Don't get me wrong.. It's florida, and it's supposed to rain every day at 3:30 during the summer.. but man, sure does seem like its been constant lately, no?
10 day forecast on weather.com has rain every day.
Brevard county now has its own FloridaCreatives.com group, thanks to the initiative taken by Lawrence. We even have a logo that doesn't look like the second life logo (hah, couldn't resist Ryan.)
The group is up to 16 members right now on the wiki, and discussion is getting started on the when's and where's of getting a happy hour going. It's looking like a healthy group coming together over here on the coast.
So who is it for? What's it about? The Florida Creative meet ups have really been about bringing together people from various sides of the creative field under one roof. Get together for a drink or three and meet some interesting folks. If you're in marketing, design, theater, music, web design, programming, whatever. It's a great way to meet fun/like minded people in the area.
Since I came back to Orlando from DC, it's been obvious to me that there is a growing tech scene here in town. It's always been here, but for whatever reason things started mobilizing and coming together over the last couple of years.
Barcamp, refresh, coworking, florida creatives, happy hours, meetup.com groups, whatever -- all of these smaller communities have flourished and formed vibrant "sub-communities" within the larger scene. One of the conversations that inevitably always comes up is the need for an association -- a non-profit organization that exists outside of various social cliques and can bring together interactive professionals in the central florida region.
A handful of people have come together to make this happen, and it looks like a great foundation is being laid. It's still in its early stages, but thanks to some folks at Izea and people like Mark Kruprinski, there's is already a great community coming together around the concept.
If you work in the tech field -- whether its coding, design, marketing, whatever -- and live in the Central Florida region, then you really should create an account on Doterati.com. When you do, make sure to add me as a friend! Here is my profile page with cutesy wedding photo.
UPDATE: So, I sent out a bunch of invites to some friends for Doterati, and I'm already getting emails back saying they won't sign up because it says it's a "Ted Murphy" project on the bottom of every page. I totally missed that, and agree that it's completely lame. That's not how the site/concept was pitched to me though, and I'd suspect its more relating to the actual website aspects of it all (I hope). If it's another orlando-local-builds-an-ego-project, it probably won't last. My impression though, is that this is intended to be above all that. I guess we'll find out ;) UPDATE 2: I've been told that whoever creates the Ning group gets their name on the bottom like that. Probably should have had somebody who's not blogosphere public enemy #1 create the group. Ted's a nice guy, but man.. I'm getting hit with messages from people who've never even met the guy that are brutal. Yikes. UPDATE 3: Lawrence Salberg wrote a post re. Doterati that sounds an awful lot like some of the stuff people were telling me. It's worth taking a look at if you are in the doterati community and want to know the types of things its up against. He doesn't have to be right, as it's an impression that seems to be shared by some folks.
Johannes Grenzfurthner from MonoChrom (or maybe Boing Boing would be a better reference for some of you..) will be talking/presenting on some of their recent projects at Red Light Red Light tonight out in Winter Park.
Johannes is based out of Vienna, Austria and here on vacation. It'll be a rare opportunity to see some pretty neat artsy/tech projects right in our own backyard. He joined us for Florida Creatives last night and is a really enjoyable guy.
Is there any particularly good reason why O-Rock and 740 both disappeared?
Surely, it's a money thing.. but man oh man.. Orlando local radio suuuuucks. Real radio during the day is okay, but then you have a poor mans love line mixed with stereotypical dj cliches at night. It's like listening to an ongoing family guy joke. My brother and I were reminiscing about how Monsters used to make fun of those idiots all the time.. now they're the night time show. Awwkward.
And yes, 101.1 is still around, but if I wanted to listen to Nickelback... wait.. What am I saying.. I'd never want to listen to those hacks, nor do I want to listen to any of the other corporate trash that WJRR plays.
Do the radio station corporations own a chunk of satellite radio? Are they trying to make FM radio die a painful death? Or has Orlando just rapidly changed its demographics to the point where only Spanish, manufactured pop and cheesy over-produced lameo-rock stations are able to survive?
I guess I just don't understand the business behind local radio. I'm sure margins are tight and everything is pre-planned and digital now. It just sucks, that's all.
Thank god for my iPod and my tape deck connector.... New school meets the old.
I also believe that a high concentration of the people who attend demonstrations like these are clinically nuts (certainly not all of them, to be fair).
I just got back from taking a bunch of photos from the war protest taking place over at Lake Eola. The idea of the protest itself is completely fine by me. The peaceful expression of what is an extremely emotional issue is why we're so lucky to live here. It provokes conversation and discussion. It encourages people to research their thoughts and educate themselves. It serves as a mechanism to drive voter participation. Without protest, without that sense of "cognitive dissonance", we'd endanger the conversation and discourse that's so desperately needed in this country.
The thing is, for every parent who has suffered the loss of a child, for every pacifist who doesn't believe in violence, for every student who disagrees with our foreign policy, there are a handful of people who haven't cut their hair since 1959 and look like they're stoned out of their minds. Then you get the absurd Vietnam-vets-were-baby-killers crowd, the increasingly ridiculous 9-11 truther crowd (side note: Bill Mayher is right, 4 mins in), and the straight up we-hate-america folks. Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly, but the presence of some of these stereotypes truly undermines any reasonable effort these protesters have at being taken seriously.
"Bush = Hitler," really? Don't you see how that makes you come across as not only ignorant of world history, but also as a little bit looney? On one hand, we have Hitler. The definition of all that is evil. A murderer of tens of millions of people. Someone hell bent on the complete domination of Europe by a largely inferior Germany and smart enough to have had a realistic chance of it until the rest of the world came together in their own defense. The man was systematically attempting to erase an entire race of people. On the other hand, we have Bush. He responded to an attack that took place on domestic soil in a controversial way after he was given a blank check by a dual-party congress elected (and re-elected) by the American people. We're not sure if he can read.
Yeah. I can see how the two are similar. Why don't we all listen to your thoughts on foreign policy?
I admire most of the folks who braved the rain this afternoon to come downtown. I admire the counter-protesters who did the same. I can't wait for the day in the future when so much of the confusion and the pain surrounding 9/11 and its aftermath has been resolved. I just wish the current state of the world wasn't such a breeding ground for conspiracy, conjecture, hyperbole and cynicism. People forget that in some countries, criticizing the government would be enough to have them thrown in jail. People forget that while they're complaining about the rain that came during their protest, volunteer soldiers are fighting overseas for a country that they love.
I hope those carrying these anti-Bush/anti-America signs are at least able to recognize the irony.
Wow. Jason Hawkins is super duper talented, and this video totally captures the complete awesomeness of the event. Well done again to everyone involved in organizing this thing (esp. gregg / larry ). Fired up already for the next one!
So.. At our lunch get together last week, we tried to come up with a name for the "event". Something we could refer to it as and repeat in the future.. Afterwards, Dan came up with "lunch_fu". Immediately, it made me think of an ass kicking sandwich.
A quick e-mail to Alex Hillman in philly, who has a friend with an art class, and a student named Alfonso Callejas. Next thing you know, we have a sketch of a sandwich that kicks some serious ass. Judson comes to the rescue and provides the colorization, and well..
We now have an official lunch_fu superhero. Created by members of the internet, for the internet, to save the internet from hunger pains. After all, low blood sugar is our biggest threat. Man.. This just brings a tear to my eye..
Now, the next step. This new crime fighting lunch superhero needs a name.
Wow. What a great event. Gregg, Jason, and everyone else (update:larry!) who put in the time and effort to pull this thing off -- massive props.
Taste was packed. Not just packed, but standing room only packed, but in a not all that uncomfortable way. The presentations were of great quality and entertaining. There is a massive amount of talent around here, and it's a true joy to see everyone come out of the woodwork for something like this. Can't wait for the next one.
I gave a brief presentation on coworking, or as Chris Scott suggested, "cow orking", which I used for the title (and it still makes me giggle -- thanks chris!) It was sort of a local-centric warm up for Friday's blogOrlando local session track. I tried to show the co-working video with Brad/Chris/Tara talking it up, but couldn't get sound working (thats what I get for trying to be fancy). For those interested, here's a link to a Florida Creatives post with the embed of the video. Also, here is the direct link to the Coworking-Orlando google group. Suggestions for future barcamps:
Probably going to need a bigger venue ;) More space for side chats would be nice. Side room worked well, but there were a lot of us.
More interactive presentations, less talk-at-you presentations. It's barcamp. Joke around, interact, ask questions of the speakers and from the audience. Heckle. If I had any complaint, it'd probably be that. I can only take so much powerpoint.
Might want to break up the lightning talks/full on presentations and intermix them. Change the pace around to keep people active.
Overall though, a very successful first barcamp.
But wait, there's more! The week is not done yet.
Registration ends Monday at 10pm for blogOrlando. A bunch of great speakers from all over the country are coming here this week for an unconference Friday at Rollins College. It'll be a great time. I'll be leading a session on the local scene. Things I plan on discussing -- likemind, Florida Creatives, coworking, user groups, barcamp, local tech startups, community building/expanding, general Orlando/Central Florida/Middle Florida discussion. My buddy Alex Hillman will by flying down, which gives us a great opportunity to ask coworking related questions. I'd love it if you could join us :)
Black is too hot. White is too lame. Gold is just right.
"Vegas gold" is the official gold for UCF, but I'd imagine anything yellow will work. On the cameras, it will all blend together anyhow. Spread the word.
Brevard county now has its own FloridaCreatives.com group, thanks to the initiative taken by Lawrence. We even have a logo that doesn't look like the second life logo (hah, couldn't resist Ryan.)
Since I came back to Orlando from DC, it's been obvious to me that there is a growing tech scene here in town. It's always been here, but for whatever reason things started mobilizing and coming together over the last couple of years.
Johannes Grenzfurthner from MonoChrom (or maybe Boing Boing would be a better reference for some of you..) will be talking/presenting on some of their recent projects at Red Light Red Light tonight out in Winter Park.
Is there any particularly good reason why O-Rock and 740 both disappeared?
I believe that dissent is patriotic. 
"Bush = Hitler," really? Don't you see how that makes you come across as not only ignorant of world history, but also as a little bit looney? On one hand, we have Hitler. The definition of all that is evil. A murderer of tens of millions of people. Someone hell bent on the complete domination of Europe by a largely inferior Germany and smart enough to have had a realistic chance of it until the rest of the world came together in their own defense. The man was systematically attempting to erase an entire race of people. On the other hand, we have Bush. He responded to an attack that took place on domestic soil in a controversial way after he was given a blank check by a dual-party congress elected (and re-elected) by the American people. We're not sure if he can read.
Wow. What a great event. Gregg, Jason, and everyone else (update: larry!) who put in the time and effort to pull this thing off -- massive props.
