Meetup

[Crawford Comeaux]

Greetings LFTDevNet,

Since we first introduced the DevNet concept a year ago we've had a
number of good meetings and events bringing together a cross-section
of Lafayette's developer community.

We're writing to you today to start the process of taking this idea to
the next level through FiberCorps.

FiberCorps is the new non-profit founded to energize the Lafayette
community to be the hub of fiber-powered innovation. FiberCorps has
hired me on in part to have someone dedicated to developing the DevNet
on an ongoing basis.

This post is intended to spark a conversation over what we all think
the DevNet can and should be in terms of helping encourage the
development of applications in and around Lafayette.

To get things started, here's a Who, Why, and What framing how we're
envisioning growing DevNet.

Who - Everyone involved in creating applications, including:

- coders

- techs

- designers

- project managers

- dev shop owners

- testers

- tech writers

- marketers


Why - To unify and support Lafayette's development ecosystem by:

- Building a comprehensive network of Lafayette's app development
professionals

- Establishing a comprehensive directory of local talent for those in
need of app development services

- Creating business development opportunities for Lafayette's app
development professionals

- Providing opportunities for the community to come together to build
apps for Lafayette


What - Events, projects, and promotions that develop Lafayette's app
development ecosystem, including:

- Monthly social and/or brainstorming meetups

- Regular educational events with speakers

- Promotional efforts to encourage local investment in building apps

- A series of hackathons focused on building community applications


This framing is intended to spark discussion as much as define this
group's future. We want everyone's input on how we can make this
endeavor a huge success for all involved.

To this end, we're going to have a planning meeting on Monday, April 4
at Rivals Sports Grill at the corner of Jefferson & Johnston from 6-8
PM. Food & drinks will be available for purchase. We ask that anyone
who's interested in being part of this initiative to come on out and
join in on the conversation. Here's the meetup.com link:

http://meetu.ps/Pmhf

On a final note, while the goal is to have a quantifiable impact on
bettering all of our lives, we also want to keep things fun and
inclusive.

To that end, we'd like to change the name from LFTDevNet to AppSquad.
We've found that "DevNet" is a name that tends to turn away anyone who
doesn't consider themselves to be a coder, whereas AppSquad will be
defined as an organization for everyone involved in building apps. So
we're going to change the name of this Google Group unless there's an
uproar against this new name.

There's a ton more to discuss, and we'll be following this email with
others updating you all on some great progress we're making on related
fronts, but for now we'll leave things with a thanks to everyone who's
participated in LFTDevNet to date, and an encouragement to not just
attend the meeting but also to share this email with anyone and
everyone you think should be part of AppSquad.

If you have any questions or comments going into our meeting, please
feel free to speak up!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and we're looking forward to
see everyone soon!

Crawford Comeaux

[Raymond Camden]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Crawford Comeaux
<craw...@fibercorps.com> wrote:
> To that end, we'd like to change the name from LFTDevNet to AppSquad.
> We've found that "DevNet" is a name that tends to turn away anyone who
> doesn't consider themselves to be a coder, whereas AppSquad will be
> defined as an organization for everyone involved in building apps. So
> we're going to change the name of this Google Group unless there's an
> uproar against this new name.

I don't really see how "App" connotes anything less techy, but I'm not
terribly opposed to it. Will there be no "LFT" in it?

[Ryan LeTulle]

.. and if it ever gets big we would have Apple to deal with ;)

Ryan LeTulle

> bayousoft -twitter

[Andre Alfred]

You will dilute the conversation to where you will only be talking about high level concepts.  If you did change the name and mission,  I would still recommend events for likeminded people to meet (otherwise known as special interest groups.)  Otherwise it will be so watered down that the technologists will lose interest.

Speaking from experience.  Thanks,

On Mar 30, 2011 4:00 PM, "Ryan LeTulle" <bayo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> .. and if it ever gets big we would have Apple to deal with ;)

> *
>
> Ryan LeTulle*
>
>> bayousoft <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> -twitter

[Geoff Daily]

I think Andre brings up a good point and we definitely do want to create an environment for like-minded people to congregate. Part of our thinking, though, is that we want AppSquad to be something that feeds into the user groups rather than compete with them for attention. We also want it to be a way for everyone involved in app development to come together and explore new opportunities. 

Striking that balance between keeping technologists interested and engaged while not excluding less technical types will be a significant challenge. But our hope is that most of our events will either feature speakers of interest to everyone involved in app development, or they'll focus this group's attention on building specific projects for the community. In this way everyone will have a way to participate and contribute.

But this is exactly the dialog we want to engage with all of you in to get your feedback on. We're now in a position to take this abstract concept of an organization devoted to supporting app development in Lafayette and transform it into a concrete support system for everyone on this list and beyond.

G

[Bryan Fuselier]

I think with Andre's point being made, perhaps this is a different group altogether. Every meeting I've been to with lftdevnet was at least 80% developers. The conversations were definitely more technical. However, I do know several of it's participants that would be interested in meeting with people to discuss higher level topics and bring to the table technical expertise.

I think a good option would be to create the appsquad and leave the devnet alone. 

The people who are interested in both will relay information between.

[Crawford Comeaux]

We've been discussing for the past week or so the idea of encouraging
smaller squads to develop within AppSquad to address exactly that
problem. Formats for general meetups would also be geared toward that
and other events could easily planned to support them, as well. Like
Geoff said, that's absolutely something we want to discuss Monday &
continue discussing in the future as membership diversifies.

> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:05 PM, Andre Alfred <aalf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> You will dilute the conversation to where you will only be talking about
> >> high level concepts.  If you did change the name and mission,  I would still
> >> recommend events for likeminded people to meet (otherwise known as special
> >> interest groups.)  Otherwise it will be so watered down that the
> >> technologists will lose interest.
>
> >> Speaking from experience.  Thanks,

> >> On Mar 30, 2011 4:00 PM, "Ryan LeTulle" <bayous...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > .. and if it ever gets big we would have Apple to deal with ;)
> >> > *
>
> >> > Ryan LeTulle*
>
> >> >> bayousoft <http://twitter.com/bayousoft> -twitter
>

> >> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Raymond Camden <rcam...@gmail.com>

[Andre Alfred]

So by definition you are going to create an overarching group which serves many IT communities.  This makes sense.  But I don't think renaming lftdevnet will get you to your goal.  Creating or inviting more special interest groups into the brand will.  Also I would think about the name - it needs to be inviting to the infrastructure side as well.  I've been putting together multi million dollar private cloud services in the past year, and they have a lot to contribute to this.

Anyway I am far far away but I enjoy these conversations and miss you guys.  Take care.

[Dane DeValcourt]

Whatever you do please don't make a "Geek Squad".

You guys still haven't solved all the cities problems yet and made an app that fully utilizes fiber? Shesh, what's taking so long?

I'll go ahead and enlighten the group on the killer fiber app, porn. Your welcome.

3D, virtual reality, content distribution, wonder if those LA movie tax breaks apply to the production of porn also? You could make Lafayette the porn capital. Film here, pre and post production and electronic delivery and so on.

After all, the Internet is for porn! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-TA57L0kuc

I'm sorry, needed a laugh.

Please return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

[Dane DeValcourt]

Agree with Alfred 100%

There needs to be something like an "ETUG", Enterprise Technology User Group.  All medium and large businesses and enterprises are focusing efforts on same things right now but in different ways or with different terms.

Virtualization, cloud, fabric, networking and so on.  Rather then a focused user group, Cisco or SQL or whatever.... Why not just "enterprise" related, tap into a wider audience, attract more interest in that tech sector as well.

All these companies in Lafayette and we all have to meet with and bring in vendors left and right for this or that dog and pony show, hard on the vendors and hard on the IT peeps who may not have heard about vendor xyz and missed and opportunity to learn. 

How about a centralized community effort to bring in vendors that or speakers that can introduce products to an interested group and reach a larger group than a one on one with some IT group.  Vendors would like that as they would make new contacts.  IT groups would like getting introduced to something they hadn't seen or heard or thought of before and Fibercorps or whoever will be able to reach a wider technical audience.

Just my .12

[Crawford Comeaux]

Alfred: I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "an overarching group
which serves
many IT communities. ", but it made me think of an overarching tech
group like Zydetech, which I think is too broad of a group (for now).
Could you clarify a little?

And hopefully we'll be luring you back into town soon enough!

On Mar 30, 4:19 pm, Andre Alfred <aalf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So by definition you are going to create an overarching group which serves
> many IT communities.  This makes sense.  But I don't think renaming
> lftdevnet will get you to your goal.  Creating or inviting more special
> interest groups into the brand will.  Also I would think about the name - it
> needs to be inviting to the infrastructure side as well.  I've been putting
> together multi million dollar private cloud services in the past year, and
> they have a lot to contribute to this.
>
> Anyway I am far far away but I enjoy these conversations and miss you guys.
> Take care.

[Andre Alfred]

Dane has a great post on what I meant to portray.

[Crawford Comeaux]

Dane:

1) I'll setup a sitdown with Dax Allen at LEDA to discuss the
pornification of Lafayette.
2) RE: "How about a centralized community effort to bring in vendors

that or speakers that can introduce products to an interested group
and reach a larger group than a one on one with some IT group.
Vendors would like that as they would make new contacts. IT groups
would like getting introduced to something they hadn't seen or heard
or thought of before and Fibercorps or whoever will be able to reach a
wider technical audience. "

That's part of what FiberCorps does via our Spotlight Events, but
within the domain of broadband applications, which spans numerous
industries. The only differences are the specific domain of operation
and that there isn't a named group for the business interests to join.
And based on the 6 months we've been operating, I can tell you that a
group that isn't working within a specific domain/industry would
require a lot of highly skilled/knowledgeable staff members and a ton
of funding.

On Mar 30, 4:40 pm, Dane DeValcourt <dane.devalco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Agree with Alfred 100%
>
> There needs to be something like an "ETUG", Enterprise Technology User Group.  All medium and large businesses and enterprises are focusing efforts on same things right now but in different ways or with different terms.
>
> Virtualization, cloud, fabric, networking and so on.  Rather then a focused user group, Cisco or SQL or whatever.... Why not just "enterprise" related, tap into a wider audience, attract more interest in that tech sector as well.
>
> All these companies in Lafayette and we all have to meet with and bring in vendors left and right for this or that dog and pony show, hard on the vendors and hard on the IT peeps who may not have heard about vendor xyz and missed and opportunity to learn.
>
> How about a centralized community effort to bring in vendors that or speakers that can introduce products to an interested group and reach a larger group than a one on one with some IT group.  Vendors would like that as they would make new contacts.  IT groups would like getting introduced to something they hadn't seen or heard or thought of before and Fibercorps or whoever will be able to reach a wider technical audience.
>
> Just my .12
>

> On Mar 30, 2011, at 4:19 PM, Andre Alfred <aalf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > So by definition you are going to create an overarching group which serves many IT communities.  This makes sense.  But I don't think renaming lftdevnet will get you to your goal.  Creating or inviting more special interest groups into the brand will.  Also I would think about the name - it needs to be inviting to the infrastructure side as well.  I've been putting together multi million dollar private cloud services in the past year, and they have a lot to contribute to this.
>
> > Anyway I am far far away but I enjoy these conversations and miss you guys.  Take care.
>

[Crawford Comeaux]

What you & Dane are referring to is a much broader idea, in that case.
I won't argue that such a group would meet many needs, I think those
goals kind of diverge from those of LFTDevNet/AppSquad.

On Mar 30, 4:48 pm, Andre Alfred <aalf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dane has a great post on what I meant to portray.

[Dane DeValcourt]

Thanks Andre.  This is something I've thought about and wanted to do for a long time due to the size of Lafayette.  It's hard to sustain small niche user groups out here, particularly with strong vendor support.

I could speak for hours on my ideas regarding this topic and how it benefits all.  Fibercorps has the potential to facilitate / coordinate and make something like this happen IMHO.

You will help IT professionals, local businesses, outside companies / vendors and help spread your name and mission to a larger group, possibly attract more of these businesses and vendors permanently to the community as well.

I could go on and on.

[Dane DeValcourt]

I'm speaking about ways to get fibercorp doing more for the community and helping both it (fibercorps) and the community.

Per the About section of Fibercorps website it's about utilization and innovation and the community.

Your last event was in Feb and looking ahead on the calendar I see nothing scheduled a few months out.

I just don't think the tech community is being fully engaged.

If other cities can pull off very small niche user groups on a specific technology there is no reason Fibercorps couldn't assist in doing the same but don't make it so niche.

Enterprise technology covers a huge realm, including app development.

Other then a couple of events, and some LFTAppDevNet or what ever it's called I just don't see things really happening.

I don't see the tech community and IT staffs getting engaged.

Hope you take this as constructive criticism in the hopes of helping, not just trying to be a curmudgeon.

[Crawford Comeaux]

Here's a basic little mind map to show kind of the basic relational
concept Geoff & I have in our minds: http://popplet.com/app/#/16260

If the layout makes things too difficult to grasp, let me know and
I'll rearrange things.

[Bryan Fuselier]

ok...it's been on my mind.... i'm gonna say it.

Lafayette is too small. Large markets benefit from sharing information in this manner because they have the population density.

95% of the dev shop owners/managers here in town will hear an idea from AppSquad, take it back to their office, put a team on it and monetize it asap. Hell even a one-man shop developer would do it if they have time. Heck I'm the kind of A-hole that would hear an idea, go find a suitable open source alternative and deploy it just to prove it doesn't need to be developed. I don't have the ambition to develop something to get to market first, so we won't have that issue if the app is a unique idea.

My belief is that the entrepreneurial mentality here will be the largest downfall. Until we get a larger portion of the tech population of the mentality of "don't own the product, own the service", I think we'll have this issue.

But I could be wrong.... I often am.

[Tyler Tallman]

Thanks for adding me to this list Crawford,

Here are a couple of ideas for programming.

For the developer, legal and enterprise I would love to see a showing of http://patentabsurdity.com/watch.html . If we invited a patent attorney to speak, and had a question and answer section it would be very helpful. Maybe not to the web dev shops, but probably to the oil and other enterprise folk. I know the video is kind of heavy handed, but it will spark conversation and a question and if you could convince an IP lawyer to do a question and answer. Giving him hopes to drum up future business I think you could really draw some people. 

For developers and this may be more of a small group things, but when you teach yourself a new technology it takes much more time than when you have someone experienced to teach it to you. I would love to set up sort of tech trades. For instance I have skill a,b,c will trade a training session fro e,f,g. 

Which by the way if anyone is and expert with HL7 or  zeromq forget trading I will pay you to teach me right now. My programmers are experts in some technologies like google closure( and plovr),dojo, web2py and slqalchemy I could either get of them or teach or give a lesson myself.

Pertaining to your app building aspirations the LFTDevnet could setup a github account and have a community build night. A coding sprint with a specific direction. Do not aim for big numbers just a group smaller than 5 and something they are all excited to build and try to do it on a saturday afternoon. I say invitation only because language groupies and people without real development skills kill anything with irrelevant banter. Even it it is 3 people it is a blast to build something real in the course of a day. It would be a real chance to see people program would also be a great thing for the companies to scope out talent. If you get a couple small groups building things you will get competition and people who come in from the fringe.

--
Tyler Tallman
Project Manager
Breeze EMR
(m) (337) 205-2142

[Andre Alfred]

Brian,

From my recent relocation I have noticed that participation is definitely a numbers game.  There are hundreds if not thousands of IT pros just at my office complex.  However a small percentage participate.  The focus of the groups here are about market trends, technology presentations, and the industry.  The largest IT group here, RichTech does this well. 

Perhaps thinking about the fact that these groups compete for very little spare time for professionals in very high demand is wise, They are usually career development and peer networking events.  That gets the people out there and talking.  New ideas come from people connecting, talking and discovering great concepts by accident. 

[Tyler Tallman]

Bryan that has always been my fear as well. 

But if there is anyone out there who has "on lisp" and Knuth's "the art of computer programming" on their bathroom stand. Who took something apart when they where 12 and have been hacking ever since. If you are out there I want to buy you a beer.

[Thomas McPoyle]

You guys are both right, a dessert topping and a floor polish, as it were.  Look, Lafayette is a small market, but man, the passion that runs, runs deep.  I don't think there is a numbers issue at all.  I think the community has enough dev interest and talent to pull off something interesting.

The idea of marketability and stealing the idea for commercialization goes away if a group delivers something quickly and stays ahead of the curve.

SaaS long-term is definitely where you are and should be targeting.

Anyway, just my 2 pennies.  Good Luck!  Is the github gonna work in PA?  I pull some code and hack.

T

[Dane DeValcourt]

AMEN!  That's problem #1 with devs, and I don't blame them but when it comes to app development you either reinventing the wheel or others will take the idea and race to monetize it first.

If I had the skills I'd be doing the same.  Not to mention half the time devs have to watch what they do as things might become property of employers.

[Geoff Daily]

I'd like to chime in with some additional perspective/clarification.

Our intent with AppSquad is three-fold.

One, we want to create a one-stop shop for app development in Lafayette. If someone wants to build an app in Lafayette, we want them to have access to a network of all the professionals they need to make it happen, both independents and app development shops. We also want this network to be accessible to local developers and innovators like you all on this list to lower the barriers for you to bring apps to market in Lafayette.

Two, we want to promote local investment in app development, both by local businesses, local investors, and outside companies who we can entice to build apps in Lafayette rather than elsewhere because of the talent we feature, the quality of life we offer, and state tax credits that are available. In this way we can drive more money into the hands of local professionals.

Three, we want to establish a framework through which like-minded individuals can work together to build apps for our own community. My initial thinking is that the first apps would be focused on things that benefit the community but don't have profit-making potential, and ideally we'd see apps built that create an environment can be made off of apps built on top of these community apps, like a public data store.

Ultimately we will have to deal with issues associated with ownership and profit sharing around app ideas that grow out of this holistic development community, but I had hoped we could build momentum by first addressing the three points above before trying to dive into these more complicated issues. That said, if this is where Lafayette wants to go we can try to hammer out these details sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of directions this idea of an AppSquad could end up, in particular I've got thoughts around some kind of software collective, but for now we wanted to see if there was an interest in establishing this one-stop shop network, promoting investment in local app development, and creating a collaborate "squad" framework for how multi-faceted teams of locals could come together to build apps for the sake of bettering our community, bettering ourselves through education and networking, and hopefully having a lot of fun in the process.

In response to the need to pull in enterprise tech types, I wholeheartedly agree. Building local networks of people interested in discussing the same topics around the issue of how we can make Lafayette into a hub for fiber-powered innovation is what we're all about.  

That said, we have to be careful about not diluting our focus too much. We don't want to be all things tech to all people techie as the intent for this initiative is primarily to encourage app development. That doesn't mean we can't or won't support things that go outside the purview of networked technologies, but our resources are limited and we need to stay as on point as possible.

Hopefully this email gives a clearer sense of our intentions.

On a related note, has anyone ever seen an initiative like AppSquad before? In the little bit of research Crawford's done so far we haven't found anything that's taking such a holistic approach and one that combines business development and community development together. We'd love to hear if there are other examples of successes like this so we can learn from them.

As always, I love the energy in these discussions. And now with FiberCorps in place we hope to have a mechanism that can sustain this energy to deliver more tangible results for you all.

Finally, to Dane's point about not seeing FiberCorps doing much, we've intentionally been keeping our heads down to focus on building momentum on our initial batch of projects. We'll get an exclusive update together to send around to you all shortly so you all can know what we've been up to. And you can look forward to us having a much more public presence in the weeks and months to come.

All the best,

Geoff

[Dane DeValcourt]

App utopia it sounds like.  Ever the optimist you are.  :-)  Good luck with that.

Look forward to the day something actually comes out of these discussions.