Happy 2011! We hope everyone had a great 2010, and if you didn’t, that 2011 brings great things your way.

As for us, 2010 was filled with new adventures.

• We co-produced Digital Capital Week in June – a ten day festival with over 6,000 participants from around the world.
• On Thankfulfor.com, we rolled out a number of updates such as posting images, profiles, following, more email notifications and more.
• We embarked on a project with Jen’s family in Maine and launched Shiny Maine Lobster, bringing fresh Maine lobster to people across the US.
• We launched the Thankfulfor iPhone application in November and are preparing for the Android app too.
• We worked with Crowdflower and JESS3 to produce the 2010 Gratitude Index, which was highlighted on media sites across the web, including CNNMoney.com, CBSNews.com, Techcocktail.com, Mashable.com, HuffingtonPost.com and others.
• Since Thankfulfor is a free site without ads, we were very thankful for all of our gracious community members who helped support the site via their contributions.

Outside of Shiny Heart Ventures, co-founder Frank Gruber successfully grew his media company Tech Cocktail, and brought co-founder Jen Consalvo onboard. So now the team has two ventures. Tech Cocktail produced over 20 events around the country in 2010 including the Startup Mixology conference in Chicago, and grew the online news site tremendously  - a huge accomplishment. At the same time, Jen launched her photography ebook, Love Your Photos: A Simple Guide To Photographic Happiness. Another great personal achievement.

As for 2011, we will continue to grow the Thankfulfor community, introducing new features to our thousands of members that will enrich and grow the community. Another important project will be Digital Capital Week 2011 – this year produced by Tech Cocktail and iStrategy Labs.

Via our many ventures, we look to build communities, increase joy in people’s lives and contribute to society while also building responsible and successful businesses. We hope you’ll join us. What are your plans for 2011? Tell us in the comments below.

Open for the Season

It just doesn’t seem possible that we are already breaking out the fireworks… but yes, it’s summer. And with that I’d like to share a few updates with everyone.

First, our inaugural Digital Capital Week went amazingly well. We had well over 5,000 people register and pass through various DCWEEK events throughout the ten day festival – here’s a recap of the first few days. It was a huge endeavor with our co-producers iStrategy Labs, but we did it – and how amazing was it to watch other people run with interesting events throughout the week! We’re going through all the feedback now and will soon begin planning for next year. Keep checking the site for updates too – you never know when something interesting might happen.

Second, Shiny Maine Lobster is now taking orders!  Summer isn’t summer until you’ve had your first fresh lobster of the season. Capt’n Dave and Frannie have been working on their boat, the Spitfire, all spring, and now they are hauling traps with YOUR lobsters in them. There are a number of tasty packages on the site, but if you are interested in a custom order or even “buying” a lobster trap for the season, let us know. We’re all about creating a great experience for you. Lobsters are delivered fresh overnight with cooking instructions and other goodies.

Third, we’ve been steadily building the Thankfulfor community and now have tens of thousands of Thankfulfor posts that could keep anyone inspired for a lifetime. We love reading the public “stream of thanks” so much that for Mother’s Day & Father’s Day, we created special ebooks that you can download and view. These are the first of many and we are looking for interesting partners so please reach out if you are interested in chatting.  We also have some creative new features in the works coming soon!

We hope you are enjoying the summer months and wish everyone a festive, joyful and safe July 4th!

On Saturday morning was a highlight of the weekend – Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh gave a talk about his new book, Delivering Happiness, followed by a book signing and lunch. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon the crowd at our GWU venue was completely engaged asking question after question. Our own Frank Gruber did a great job moderating the discussion with Tony and the audience – we’ll post video from the session here soon.

Photos by J Nicholas Tolson

The session was followed up by City Camp DC moderated by Peter Corbett, from our co-producing company, iStrategy Labs. The crowd spent the afternoon discussing issues most important to them in DC, and then in true unconference style, formed into groups using the time to brainstorm 3 big ideas, assigning team members to follow up on each. Some groups used Sunday afternoon to do some fieldwork around the city  -others are following up with their teams with specific action items.

Most exciting to me is getting to meet SO many people everyday of the festival. It’s just amazing and inspiring. Want to follow along with the festival? We have an incredible volunteer blogger corp making updates all festival-long to our main site: http://digitalcapitalweek.org and via Twitter @dcweek. We’re also tweeting updates from @shinyheart so there are lots of ways to see what’s happening throughout the festival.

Here are a few posts covering the weekend so far…

• DCWeek Opening Night: Art in Motion
• A Night Of Excitement: DCWeek Opening Party
• Hsieh Delivers Happiness @DCWEEK
• Quick Vids & Pics From Opening Night
• A Few Of Our Favorite Tweets From City Camp

Modeled after Internet Week NY, Social Media Week, FotoWeek DC, Fringe Festival, etc… DCWEEK will consist of a series of distributed events produced and hosted by individuals, organizations and community groups. We’ve got all kinds of DC-peeps behind us so this is going to be city-wide and amazing.

DCWEEK is a time to do the following:

★ to learn from others through sessions, keynotes, workshops and panels
★ to meet new friends, clients, partners, investors and collaborators
★ to focus on the issues in DC that can be addressed in new ways
★ to come together to support innovative businesses, people and ideas
★ to showcase the DC area as an important region for technology, innovation and creativity
★ to work on projects that benefit the city and the world
★ to experiment with what’s possible
★ to have fun at some great parties

>>So, mark your calendar for  June 11 – 20, 2010 and…

1. RSVP TODAY to get updates: http://dcweek.eventbrite.com
2. Join the Facebook Group to meet others: http://bit.ly/dcwfbook
3. Follow us on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dcweek
4. Submit an event you plan to host: http://bit.ly/dcweform …If you want to get involved, you can:

• Host an event/session that explores a digital interest area
• Host a ‘studio tour’ to show off your stuff
• Host a party or fundraiser for a digital cause
• Create a project for execution that week

Get more info at http://digitalcapitalweek.org. It’s gonna be awesome.