Web Geekup
I’d like to pull the discussion of the possibility of Des Moines area web geekup together here. Interested in ideas for places, times, etc. and the kind of stuff people would be interested in.
The basic idea is this:
• Meeting of primarily web folks working in web development, design and management
• Sharing ideas on methods, ideas, technologies, etc.
• Venue should encourage interaction and sharing (connection if we think it’s needed, power, drinks, light, etc.)
• Open to anyone, think of it as a learning exchange
• No formal agenda but if we want to have ‘topics’ that would be great so people can pick and choose when they want to come
Anything else people want to add is wide open. I have no ownership outside of wanting to make this a reality. I realized at the last tweetup there’s a strong community of people who know their craft and just want to geek out/hack with them. Help my dream come true won’t you?
I’m all for it. We just need a venue and a few dates. It almost seems like this is something that could benefit from the coworking opportunities that are emerging or some sort of an evening Jelly session, much like the #dmjelly that happened last week.
A jelly session sounds good.
My idea for a DEMO style Jelly…
We get a projector and let everybody present a few projects they are working on. The audience will be a soundboard to tell you how stupid or great your idea is. They will be able to offer feedback, criticisms, ideas.
I know for a one-man shop it’s hard to get feedback to projects I work on until they are released. If my idea is stupid or I am going in the wrong direction I would like to know before I waste weeks building something.
I think this kind of jelly would facilitate a lot of tech talk / debate / idea sharing / etc…
Just a thought!
Great idea! The #dmJelly last week showed that their is interest and most had flexibility in their schedules to make it happen. I would love to see hack sessions with something is not only discussed but created… ultimately this was my hope for a coworking spot and hopefully the Shipton’s can provide an update. If needed I would also be open to hosting from time to time.
Andy - right that’s the sorta setup I think would make sense. Showing projects, etc. I’m speaking later this summer so walking through my presentation would be great. I’m not sure about timing - day or evening. We can play that out though.
Yeah I think the co-working and jelly stuff that has happened and is going to happen will play a large part in filling this need but also maybe some scheduled meet ups would be good as well.
Went looking and found this - http://barcamp.org/DemoCamp
All of these ideas sound great. As for an update: Location we had been working on fell through and was obtained by someone else last week. Went looking again this week in the area just west of downtown. Found two nice locations. Putting another letter of intent together asap. Parking and building options are much west of downtown than in the East Village.
I’m very interested. I’ve wanted to do some co-working or jelly type work but my projects are freelance and have to be outside of normal working hours. A web-media tweetup would be fun.
I can steal a projector from work if needed. I suppose I need to hash out some thoughts on projects other than getting my own personal blog up and running too.
Also, I’m down for any night except wednesday.
All of this is good stuff - I’ll see what works and post a proposed time and place on upcoming and we can go from there. This could really work well. Thanks everyone for the interest - down the road I think this is a perfect fit with the dsmcoworking folks, until then we’ll make it work another way.
hell yes. this is a great start.
i’ve been talking with some friends about getting something like this started in the des moines area as well.
mostly because i’m super jealous of my chicago friends with their tech cocktails, etc.
what do you think about a group name that is more location oriented? and does the group have to be married to web development?
i think that being open to all forms of creative development would be awesome… which will probably be 90% web development, of course. but what about creative development with phone apps, chat client plugins, etc?
i’m derek brooks, btw.
i’m a ruby on rails developer full time, but a php developer in my free time… and i loves me some mashups.
i’ve also done plenty of enterprise development with java, .net, etc… but i’m outta that game due to corporate app lameness.
i’ve started a #dmtechtalk irc channel on efnet where we could try to collaborate and come up with a better name than #dmtechtalk…
if yall are interested.
Please check out DSMwebgeeks.com for more info and updates!