Talking Trail was designed to take guests “beyond the interpretive panels,” giving them more than just one or two sentences.
“It’s going really well,” Brannan said.
When users turn on notifications for the application, they are notified whenever they are near a Talking Trail site and are given the option to listen to its story.
The application serves a tourism purpose, drawing in casual travelers who, instead of passing through a town, may get drawn in to hear its history. That could lead to them stopping for dinner or even staying at a hotel for the night.
“At the end of the day, what matters most is the content is interesting and entertaining,” Brannan said, so once people hear the stories they’ll want to share them with others.
The company was contracted for 70 sites around Jamestown. They’re working on sites in the Northern Plains National Heritage Area along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, exploring the history of sites at Fort Rice, Huff Village and Fort Lincoln. They’ve had interest from groups in South Dakota’s Black Hills, as well as the North Dakota Sports Hall of Fame and North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Brannan said they’ve also started on a “Great Voices of North Dakota” series, telling the story of prominent North Dakotans.
“It’s really starting to tumble now,” Brannan said of Talking Trail’s growth. With the upcoming launch of a mobile application, he expects to see increasing success.
Because it uses people’s cellphones, it helps keep costs down. Brannan said he’s also seeking sponsorships to help cover production costs.
When Talking Trail started, Brannan thought of it in terms of historical sites, but he’s recently thought of other avenues, including zoos. Talking Trail could make recordings of zookeepers talking about animals’ personality traits, giving visitors a more in-depth experience.
Talking Trail has the potential to be a local tech and media employer, with an audio team, an application team and writers and researchers. They’ve even pulled in a local musician to score the tracks and they would like to expand into video.
“There’s a lot of opportunity,” Brannan said.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, https://www.bismarcktribune.com
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