Drupal Community Helpdesk at CoLab Orlando, First Fridays June 4, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Local, Tech, CoLab, Coworking, Drupal, floridacreatives ; comments closed12:00 – 1:30 PM, June 5th, July 3rd, August 7th, September 4th at CoLab Orlando
It might look something like this
A few months ago, I attended my first DrupalCon, and what an explosion of open source community awesomeness it was. As Mike and I are running a fledging Drupal shop, I was subconsciously looking for a shop I could use as a signpost, a group whose values and practices were in line with where I would like to be in a few years. I met the fine guys and gal from Advantage Labs in Minneapolis/St Paul, and was introduced to some of the awesome stuff they do.
One really great thing they offer in addition to web hosting, consulting and training is what they call Lab Hours. Twice a week, anyone experiencing a hang-up in their site, or just folks who are interested in helping, come by their offices for some roundtable support time. A goal is set to accomplish a certain task at the end of 2 hours, everyone pairs off and work commences.
There is no “expert” in the room doing all of the work. It’s roundtable style, and that’s how it should be.
This is pretty much a direct physical manifestation of the kind of help you get in #drupal-support in IRC. I have helped out there a bunch, and then having heard about this concept, I decided Orlando could use some community helpdesk time as well.
Starting with the first Friday of the month, I’ll start hosting Lab Hours of my own here in Orlando. If you’ve attended DrupalCamp Florida or a Drupal Meetup, if you’ve attended one of our DrupalEasy training days or webinars, or if you’re just curious about learning how to use this open source content management system, you’re welcome to come by and share.
If nobody shows up, I’m going to open up IRC and help people in other parts of the world. I also intend to show everyone where they can go and get more help outside of helpdesk time.
CoLab is Orlando’s first and only coworking space, on the 6th floor of the Angebuilt building, 37 N. Orange Ave. It’s right at the corner of Wall St and Orange Ave, above Subway. It’s the perfect place to host an event of this kind.
Letting go the Strings of Servitude October 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, BarCamp, Blogging, bloggingfringe, Career, CoLab, Coworking, Drupal, floridacreatives, Liberatr, Orlando, OrlandoScene, PopSci, Site News, Social Media Events, Teaching, Trends, Video ; comments closed
That’s right, folks, I quit my job at Bonnier. No more PopSci, no more corporate life.
Somehow I thought our friend Jonathan (above) working his VCRs and television sets helped get that message across. As Pandos, instead of fighting against modern technology, just letting a couple of simple magnetic tapes play serves as a more entertaining picture than a single curated stream.
My life working at Bonnier had become a lifestyle – long days (and nights), spending all day in the same place doing the same thing. I couldn’t even take 7 months of that.
So now what?
I’ve got a couple of freelance things lined up that should bring in the next month’s income alright, but I don’t want another hourly job. Here are some ways I plan on keeping myself distracted:
- Drupal Easy – this is the home for some (free) Drupal advice, and hopefully some (paid) screencasts, eBooks and tutorials. I will be doing a Drupal conference circuit in the next few months to connect with folks who are looking for training more than straight-up work. I hope I am a good provider.
- Orlando Scene TV – I still have yet to see a project emerge that achieves the goals of this videoblog. The more I think about it, the more it needs to be a one-on-one account of some fun stuff. We were trying to bring more of a TV correspondent feel to the show, but that takes work, and this is supposed to be about fun! Maintaining this channel gives a place for the Blogging Fringe videos and Orlando Puppet Festival content to go, and video is so engaging, measurable and portable — I really love doing this.
- Florida Creatives Podcast – I have been meeting some great people who need to get pulled in to this community, and one of the best ways to get them to care about you is by doing the completely selfless thing and asking them about themselves for half an hour, and sharing the conversation with the world on a well-trafficked web site. The happy hours will certainly continue.
- Florida Creative Summit – the idea here is to do something like BarCamp, but that covers more than just geekery – I am talking to some folks about how to pull this off right now, most of that goes down at Florida Creatives Happy Hour. This is the whole point of Florida Creatives coming to be in the first place.
- Coworking Orlando and our first coworking space in Orlando, CoLab – Coworking Teusdays are still going strong after some 8 months — also, I have already paid my $49 for use of a desk at CoLab in November — I’m not sure whether I will be full-time or part-time there in the future, but I know I want to be present for the birth of the formal coworking movement in Orlando. This is something I’ve been talking about for years, and now it’s downtown and affordable. Couple that with all the communities looking for useful consistent space, and the need for something like this is even greater. This probably deserves a separate blog post…
- Oh so many more things… like getting other Florida Creatives chapters going in other cities, like Brevard, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa, South Florida — helping Petentials get to a happy place — doing a joint event with Doterati — creating a DIY community, a graphics hackers community, a podcasting community, a blogging community, an independent microblogging site, and lots of things I can’t think of just now.
To all my Bonnier peoples, I will keep in touch. Let’s do lunch! Blackwater BBQ?
To everyone else, it’s good to be back!
