The Social Media Breakfast movement kicked off in Des Moines yesterday morning with great conversation and a packed house (standing room only at Mars Cafe)!

The topic of the day was the future of mobile technology, featuring panelists Daniel Shipton and Neil Roberts (Founders of Bitmethod) and Dennis Dohrmann, manager of data sales for Verizon Wireless in Iowa.

The conversation ranged from network capabilities and speeds (3G, 4G, etc.) and existing platforms such as the iPhone and Google’s Android, and what sorts of amazing social and e-commerce applications can be built on top of this technology.

If you aren’t familiar with the SMB concept, here’s a description from Bryan Person (founder):

Social Media Breakfasts bring together people who are interested in teaching, sharing, and learning about trends, case studies, and best practices in social media. This educational focus is critical for moving the social media industry forward.

More information can be found on the official website, as well as some great tips on how to start an SMB in your city.

Below is a video introduction that kicked off the event, complete with comments from Bryan Person and our friends up north in Minneapolis.

If you’d like to be involved with the planning of future Des Moines Social Media Breakfasts, please join the Ning community. This is also a great way to be notified of upcoming events. Be sure to keep your eye on the #SMBDM hashtag on Twitter, as well.

Thanks to everyone who attended, as well as our sponsor (Verizon Wireless). Did you attend the event? We’d love to hear your comments and reactions below. Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

Last week the Silicon Prairie News crew stopped by our office and we had a quick chat about what’s new over in Omaha. Jeff Slobotski wouldn’t reveal any of the speakers for BIG Omaha quite yet (I tried to pry it out of him) but he does talk about how SPN will be represented at South by Southwest Interactive in 2010.

If you aren’t familiar with Silicon Prairie News, it’s an online publication dedicated to documenting and highlighting technology startups, companies and entrepreneurs located here in the Midwest (AKA “flyover country”). Be sure to follow the authors on Twitter: Jeff Slobotski, Dusty Davidson, Danny Schreiber and Geoff Wood, who is now covering the Des Moines region.

This evening we’re opening our doors from 5:00-7:00pm during the East Village Holiday Promenade. Please stop by and have a drink with us, and don’t forget to RSVP on Facebook. Happy Holidays!

During a layover at Detroit Metro Airport (DTW) I had the pleasure of traveling through the light tunnel, an ambient, subterranean sound and light experience that connects the concourses. I’m featuring it here on the blog because it was such a pleasant (and relaxing) surprise. Below is a video I captured inside the light tunnel.

My FlipCam didn’t do the best job capturing the colors, so here’s a great photo taken by pallid7 and shared on Flickr.com:

My friend Greg Swan also blogged about the tunnel a few weeks back. Here’s a great photo set on Flickr (courtesy of photographer Steve Hopson), and some videos on YouTube. Additionally, I discovered a post on JimOnLight.com that explains the tunnel’s concept, design and logistics.

So, why am I writing about a light tunnel? Because it was an unexpected, positive experience. Look at the volume of content (blog posts, photos and videos) created about it – not just by me, but by hundreds of people. Create a unique experience for your customers, and they’ll do the same.

Last Friday I discovered that Twitter’s new retweet feature had been activated in my account. Much like Lists, they are slowly rolling this out to all users, so be patient and you’ll discover it soon. For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a quick video description and howto on the new feature.

What are your thoughts on the new retweet functionality? What interesting things could you build with this being integrated into the Twitter API?