blue shift

Atlanta Coworking: Ignition Alley

2009-10-09T01:38:29-04:00

Those of you who keep tabs on me via Twitter and Facebook know that I've been in Phoenix, Arizona for the past 6 weeks working on a supersecret project. While over here, I've been hanging out a little bit at Gangplank; the local coworking space I've been hearing so much about over the past few months. My verdict? It's a super nice place to work, the community is Awesome (with a capital 'A'), and Atlanta totally needs something like it!

And it looks like I'm in luck, because while I've been gone @timdorr, @mikeschinkel, with the support of a bunch of other Awesome people (with another capital 'A') have set up a dedicated coworking space specifically for entrepreneurs, creatives, and anyone else in Atlanta who wants in on the magic of coworking! And it has a super cool name to boot: Ignition Alley.

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It's pretty centrally located between Midtown and Virginia Highlands, and is easily accessible from Freedom Parkway, Ponce de Leon, and North Avenue. Seems like a great spot to be if you want to get in on the action going on at other places in the city (such as gatech) before coming back to work with your co-coworkers.

After seeing how amazing Gangplank has acted as a community catalyst for technology entrepreneurs in Phoenix, I'm superexcited (SUPEREXCITED!) to be coming back home and have a brand spankin' new coworking community to be a part of!

Announcing Splinter{Labs}

2009-09-02T01:10:42-04:00

You can tell this blog post is serious because for once I'm utilizing capital letters in the title. I'll keep this one relatively short and sweet.

I'd like to announce the creation of Splinter{Labs}!

Splinter{Labs} is my new meta-project! More specifically, it will be the umbrella for all future projects (both big and small) I take on, as well as an invitation for others to come play in the sandbox and perhaps even start their own projects! As of this post, there are currently three {Lab}Rats including myself who make up the primary Control Group. (pun intended)

Splinter{Labs} is envisioned as a collaborative space that initially takes the form of a group blog and will ideally grow to include a number of physical workspaces and groups.

It's an experiment in online intentional community building, social storytelling through the documentation of art, technology, and culture creation (plus creative destruction), and a place to learn about all sorts of awesome stuff through hands-on experience.

If ever in my life I should be accused of building a cult, this would (hopefully) be it.

Check it out! Read the FAQ and introductory blog post, and become one of our {Lab}Rats!

thoughts on storytelling

2009-07-31T14:43:01-04:00

I have to be honest. Storytelling is pretty much the biggest thing on my mind nowadays.

Storytelling is an intrinsic characteristic of just about everything we as humans do. It acts as a bridge between ideas, memories, people, societies, the old and the new, human-computer interaction, the tedium of science, and our relationships with the gods. Storytelling is the means by which we communicate understanding to others, and perhaps more importantly to ourselves.

Storytelling is all about that meta-contextualization! And it may very well be the most important thing in the world. As far as I can tell it's not speech that makes us human, but the stories we're able to tell with speech (and any other medium we can get our hands on or create) that most nearly captures not only the spirit of who and what we are, but who or what we can become.

So I contemplate the narratives that exist in our society, and the narratives woven in and around my life.. and I've come to a conclusion. I'm going to spend the rest of my life learning to become a better storyteller. I'd even go so far as to say you should too.

Becoming a better storyteller isn't just about telling people better stories about other people, but telling yourself better stories about yourself. It's about weaving your personal story in and out of other stories, and then weaving other people's stories together in ways they never even considered.

This isn't just esoteric, psychological, feel good stuff. Storytelling is more then just the message, it's also the medium. And we have all these newfangled digital mediums with which we convey ourselves, our hopes, dreams, brands, altruistic endeavors, belief in higher ideals, and the practical tedium that makes the world go around and puts food on our tables. In the meantime, many of us have lost the art of effectively presenting ourselves and our worlds to other people. Let alone do so via new 21st century media.

It's no wonder so many people seem so unhappy. If you have no control over your own personal story, nor an accurate understanding of how the world around you works, everything can seem like a struggle. And that becomes the story you become a character in.

This brings us to two related modern myths: first, technology exists to make things easier, and second, technology is inherently dehumanizing. The first isn't a bad myth. In fact, I'd agree with the sentiment that laziness is the mother of invention and that this isn't a bad thing. In fact, innovation is one of the key drivers of economic growth! It creates new process, new knowledge, new jobs (while often cutting out legacy jobs that are no longer needed), and generates new experiences from which to tell new stories. It doesn't make us less than we are, it makes us more than we were. (A corollary to this is that innovation also creates more work rather than less.)

And so I have to reiterate my strong conviction that technology doesn't dehumanize us, it makes us more human. Rather, it's the bad storytelling that accompanies technology that dehumanizes us. We've lost sight of our ability to think mythologically about things and so our technology, business processes, daily interactions, etc often lack that human narrative we so desperately need.

And the solution to these sorts of problems must always begin with personal narrative. It's this personal narrative that I've been trying to figure out. How do I present myself and interact in relation to others? What is my relationship with this technology that increasingly permeates our lives, and how can live in harmony with it to meet and perhaps try to exceed my maximum potential? How do I tell my own story so that it connects with the stories of others in meaningful, personal, financially gainful, altruistic, and fun ways?

I've got some ideas, but the answer is in the execution and experience of them. And medium is just as important as message.

making peach flavored kool-aid

2009-06-19T22:44:58-04:00

Last night I attended the Atlanta Web Entrepreneur's Meetup on the state of Atlanta's Startup Ecosystem. Scott Burkett and Mike Blake of StartupLounge presented and followed with a call to action and open discussion on their proposal to strengthen this community.

Let me back up three years. In 2006 I was working with Sherry Heyl at What a Concept! (now Concept Hub). It was through Sherry that I began to receive an introduction and crash course into the Atlanta business community: who's who, how it operated, etc. To my dismay I saw a community that was very much traditional business with no clue about social media or how it was changing the way business works at fundamental levels. Having been primarily exposed to Silicon Valley's culture, it was a bit of a shock to me to meet the 20th century in 2006. And there was barely a startup community to speak of: at least not one I would recognize.

Since then, social media has taken over Atlanta (as it has the rest of the world), and there seems to be exponentially more activity as individuals all over the city have been empowered by social media and the relationships they've been able to build as a result.

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the past year and a half and have only recently returned to the local 'startup scene' to see what's new. And what I see is fantastic! Not only is there a growing community of entrepreneurs, it seems there is a conversation that has picked up critical mass about taking it to the next level! Leading of course to last night's discussion where Scott and Mike pitched their vision for how we can take this community to the next level: The 'Atlanta Startup Cloud'.

For more of a summary on last night's event check out @urvaksh's ABC article. (Let me know if there are other summary blog posts I can add here.)

There were a number of ideas flying last night about building an online community space, mentorship, education, coworking, culture, legal concerns, finding resources, and a number of other topics. What really resonated with me was the fact that what was being proposed was creating some new cultural patterns in Atlanta.

As I said during the discussion, we need to create our own flavor of kool-aid. (Peach kool-aid!) We're not Silicon Valley, so we have to discover what works for us. And beyond leadership in education and mentorship within the community, we need to introduce some straight up indoctrination!

If a new entrepreneur approaches someone plugged into the 'Atlanta Startup Cloud', that person should be able to give them a quick rundown of this city works and how they can both contribute to and gain from the community.

Last night I brought up the topic of core values, and yes there were some eyes rolling. (Eyes always roll!) But core values are none the less important. Last night was a meeting about leadership, and it's up to everyone who has an interest in growing the Atlanta startup ecosystem to take up the burden of leadership. In order for this to be successful, a discussion of core values must be had. While discussing this with a few people last night, a joke was cracked about creating a mission statement for this project. I loved Scott's reply: it's not a mission statement that's needed, but a manifesto!

So, what is the manifesto for the Atlanta Startup Cloud? How should the entrepreneurial community in this city operate, and how can each of us as individuals, budding startups, and support organizations within this ecosystem contribute towards the success of all of us? What are the values that are going to drive this thing, and propel this discussion to the next level of action?