I own an iPhone. I love it. The things you can do with it are seemingly endless. Being a web developer, I naturally have a nagging urge to open up the iPhone SDK and go to town.

But, Apple has only released the SDK for Mac OS X with an Intel chip. Being one-part PC user and one-part Linux user, that will not fly. Ok, so I’ll load it up on the Intel-based Mac in the office.

Nope. Not happening. Our Mac runs OS X 10.4, the iPhone SDK requires 10.5.5. Duh? Why didn’t i know that? That makes sense, right?

Thanks Apple, I may have some really awesome app ideas that will greatly improve your device, but you’ll never know.

Being a young entrepreneur I am often faced with the question of my age. Is he for real? Can he get the job done right? On time and on budget? And, it does not help that I look like I am about 5 years younger than I actually am.

I was recently featured in an article in Xavier Alumni Magazine on the subject. See it here.

Allow me to reiterate. Yes, we are young, but we do have experience. We have released numerous sites, many working with big brands. We let the portfolio speak for us.

In fact, our youth is actually an advantage. Web is a fickle beast. Being in this industry, we have seen many shifts. For example, when we started out, there really wasn’t much in the area of social media. There was no Facebook API to develop for because there was no such thing as Facebook. It’s things like this in which our youth actually enables us to be on the forefront of our industry.

We’ve seen design trends change along way. We’ve seen the rise of various web services and web platforms, many of which we’ve leveraged to our clients’ benefit.

We get web. We really don’t know what it is like to live without it. Honestly, for these reasons I’d be wary of a firm whose every member is over 35. Just sayin’.

Tonight, I attended the TechColumbus Innovation Awards. dynamIt was nominated in two distinct categories, Outstanding Service and Best Technology Team. We did not win either, but I never expected to win. In fact, I was honored just to be in the same room as groups like Ohio Health, Battelle, and The Ohio State University. There is no shame for dynamIt in losing to The Research Institute at Children’s Hospital under the topic of technological innovation.

The event was so-so. It certainly felt like a big deal as over 1000 guests filled The Grand Ballroom and the Columbus Convention Center, but it felt sort of glossed over, like it was more talk than anything. Sure, there was some impressive work on display, but there was also a lot that was rather dull and to me seemed common, not innovative. [Plus, the food sucked and at well over $100 a head I was disappointed in the lack of an open bar.]

So, is what we do really innovative? I think not. To me, innovation is dreaming up something that has never been done and executing. Innovation is game-changing, not to few, but to many. Innovative implies new, fresh, BIG.

We are certainly good problem solvers and we execute well, but how widely felt is our work? We often enact clever, creative solutions for our clients and in turn impact their businesses, but it’s nothing new.

So, what can we do in 2009 to push the limits farther than we have in the past? How can we actually be innovative?