Ryan Price and myself moderated a discussion amongst local area technology/new meda leaders yesterday at blogorlando. Last year in this session, we covered the many reasons why Orlando has the potential to develop into a wonderful technology scene. This year, we as a group got to discuss all the many efforts taking place now to help make it happen.

Enjoy, and thanks to the folks who came and shared, and especially to the guy in the back with the fancy camera that captured it :)

Free TV : Ustream

BlogOrlando 2008 -- Silly Putty from Judson on Vimeo.

Woot!

For those who haven't been the last two years, this is a great event. A little more structured than traditional unconferences with the same unconference conversations and speakers from all over.

Rollins College, Sept. 25th-27th. The 27th being the 'main event' (a saturday, which is somewhat of a departure from the last couple of years where it was held on fridays)

Read more / Check it out!

UPDATE: Registration now open!

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.

Check it out.

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.

Yep.

See you there ;)

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 :)

12:30pm out at Taste. Bring a couple cans of food for donation :)

Everyone's favorite monthly Monday happy hour is tonight over at Crooked Bayou in downtown Orlando. You can expect a handful of us creative types drinking some beer and eating some tater tots.

6pm-ish until whenever people peace out.

Our monthly coffee meetup is tomorrow morning at 8am. This time, instead of Panera, we're meeting at a new shop near Magnolia and Robinson, next door to Kinko's, called B&S Daily Market. Great little place, cool owner, and free wifi. Here's a map There's all sorts of cheap metered parking in the area, more so than what's available over by Panera. Shouldn't cause as many parking tickets ;)

Our monthly Likemind meet up is this Friday,July 20th, at 8am over at the Downtown Panera. :)

Typically, us work-from-home folks stick around afterwards for an informal "co-working" type scenerio. If you're up for it, plan on hanging out until early afternoon. It's a great location with decent food, free internet and fun company!