Happy Holidays from Shiny Maine Lobster!

While we’ve continued to build out Thankfulfor and work on some other ideas, a new opportunity presented itself and we jumped on it. As you may know, Jen (@noreaster) is from Maine, where her family has a lobster business. And if you’ve seen any news at all around the plight of the Maine Lobstermen, you may also know that they are having a tough time. Despite continued popularity of the shellfish, the wholesale prices have hit rock-bottom in recent years. That along with higher fuel and bait costs and the state’s tight self-regulation (for conservation purposes) policies, many lostermen are getting squeezed to the point of no return. So, after years of trying to get Jen’s family business online, Captain Dave (her dad) finally acquiesced. Today we’re happy to announce our partnership with Captain Dave & Lobstahlady Frannie with the new site Shiny Maine Lobster.

Now, there are many other sites where people can order lobster online. But Shiny Maine Lobster is not just about ordering a nice dinner. It’s about getting to know who is doing the work, how they do it, and knowing where your money is going. When you go to the grocery store, or eat out at a restaurant, it’s very rare you’ll know exactly where your food came from and the many stops it made along the way. Shiny Maine Lobster is a place to not only get to know the family behind the business, but to invest in their sustainable business and pretty soon, contribute back as part of a community who loves this New England tradition.

We’re excited about growing this business to include more local lobsterman and artists. Interested in participating or have ideas for us? We’d love to hear from you.

In early November, Jen and I took a long train ride adventure from Washington, D.C. to sunny Savannah, Georgia to speak about our entrepreneurship endeavors at the first annual Geekend 2009 event. The event was pulled together by the lovely team of Jake & Miriam Hodesh of New Moon of Savannah. With one of our old AOL pals also speaking and helping to pull the event together, we were extremely excited to be a part of the festivities.

We made an absolute geekend of it, enjoying our trip down, meeting lots of folks and speaking on Saturday in a session titled “I’m My Own Boss. Now What?” In the session, both Jen and I shared our different perspectives on starting your own business. I shared some insight on how to balance a full-time job at AOL while getting my dreams started on the side, pulling from my experiences with TECH cocktail, Somewhat Frank and Shiny Heart Ventures. Jen shared her experience of leaving a full-time job to develop a focused, day-to-day routine as a full-time entrepreneur. We shared stories and anecdotes of what we’ve learned so far in our various ventures, which includes Thankfulfor.com. Here’s an edited video clip from Geekend 2009, highlighting some of our talk – it’s about 10 minutes taken from an hour long session.

The Shiny Heart Ventures team was out in full force at the Creativity in Business Conference this past Sunday in Washington, D.C. asking attendees what they were ThankfulFor. Creativity is so important in business so it was great to devote a day surrounded by such forward thinkers. Here’s how Michelle James, the event founder and producer, describes the conference:

Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo work near the pool at the Hilton Embassy Row Hotel in Washington, D.C. They pay $15 a day for pool access. WASHINGTON POST / TONI L. SANDYS

We’ve had some major excitement here at SHV recently. As you may have seen in one of the nine ten (and counting) major press outlets that featured our story, we (Jen & Frank) were recently profiled as part of Mike Rosenwald’s (@mikerosenwald) story on Digital Nomads. Now we know there are many, many people out there who have lived this way for years and we are somewhat new to the game. But that makes it even more exciting for us and in a way, makes us feel like we’ve found our tribe. We love discovering blog posts and tweets from people whose work lives reside outside of an office (whether they work for themselves or not) – and sharing info about how they get things done. We’ve received so much encouraging feedback – we’d just like to say thank you! Also, a few things…

1. Many of you are asking about what we’re going to launch and when. We should have one announcement in the next 2-3 weeks so make sure you sign up for our email updates (at the top of this page) or follow us on twitter so you are one of the first to know what’s going on.

2. No, we don’t spend a lot of money working from places like the Hilton pool. That was one place we had wanted to try out for a while, but will reserve for only special occasions since they charge extra for the wifi. Frank does actually go into the AOL office as much as he can when he’s in town (but most of his team is distributed across the country anyway) and Jen works from home (she calls it “the nest”) to save money. Both of us like to mix it up once in a while though and keep looking around for interesting new places – especially on the weekends and when on the road, since for us, work doesn’t really stop. To understand this “connected 24/7″ life, check out Peter Shankman’s post “Why don’t you do some work?“.

3. If you haven’t seen the article, here are some links… sorry, can’t resist! This is our first version of a “Press” page

• WashingtonPost.com – Digital Nomads Choose Their Tribes: Teleworkers Find Camaraderie in a New Kind of Colleague
• WashingtonPost.com – Digital Nomads Choose Their Tribes VIDEO
• HeraldTribune.com – Roaming through the work day
• MercuryNews.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for diners and pool decks
• SiliconValley.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for diners and pool decks
• Los Angeles Times – With wireless devices, telecommuters cut the cord
• Jakarta Globe – For Digital Nomads, the Office Is Wherever They Want to Be
• Omaha World Herald at Omaha.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for coffee shops, pool decks
• Austin Statesman.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for cafes pools: With Wi-Fi lifelines and willing employers, workers ply their trade wherever they please
• The Seattle Times – Cubicles foreign to digital nomads
• TheDay.com Connecticut – Digital Nomads Ditch Cubicles For Diners And Pool Decks

We’ve been on the road quite a bit in the last month, and between the two of us we’ve hit Maine, Milwaukee, Chicago, Taipei and New York in just a few weeks, with a few more trips on the horizon. We like to consider ourselves digital nomads and have a goal of being location independent in order to experience as much as we can – definitely a lot more than when chained to an office desk. Thanks to the developments of wireless technology and lots of devices, we are always connected. While many people love working at larger companies and thrive on daily office camaraderie and a certain level of stability, we like to feel the freedom of unrestricted mobility. Whether we are jumping on a Skype call via our iPhones while reviewing new devices in downtown Taipei, sending our developers daily feedback from coastal Maine or responding to an email thread while watching our favorite Chicago baseball team rally to pull out an exciting win, we remain productive from virtually anywhere. Not that life is always that exciting, but with family and friends scattered, global tech events and lots of frequent flier miles, we like to take advantage of any change in scenery.

In real-estate the emphasis is always put on “location, location, location!” and thanks to ever-evolving technology we can now be productive from almost any location – the devices and connectivity leave us no excuse. And while we understand that there is no place like home, we like to think we have many homes – the primary one being the World Wide Web. So we embrace our unrestricted mobility as much as we can, allowing us to experience more in life while continuing to move the ball forward. Who needs vacation?