What do you do when you can't find a bottle opener for your beer? You invent a cell phone case that has one built in! Meet Chris! He's an architect, a former professor and an inventor of the next great thing that you haven't heard about, yet. Kit. 

Chris used to teach architecture and design classes at WashU and Maryville, when one day he and the students were trying to open a beer. No one had a bottle opener but when he looked around everyone had there cell phones out on the desk. That's when the idea for kit was born. It's a case for your smart phone that will hold credit cards, cash, keys...or a bottle opener. 

Right now Chris is trying to raise money so he can produce prototypes and have people test them for him. This has been a big challenge. Even after his kickstarter he still needs about $300,000 to start production with his production company in Wisconsin. He wants to try and keep this as local as possible and, "Do something fun, make some money, and provide jobs for our neighbors, that's like a trifecta!" 

Despite Chris' invention and his background, he considers himself a Luddite, or at best he is not an early adopter, especially when it comes to social media. Although he did use Meetup to start an art group, but he considers Meetup different because the end result is meeting people face to face and sharing common interests. Whereas with Twitter, the digital communication IS the end result, and he believes that things are better and more interesting in the real world. I compared it to the movie Wall-E, where people float around and communicate with computers instead of each other.

Currently, Chris is living in Lexington, KY with his wife, whom he met at his WashU class reunion. He was the Gift Chair for his class, meaning he called members of his class and asked them to donate to the school. So, when he asked to sit next to his future wife at the reunion, she thought he was just going to ask her for a donation. It turned out to be a little more than that. Chris and his wife have a 19 year old daughter who is currently in D.C. With a ministry group doing hospitality and working with international students for her gap year.

Dungeons and Dragons, awesomely enough, is what led Chris to architecture."I played dungeons and dragons as a young adolescent, but that all folded into me becoming an architect. Creation out of the ground. Drawing maps, creating worlds and that's what I do now."

How many people have such a great reason for following their career path?

Getting free coffee with Aubrey is cool. All the cool kids have already done it. You should be next!

I haven't written a blog post in several weeks. This is for two reasons: I was undergoing a career transition and my recording of Coffee #29 won't play back. Due to this, I'm going to re-count our meeting as best I can from memory.

Jason and I met at a networking event about a month ago. My interest was definitely piqued when he said, after only having talked with my friend and me for 10 minutes, that I was the type of person who cared very deeply about what other people thought about me. He was right. My strengthsfinder (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx) says that my top strength is significance, the desire to feel important to other people.

We met again several weeks later at another networking event. There we talked briefly and he said he would sign up for a free coffee. We e-mailed back and forth for several more weeks before we finally were able to get together at Bread Co. 

Jason recently purchased a business that teaches sales training, called The Rubicon Institute (http://www.rubicon.sandler.com/). When we met he went into great depth about a lot of the psychology behind human nature. He drew me a column with an I on one side and an R on the other and explained that everyday we have multiple roles we play: commuter, husband, wife, employee, boss, subordinate, etc. Most of use live in those Roles (the R side). There are a few people who live on the I side, Individual. Individuals have these different roles but they don't let performance in these roles define them. So, when they have a bad day at work, it doesn't affect them as profoundly. I VERY much live on my R side. He went on to explain quite a bit more about Ego States and how we react to others through these. Lastly, we delved into Life Scripts and how we manage our lives based on these scripts we've devised for ourselves. For example, "I can't be as successful as other people" because maybe a parent or teacher said that to us at one point as a child. It was all very fascinating and I think we spent over an hour talking about this in detail.

We talked for a length of time about how he found himself as the owner of the Rubicon Institute, but unfortunately, that portion of my recording has been lost. Jason, if you read this and would like to share some details in the comments, it would be appreciated!

Jason was in the Navy for several years where he traveled all over the East, from Australia to Russia to Japan.  He'd traveled a lot around the U.S. as a kid, but had never left the country and had no idea what he wanted to do when he got out of high school. "I lost a job, lost a girlfriend, lost the apartment, had to move back in with mom. I picked up the phone book and called a recruiter and said 'I want to leave'. And I was literally, six months later, standing in front of a ship at 19 years old."

Now, Jason spends his time networking, managing his new business, and teaching a Communications class at Maryland Heights Community College (where he met Michael from Coffee #5!). In regards to communications, Jason recommends keeping a journal of things that happen to you each day and your challenges. That way you can look at it and remember how you have progressed and overcome.

Jason and I parted ways after an incredibly interesting and informative meeting, with plans to meet again soon.

You haven't experienced coffee unless you've experienced Free Coffee With Aubrey.

"Bic, the ear wax picker!" Get ready, this is going to be the next big marketing campaign by Aaron.

Aaron and I met briefly for coffee at Park Ave Coffee several weeks ago. Due to the brevity and the fact that we discussed mostly business, this blog post will be much shorter than most.

Aaron has worked in marketing since he was in his early twenties, and up until 4 years ago he always worked for someone else. But that changed when he and some friends launched Elasticity, a marketing agency with a theory called triangulation. They believe that combining Search, Social and PR allows you to surround the consumer and deliver your message. From there you move your message to traditional media. There are, of course, numerous elements to consider when putting a campaign together, and as he says, "what I do for a living is have a sociological understanding of my target audience". 

While discussing this, Aaron and I discussed the science of cleaning out your ears. Apparently men use a variety of implements to do this,none of which is a Q-Tip. He has had in depth discussions with friends about which pen caps work the best. I threw him a million dollar idea and said he should create a campaign around that. You're welcome Aaron.

I did learn that Aaron does some writing for Forbes and is also very involved with Rally STL (If you don't already know about it, visit rallystl.org for details)!

I know you're wondering where your next coffee is going to come from, and I'm here to tell you it should come from me! Sign up on the homepage, now!

Lemurs, Beatles and Annie, Oh My!

The best moment of Annie's life happened only a few years ago when she was in Madagascar. She was working as a part of a group of volunteers with the Missouri Botanical Gardens. During one of her breaks she was feeding a Lemur a banana when another jumped on her shoulder, ran down her arm, grabbed the banana and ran back up to her shoulder where he ate it. She describes the moment like this, "I've had a Lemur jump on me...like...WHAT? Happiest moment of my life." As you can tell, Annie is pretty likeable and she likes her Lemurs.

In several weeks Annie will be graduating from Washington University having earned her degree in Engineering with a focus in Systems and Electrical Engineering. She's tried several things but this program and the people just seemed to fit. During her time here she's taken several trips to Cambodia and Haiti where she's done things like develop bio-sand water filters and created several other sanitation systems. After graduation she'll be moving to Green Bay, Wisconsin to work for Proctor and Gamble. She interviewed for another position with the company, but they loved her so much that they found one for her that was a better fit! Annie will be working on their paper making facilities to help make it more efficient. The process of making paper involves an incredible amount of water and energy and she hopes she can help reduce this waste.

The move to Green Bay has her slightly nervous, because she won't know anyone. Annie grew up in Jefferson City, but has been to St. Louis many times because her mom grew up here and her brother graduated from Wash U, so moving to St. Louis wasn't as challenging. She was discussing this with Philip (coffee #26), when he recommended that she try something similar to FreeCoffeeWithAubrey. So, keep your eyes out for FreeDrinksWithAnnie! I attempted to convince her to launch FreeCheeseWithAnnie.com, but I don't think she was a fan...

Speaking of cheese, Annie bought snowshoes. With all of the cheese and beer she's going to be consuming, they might just come in handy for helping keep the weight off. But that's not what motivated her to buy them. They were on sale and "You know...it'll be fun!" She's going to fit right in with her snow shoes and her love for Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers quarterback.

Annie is a runner and her motivational music of choice? The Beatles! She's finishing up a course where she studied their albums chronologically and she now describes herself as obsessed. When she attempted to listen to their solo albums she became emotional and couldn't finish them. She is in the process of writing the first essay of her entire college career on how some fans thought that The Beatles were prophets. 

I wish Annie success in Green Bay and I hope someday soon I'll read about her success at Proctor and Gamble!

Insights: Maybe I should have launched FreeToastedRavioliWithAubrey.com.

Do you know what a WUTE is? You will. Meet Philip, an engineering student at Washington University (he's only a student for another two weeks or so, though). 

Philip moved here from Cleveland to attend Wash U. A friend recommended it to him and after he toured campus, he knew it was a fit. "It's been really fun...being isolated to the 4 corners of campus and slowly moving off". But, he does wish St. Louisans could drive better. I maintain that I'm a 5 star driver, a status he didn't deny me because I haven't almost hit him, yet! 

In a few weeks, after he graduates, Philip will be leaving us for San Francisco. He started applying for jobs in November, but most companies didn't have the resources to hire someone that far from graduating. He received offers to leave school early, but he didn't want to do that, so he posted a 'Hire Me' link on his website and began doing about 3 interviews per day for 10 days. Now he's going to be gainfully employed with Open DNS, a company started by another Wash U grad. 

Recently, Philip realized that there was an excellent startup culture at Wash U and he wanted to extend this entrepreneurial spirit to the other students. So, he started WUTE VC, Washington University Technical Entrepreneurs Venture Capital. It's a lecture series that encompasses different formats: lectures, roundtables, and online chats with Google Hangouts. He's been fortunate enough to wrangle up (I have American Hoggers on in the background, hence the use of 'wrangle'!) speakers like Jack Dorsey (creator of Twitter) and Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit). 

Also on his incredible resume is a Discovery Competition at Wash U that he recently participated in, where the winners received $25,000 to help fund their idea or product. He and his team, Sparo Lab, have developed an updated lung measuring device. The old devices were outdated and clunky, but this is easy to use and ties into computer software that will provide your results. Software that Philip built, "There's a lot of secret sauce in the computer program behind it". Here's a link to the page detailing his team's win! http://engineering.wustl.edu/newsstory.aspx?news=7402

Random Philip Phact: In his four years of college, he has NEVER EATEN RAMEN NOODLES!! I survived on those and pizza rolls! I event went so far as to call Totino's and thank them for their 99¢ pizzas.