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player ready...It’s hard to top a day that started with a swank sideways elevator and ended with a Blue Sky event trending on Twitter in Chicago, but that was just Monday. So we tried.
As it turned out, there was a lot of news on motion this week: all the ways we’re changing how we transport ourselves and our things.
With news breaking daily on Uber, Meg Graham wrote about Quxsi, a Chicago-based app that coaches users on how to understand and avoid surge pricing, which is not just for New Year’s Eve. Disrupt the disruptor!
And speaking of pain points — maybe literally — Dolly has created a marketplace to connect people who need to move heavy stuff with owners of strong arms and trucks. As someone in a walkup with off-site storage, I’m pretty psyched about the idea of this kind of service. It just raised $1.7 million in seed funding.
John Carpenter’s series on Chicago Makers continued with Legacy Frameworks of Bridgeport, where Levi Borreson creates bikes with a humble purpose in mind: just getting around. No sports, no tech, just well-designed wheels for getting from place to place. He still has a day job as a graphic designer.
The Distance reported on The Icon Group Inc., which has been in business since 1980 moving and storing art for museums, galleries, auction houses and private collectors. “The museums are really the more stable clients, and that’s one thing I definitely learned over time: who to focus your market to so that you can survive,” co-founder Bruce MacGilpin told Wailin Wong.
As for that elevator, ThyssenKrupp’s North American headquarters is in Chicago, and incoming CEO Patrick Bass shared their ideas for elevators that don’t even necessarily, er, elevate.
Cheryl Jackson learned about some of Oak Brook-based McDonald’s plans to keep up with technology and individual tastes — and to open a downtown Chicago office to attract tech talent as it struggles to keep up with nimbler rivals.
Speaking of which, Amina Elahi checked out Chick-fil-A’s new mobile app, which allows users to pre-pay and order ahead, though food prep will only begin once the customer has checked in via mobile at the restaurant. In other words, you can order well ahead and not worry about your food getting cold.
Our Monday event was a social-strategy discussion, and we expect it wasn’t our last. The experts shared guidance and opinions, and the audience did, too. Sade Carpenter worked up a Storify that will walk you right through it (and with some humor, too).
Monsanto grabbed up a Chicago-based startup this week: Its Climate Corp. division acquired 640 Labs, a farm-data startup launched in 2013. Think Internet of Things for tractors.
We took a behind-the-scenes look at the usually super-secret cloud storage areas of SingleHop. Signal is a company to watch: Get a video tour here
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. And don’t take your eyes off Kristi Ross of Dough, either. When she’s not dusting off the awards she won in 2014, she’s making big plans for the financial content firm and trading platform.The Chicago Urban League recently announced a pairing with 1871 to tackle tech diversity issues, and Kate MacArthur dove into the race topic with Andrea Zopp. We’ll be watching to see how these groups leverage their partnership.
As for the weekend? Get your ugly Christmas sweater ready, says business reporter Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz. “Say what you will about whether their ubiquity has dimmed their appeal, the spreading popularity has driven retailers large and small to invest in knitted atrocities and inspired entrepreneurial ventures,” she writes.