So the Austin30.org crew hit up the GeekAustin/Drupal event last night at and we have to say, it was an awesome time. Four Kitchens gave a great talk about Drupal and it’s enterprise/non-profit capabilities. They discussed user tracking and organizational aspects of drupal which was quite impressive. I would like to thank Lynn once again for hosting the event, we all had a wonderful time.
Most fittingly, we received a tip on this upcoming charity event from the folks at Austin Browncoats.
According to their site,
We strive to make all of our charity drives a fun-filled gathering with entertainment and great company.
At Austin 3.0, we respond with a cheerful - hell yes.
Geekstravaganza looks to be an entertaining night with musical acts (Marian Call), an All-Geek Talent Show, All-Nerd Costume contest and Sci-Fi SAT.
This charity geekfest unites Geeks, Nerds and Browncoats alike to raise money for SafePlace in their goal to end sexual and domestic violence through safety, healing, prevention and social change.
Bringing nerds together for a good cause is something worth celebrating..or blogging.
Deets:
CloudCamp Austin is happening this coming weekend, make sure you stop by. It will be hosted at the ACTLab, from what I hear there will be all types of folks there. Stay tuned!
IT Administrators will soon become the new blue collar workforce. Like licensed plumbers of today, IT workers of the near future will primarily be called on to fix problems after they have occurred, the cubicle will become the new white van and the on call pager will finally be rewarded with time and a half instead of the salaried pat on the back. This is not an attempt to belabor the tired “series of tubes” metaphor that former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens choked up during a Senate committee hearing; I am instead interested in the shifting perception of the personal computer as a piece of specialized work equipment to an information appliance.
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So Dustin and I made the voyage over to Bryan, Tx, as well as Texas A&M (which we came to learn are two totally different places). I had a contact at A&M, a Professor in media studies, Patrick Burkart, who set us up with a slew of talks and meetings to go to in order to orient ourselves with the campus. Our first meeting was a talk about metadata systems and modeling, which at times proved very interesting, especially when the idea of doing qualitative/quantitative analysis of twittering came up. But I digress…. (into academia boredom!)
Emerging from our meetings, Dustin and I came away with a new respect for academia in A&M, while also wondering why the engineering buildings seemed to be 10-100X nicer then all the other buildings 
We then met with Patrick where we talked about his upcoming book about hacktivism, cyberliberties and evidently the ACTLab (at least a little, here’s hoping!). We then headed over to The Creative Space in Bryan, Tx where we met with Cody and Bill. Here is a short interview I did with Bill about the vibe of The Creative Space.
After showing us around, the Creative Space people took us to dinner. A couple days before our trip Cody informed me he was organizing the first DorkBot BCS meet and invited Dustin and I to present a project or two. Never ones to turn down a good Dorkbot, Dustin and I showed up with some cool ACTLab hardware projects based around homebrew amplifiers and hard drive speakers. To say the least the crowd was impressed and we were impressed by the crowd. There was some great energy that night.
So yeah, BCS was a good time and if you are ever in their neck of the woods make sure you drop by and say hi to Patrick at A&M and Cody and the gang at The Creative Space.
How does a paradigm change in society? It happens one funeral at a time ..
Finally had the opportunity to make it out to a RISE event this week. Albeit, it was the closing ceremony, I did have the pleasure of listening to John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods elaborate on his perspective of entrepreneurship and business strategy.
Back tracking a bit, for those who are not aware of Relationship & Information Series for Entrepreneurs (RISE) Austin, no worries. Only in its third year, several have described this year’s conference to be the best yet. RISE co-founder, Roy Sosa, proclaimed that this year’s conference saw 133 sessions, over 1600 attendees and over 50 percent growth from last year in session attendance.
Not too shabby for a three-year old un-conference-conference.
Closing the conference out at the Bob Bullock History Museum, the crowd ranged in ages, experience and industries. It was great to see such a diverse crowd. Fittingly, tonight’s speech was a good reminder of that slight twinge of Austin “weirdness” that lends itself to all facets of this city’s culture.
After schmoozing and food, Mackey took the stage and presented his theory of Conscious Capitalism. In a nutshell, businesses of the 21st century will survive and succeed if they adopt the following:
Mackey poses the question: What is your purpose?
He defines the four great purposes of any successful business as the following:
Mackey brings up an excellent point that people now expect more from their jobs - not only to make money but to also feel good about what they do. It goes without saying that this economic situation has become a catalyst for this realization. Perhaps all the buzz of a recession sparking innovation is indeed truth.
So will entrepreneurs of the future really adopt this business practice? And, will Austin, as Sosa predicts, be the entreprenuer capitol of the world? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
Looks like this weekend is shaping up to be a busy one for those in the start-up community. Two events are on the horizon for Friday and Saturday.
First up - the Corporate Social Responsibility Conference. Hosted at the Applied Materials offices, this conferences targets entrepreneurs and managers to discuss best practices, collaboratively advise, and elevate conversations regarding corporate social responsibility. Registration for members $25; non-member $65. For more info, check out the details here.
Second - Startup Camp is being held this Saturday from 1pm - 6pm in the ACTLab (Studio 4B) at the University. The session schedule includes an appearance from Josh Baer, who will be discussing how Capital Factory can give your startup money, mentorship, and services to get your startup off the ground
Sex-dub is fast approaching. Actually, it’s less than three weeks away and already, my email/facebook/upcoming etc has been inundated with party invites galore.
Not going to attempt to list everything I’ve already RSVPed for - but as soon as sched.org has it ready to go - you can rest assured I’ll have that posted.
For now, SXSW is hosting an Austin Party on Monday, February 23 at Shangri-La on the East Side. Starts at 7:00pm. There will be free drinks, food, music and a chance to win a SXSWi badge.
RSVP! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=49937058357
Check out the video featuring your’s truly. If you can hold out til the end, when the camera is “off” - it’s much more exciting content.
Thanks to Corey (@tronovision) for convincing me that being on camera was a solid idea…NOT!
Austin tech scene according to a somebody and a nobody from Tronovision on Vimeo.
So it is time again for StartUpCamp Austin 2009. Brandon Wiley and myself (Joey), along with the help of many others will be putting it on in the ACTLab. We hope to have a great turn out like last time. So be sure to sign up. Unlike many other barcamps, this one is a half day event, that is right you get to sleep in 
