Postcards From My Life

Dear Reader,

We are taking the CoderFaire show and hitting the road!

This time we are headed to Atlanta, GA. This past week, Jacques, Kathy, and I, along with our friends Kevin Roberts and Chris Spruck announced CoderFaire Atlanta. A two day conference and hack-a-thon, April 20-21, 2013.

Today we are announcing that the Call for Papers is now open. We will accept submissions from now until Midnight EST, March 17th. Thats’ 2 whole weeks to get your ideas together and get them submitted.

CoderFaire Nashville was an awesome time and fanned the tech flame already burning in Nashville. We want to do the same thing in Atlanta, but we need your help. CoderFaire is a hyper-local conference. All the speakers will come for the Atlanta area. All talks will be selected by a group of Atlanta User Group leaders. This is a conference all about showcasing Atlanta’s tech community.

Regardless of your programming language, favorite operating system, or favorite editor, if you are in the Atlanta area, you don’t want to miss that 2 day event. So get involved.

Either
Submit your talks
or
Register Today

Don’t wait though, get involved today!

Until next time,
I <3 |<
=C=

Dear Reader,

Day Camp 4 Developers #4: Business 101 for Developers is coming up March 3rd, 2012. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, you need to grab then now!

I LOVE hosting DC4D events; they are fun. I know all the speakers personally, I know how much fun they have preparing and presenting their talks. I know a lot of the attendees as well, I know how much fun they have by just hanging out in the irc room and watching the conversation. Everybody involved in DC4D has fun; but everyone, speakers, attendees and me, all learn things too.

One of my passions in life is helping developers and DC4D is just another way that I try to help. This time DC4D helps developers learn business skills that they need whether they are on a team or freelance.

Join Lorna Jane Mitchell, Jacques Wookdock, Tara Aaron, John Mertic, and Paul M. Jones on March 3rd for a day of learning.

Day Camp 4 Developers; invest a day in your career.

Until next time,
I <3 |<
=C=

Dear Representative Jim Cooper, Senator Lamar Alexander, & Senator Bob Corker

When it comes time to vote on SOPA or PIPA, don’t forget…

…we are watching.

Until next time,
I <3 |<
=C=

p.s. For more information on why SOPA is bad legislation, see my post “A Business Person’s SOPA Primer“

Dear Reader,

I saw another story this morning. This time it was London trying to be the next Silicon Valley. They always have a new variation on the name those, this one was Silicon Roundabout. I know you’ve seen these articles, they explain why [INSERT CITY HERE] is prime to be the next technology hotbed and repeat the success of San Francisco – San Jose.

Stop! We don’t need another Silicon Valley. What we need is something new. If all you can do is mimic what others are doing then are you really adding anything to the world? We don’t need another Silicon Valley, we don’t need another Facebook, what we need is for someone to create something totally new.

Nashville is a focal point for creative people. We have a strong Music and Publishing industry here and each year more and more creative people make Nashville their home. We’ve also got a burgeoning technology startup community. it’s not huge yet but a lot of people in and outside of Nashville see potential. Our goal should not, however, be to create the next Silicon Valley. (Or the next Austin or god forbid, the next Atlanta) We are unique in the world and we need to nurture and grow our special community. Here in Nashville, we combine technology, content and creativity. Let’s find our own identity.

Let’s let other cities try to create the next Nashville!

Until next time,
I <3 |<
=C=

Dear Reader,

This morning, I watched the live blog of the Amazon Kindle rollout. There were a lot of interesting things shown but the one that caught my eye was Amazon Silk. Amazon Silk is their new browser for the Kindle. I won’t try and explain it, invest 5 minutes and watch the video.
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