Category: Events

Refresh the Triangle at Carrboro Creative Coworking

Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 from 6:30pm to 8pm Carrboro Creative Coworking will be hosting Refresh the Triangle. This is a great meetup that I’ve been to several times. (Not nearly as often as I’d like though.) Each time I’ve learned something valuable and met great people. We’ll have free pizza and drinks too.

Our topic is Unearthed Arcana for Web People. From the Refresh website:

Clinton Nixon, senior developer at Viget Labs, will present and facilitate this talk about how to avoid trivial, repetitive tasks and increase your productivity with your computer. We’ll cover both software you already have, and free/cheap software you might not. If you’ve got a tip of your own, bring it! We’ll have some free time to share at the end.

Check out all our events on our Google Calendar. Many more on the way!

RTP Startup Weekend is Tomorrow

Looking forward to attending the RTP Startup Weekend in Raleigh’s Edge Office tomorrow. Friday evening appears to be a kickoff to narrow down ideas. The real head down work and hardcore fun begins Saturday.

Wondering what a Startup Weekend is? Here’s the low down. People call it “Jazz for entrepreneurs”. Bascially we’re going to make some sort of web app company in two and half days. Nuts sounding I know. 🙂

Today I found an interview with Jess Martin, one of the local organizers of RTP Startup Weekend. Its on the North Carolina Startups Blog. (Thanks for link @waynesutton!) Interesting questions and answers. I too wana see our disparate tech communities work together. Most importantly party together!

I hoping we make a iPhone app this weekend. Hopefully something that leverages existing public domain data and puts it in peoples hands via mobile networks. But I’m also still looking for the killer app for Peer-2-Peer mobile social networks. I’d like to see a way for us to share media we make with each other bypassing other networks all together. Ad hoc data sharing via wifi devices. Its robust, hyper-hyper-local, and will scale like crazy.

Bottom line is it has to be SIMPLE. Less is More. 140 characters is enough. Ya know Zen code Jazz baby!

myncCamp – TV Station does a BarCamp

Before BarCamp RDU gets here there is another event with a serious Bay Area guest. Its called myncCamp and its sponsored by NBC17. (Get more info on the myncCamp wiki.) They have a new portal website called mync.com. The station is soliciting input and is going about it in a very cool way. By holding a barcamp style meeting. Plus the very smart and inspirational Tara Hunt is coming to NC!

The point of myncCamp is to get the members of the local RDU area (and beyond…everyone is welcome) to discuss what they are working on and what NBC-17 could do better for the community at large. We will discuss anything you think is pertinent to helping the experience of living in NC even more awesome.

Some helpful areas may be to look at how other hubs of community around the US are gelling. Could NBC-17 help out with that? Perhaps you are working on something cool like Coworking or a startup that may be able to partner up? Whatever it is, we’d love to have you come out and share. If nothing else, it will be an awesome day to just get to know one another better.

I’m impressed for a few reasons. One is inviting Tara Hunt to help. She’s been very inspirational to me. It was the work of her and others that got me interested in coworking. Their office Citizen Space has really influenced me. They are a big reason I started Carrboro Coworking. I am so very grateful to her. Plus she has a interesting new book called The Whuffie Factor that’s about to come out. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Another reason is because Wayne Stutton is involved. He works for NBC17 and has done great things with local new media journalism at the Local Conversations blog. The station really took a step in the right direction when they hired Wayne and other community content managers. Its built major community trust I think.

update: I honestly don’t know how this event will be conducted. Barcamp style? unconference style? traditional event style?

BarCamp RDU 2008

Registration for BarCamp RDU is open. Go over to the wiki and ad your name to the list. (I did) This event is one of the best techie unconferences. We start the day with pitches for session ideas. Then the group organizes the sessions into time slots. Finally we break up into groups and learn from each other. Food and coffee is also involved. All of this at Red Hat’s headquarters in Raleigh. Lots of fun. Great opportunity to meet folks and LEARN. Even if you don’t consider yourself a blogger or a techie… GO!

i.e. Planning a BarCamp, BarCamp 2007 was great!

North Carolina Tech Events

If you are organizing a tech event, big or small, in North Carolina you should promote it on SocialCarolina.org. This is a free site that a few volunteers are putting together. Its goal is to “Connect the Community to Events”. Simple.

To submit an event lets us know about it with our contact form or via email at events [at] socialcarolina dot org.

You can get event updates on Twitter here www.twitter.com/rdch/ and subscribe to the google calendar.

NCSBC 2008: Open Science Session Video

Part 1 of 4Here is around 80 minutes of video I shot at the 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. This session’s full title is Open Science: how the Web is changing the way science is done, written and published. The discussion leader was Dr.Hemai Parthasarathy (former editor at Nature and PLoS). Because of length and file size I split it up into four parts. Enjoy and please share on your site. You can get the embed code on the blip.tv video pages linked to bellow. I’m working on video for the Blogging public health/medicine session.

NCSBC 2008: Open Science Session
Part 1 of 4

Part 2 of 4

Part 3 of 4

Part 4 of 4

Coworking at our house Tomorrow

Get stuff done at our house. 9am to 5pm. Thursday Dec. 20. Free WiFi, Coffee, and Lunch! Come meet new folks and expand your business network. Contact me for directions.

Join the Google Group for the latest on Carrboro Coworking. Soon to be a coworking space in downtown Carrboro, NC. Learn more at CarrboroCoworking.com.

This is a regular event every First and Third Thursday. (Except Jan. 3, 2008. Not looking like a good day for us.) 🙂

Video: Why Jim Neal is going to Win

I went to a fundraiser for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal. Shot a some video of him speaking. Its so great to have a progressive North Carolina Democrat running against Sen. Dole. I hope to get some more video of him as he campaigns. Stay tuned. (BTW… I donated my time and energy to produce this.)

Here is a full rez Mov file. JimNealforsenate120907.mov

Techies Building Community in RDCH

So I told you about the creation of SocialCarolina.org the other day. Its a google calendar and blog about local tech events here in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area. (That includes Cary, Carrboro, RTP, Morrisville, etc.)

Well.. some of the coolest events recently have been happening at the new Refresh the Triangle. They are organized by the folks over at Viget Labs. A new web design consultancy in Durham. Last night they had an event. Sadly I couldn’t attend. Next time hopefully.

So far there are seven people who can add events to this calendar. Today I added Peyton Crump to that list. He’s the Creative Director over at Viget Durham.

I’m blogging about this seeming mundane activity because I think its a milestone. Why? COLLABORATION! A bunch of cool people who organize amazing events are working together to inform a ton of people.

You would think this would be an easy thing to do. What with all the web 2.0 collab software out there. But… its not. I mean try to get a bunch of people to meet on a regular basis. Its hard. Syncing individual schedules is tricky. A group calendar is a good step towards making this easier.

In some ways the fractured nature of community is ok. Individuality is an important concept. We all have individual lives. But the concept of community is important too. I’m looking for a balance between the two.

To see the desire of people to get together and build community is awesome. We can all benefit from our collective intelligence. The more we come in contact with each other the smart we all become.

We have so much going on around here and lots more ways to find out about it. Very exciting times to be living in this part of North Carolina!

Props to the Refresh the Triangle folks for making a cool website for their events. Social Carolina isn’t a unique idea. I’m glad many of us are on the same page.