OJC iPhone Application

Excerpt from "Local developers adding to iPhones list of apps aplenty"
The News-Gazette, 2/07/10
Christine Des Garennes

You finally got around to asking her out. You landed a sitter for Saturday night.
Your BFF is back in town for one night.

What are you going to do? Music concert? Dance performance? Gallery opening?

Check your iPhone.

A new iPhone calendar application developed for the local arts organization 40 North 88 West
by OJC Technologies of Urbana lets users search for local arts events and then tweet, e-mail
or post the information on Facebook.

Once the OJC team started working on the application, "it became obvious it would be something
we'd use all the time," said Lori Patterson, president of the technology firm. While recently
planning a get-together with a friend, she clicked on the app, chose a date and scrolled
through events, found one that sounded interesting and sent her friend an e-mail with the
info. No retyping required.

Out of the 140,000 apps available for download at Apple's iTunes store, it's hard to say how
many have been made locally, but given Champaign-Urbana's tech community, it's likely the
local arts calendar application is one of many phone apps made by local developers.

Creating apps and making them available to users on the iTunes apps store is a win,
"especially for small businesses like us," said Brandon Bowersox, vice president of
technology at OJC. "It's a way to reach consumers directly," he said.

As staff members of OJC Technologies grew comfortable using their iPhones in the last year
and became more involved in developing the calendar app, it became "clear this was an app
we could utilize and bring to multiple clients for multiple different purposes," said Lori
Patterson, who added that "mobile technology is a key part of any project we take on."

OJC is working with the UI School of Music on developing a calendar application. It would
include details about the school's events, such as faculty performances, visiting musicians
and more. The company is hoping to release it this spring.

Looking to the future, Patterson said she would like to see calendar apps utilized in school
districts, individual schools or park districts.