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Inspiration comes from our Environment July 28, 2010

Posted by Ryan in : Podcast, , , , , ; add a comment

In my past few years trying to create community, I have had to make a lot of decisions, whether conscious or not, about my environment. By environment I mean not only the room I’m sitting in, or the street I’m on, or the neighborhood, or even just the state of the US. I’m also talking about the people around me, individual beings, their companies, organizations, movements and activities. Then there are the memes, which seem to travel on air currents, over IP tubes, or via word of mouth at varying speeds. All of these things and so many more are part of my environment, and I can choose to give those things importance by spending my time and attention on them.

I have spent considerable time and attention on several podcasts in the past, including one I conducted for Florida Creatives, and some I have helped friends produce. In this way, along with my co-hosts and guests, I am able to become an environmental factor for others.

This is all a very long way of introducing a new podcast, whose name is derived from the building where I spend most of my waking (and sleeping) hours. My home is near downtown Orlando, and it is a distinctive Yellow color. Therefore, I would like to introduce the Our Yellow House podcast. (please excuse my plain-looking site)

The first episode features a great friend of mine, Eric Marden. It was recorded a couple of weeks ago, but I’d say few people outside of Twitter have seen it yet. I have included the player here for your enjoyment:

Download Eric Marden MP3
Download Eric Marden OGG

Why a new show? I thought about recycling old show titles, and I listened to several episodes from my past audio adventures, searching for the passion that brought me to create the first fleet of shows back in 2006 and 2007. I decided the driving force was a sense of curiosity and wonder, and that discovery needed fewer boundaries. Several of my past shows seemed to be “about” something. One show was even (poorly) titled Art::Meta, before I re-named it Florida Creatives. Therefore, the new goal is less agenda, more talk. More free association, more passion, etc.

It’s certainly not “a show about nothing”, and I am starting to get the idea that we will end up following breadcrumbs from show to show. In this first show, we touched on Temporary Autonomous Zones, the GPL, Free Agency, Coworking, and a few other topics that deserve some more exploration. I certainly believe I will be inviting all kinds of people to the show. If you’re interested, drop me a line. We’ll chat. While you’re at it, subscribe via RSS, iTunes or on Miro Guide to follow me.

New Media Orlando Meetup May 12, 2010

Posted by Ryan in : Local, Podcast, , , , , , ; add a comment

Had a great meetup last night. I’ve left some audio notes here.

Download New Media Producers Meetup
 
Length: 3:13

The original meetup post and facebook event are around, but I took some great notes during the New Media Producers meetup using iEtherPad.

Also, I planned to show a YouTube video I recorded with a public media veteran and documentary filmmaker from St. Paul, MN, Barry Madore. However, it was way too noisy in Stardust. I like the idea of priming people’s brains with a short talk or story, but you’ll just have to check it out here:

Barry on the Tube

BarCampOrlando 2010 April 4, 2010

Posted by Ryan in : Coworking, Local, , , , , ; comments closed

I promised some folks from BarCamp I would link to my blog post where I talked about saving local bookstores. I will post some slides soon, but I want to include the bullet points (i.e. actually finish the slides) before they get posted to SlideShare.

Also, if anyone out there is looking for the mailing list for New Media Orlando, jump on there and join the discussion.

What’s been going on in my life? November 8, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : Local, Podcast, Press, Tech, , , , , , , , , , , , , ; comments closed


Lemur!, originally uploaded by Liberatr.net.

Um… where has the time gone? So many things have been happening lately, I feel like if I were to tell them all here, I’d pass another 2 weeks just re-counting all of them.

After the New Media Think and Drink, (go listen to the audio, and the audio of the 2nd half), I was excited about Community Building and Social Media Consulting even more than I have been in a long time. Also, the Digital Media Banner Center asked me to contribute to their New and Emerging Industries Task Force, which is basically trying to find jobs for journalists who have been laid off recently. I was very excited and honored to be a part of something constructive and forward-thinking. Needless to say, they were able to (once again) gather a group of smart, talented and well-experienced people and get them to talk about changing the world. I love that kind of stuff.

We have been doing lots of awesome DrupalEasy stuff lately – we have great podcasts with book authors and our patented “bookaway” contests, where you get Drupal books just for listening and commenting. I also got the chance to FLY up do to some Drupal Training in North Carolina. It was the first time that someone (specifically, Tomas and Jerry) actually FLEW to come hear me speak. I was proud.

I had a great time and got to try some wonderful craft beers at the Flying Saucer in Raleigh. I also learned that Raleigh has a Drupal User Group, but a bit too late. They actually had their meeting the same night I was headed home. Maybe next time!

The new house is treating me very well, the cats, Mariah and I are all settling in just fine, but Fozzie (my cat) has to stay in his cage, because he’s still trying to heal his leg, and he gets in too many fights with Litmus and Loki (Mariah’s cats), who are much older and set in their ways. He really likes chasing them around the house and is constantly getting hit in the face while trying to mount the large cat tree in the living room.

It’s also really nice working here. I have been “working from home” for most of the past 6 years, but only in this house have I ever had a dedicated room as an office, and an atmosphere that was so conducive to working and collaborating with others. I think getting this house will be one of the things I look back on as being very good for my work and creative lives, in addition to the benefits everyone else gets from owning a house. We already had one big party here, back on Talk Like a Pirate Day, and a few weeks ago, we tested out the Party Patio, the BBQ grill, and the fire pit.

A large part of my last few months was actually dedicated to working with a friend of mine, Kyle, on teaching him Drupal, and updating the website for his podcast, the Student of the Game. That site and Florida Creatives are two of the ideas that have really stuck back from the days when I was doing Liberatr more full-time. Kyle was laid off, and I was trying to introduce him to web site building and freelancing. We got pretty far with the whole idea, but it’s not like you can just flip a switch and change someone’s life, so he’s taken a contract with some place crunching database rows and generating reports. We’ll keep working on it, just a bit slower. That’s fine, because I need to work too.

Speaking of Florida Creatives, we are inching up on the start of the 4th year of Orlando Happy Hours for creative people. Our regular meetup will take place on the 16th at Crooked Bayou, just like it always does. I’ve also been trying to delegate some of the responsibility, like website design. Erik Baldwin is a fantastic designer and a good friend, and he’s been coming up with some designs based on my rudimentary wireframes, and I’ve also been adding new features to the site, like the Communties and Meetups page. I’m not sure how this feature will ultimately present itself, but it’s already better than a flat wiki page with just text and links. There’s nothing stopping anyone from adding new ones, but we’re not exactly advertising the feature just yet.

Also this week, I have been having some problems with an old server I keep around for hosting personal sites and sites for friends, so I started the very large task of moving several gigabytes of files over to Amazon S3. Namely, all the podcasts I recorded a few years back, and everything Kyle produced for the Student of the game in the past 4 seasons of football. As far as I can tell, everything is happily hosted by “the cloud” now, and the end users don’t know the difference.

One more geeky update, and I’ll be through. It’s about Twitter, so feel free to tune out now.

Twitter finally added a feature… something useful, and something that would be hard for a 3rd party to add. It’s called Lists, and I started making some. They’re useful for me, as I’m following 1700 people and my attempts to make the list shorter are really just making me find more people I want to follow, but for a multitude of subjects. One is just plain old technology, which is what my RSS reader used to be for. The next is a collection of the other Twitter accounts I own or manage, and hopefully one day twitter will let me say WHY I made each list one day. The last and most complete right now is my list of Drupal people. I think I’m also going to start one for coworking, but I haven’t really done much with it yet.

I’m sure I’m leaving stuff out, but I feel pretty well vented right now. I really need to get to this blogging thing more often…

Let’s Make it Suck November 1, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : HowTo, Local, , , , , ; comments closed

This week I ordered my copy of The Art of Community by Jono Bacon. Jono is a community leader for a big open source software project, and hosts one of my favorite podcasts, all about open source, but he tries to write the book from a neutral perspective.

Still, you have to write what you know, so Jono’s 4 big examples so far are the Jokosher sound editor, Linux user groups, the LUG Radio Podcast, and the Ubuntu project, of course.

He has a big emphasis on writing things down, which I have to say I haven’t always been the best at in the past – I like to get my hands dirty. However, when the mission, goals, and a plan are written down and shared with everyone, more doors can be opened than if you keep everything in your head.

What do you mean by “making it suck”?

One of the coolest examples from the Art of Community is when Jono is discussing methods for brainstorming. One of the ways he suggests to get people talking and break down mental barriers is by asking them to design an end product with the opposite goals in mind.

From The Art of Community, Chapter 2, p. 55:

The idea is simple: reverse the aims of what you want to achieve.

As an example, imagine you wanted to design a cell phone. Traditionally, you would brainstorm the attributes of a great cell phone. Instead, turn everything on its head. What would make the worst possible cell phone? Maybe it ignores all calls? Or maybe it only accepts calls from telemarketing companies? Maybe the buttons are too small? How about really short battery life?

Awesome idea. I’m stealing that one.

So, what’s something I love, and how can I make it suck? I think Florida Creatives would be a great thought experiment:

Um, you get the idea… Now how would you make your favorite thing suck? The idea here is not to complain about an existing problem or bring up negative points. This is to be the “minus” side of the battery (+|-) or the “south” side of the magnet (N|S). What is so far opposite from the ideal, that any change whatsoever will be a step in the right direction?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Think and Drink is Tomorrow Night! 9/16/09 October 15, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : Local, , , , , , , ; comments closed

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow night, Friday, Sept 16th, at 7PM, we will be opening the doors of the historic Cameo Theatre to an event to have everyone get together, share ideas, talk about community building, and hear from a few people who have experienced success in their own communities.

Please bring $5 cash per person – each paid admission also gets a free drink coupon for a drink at the bar (non-alcoholic options are also available). If you don’t want to pay cash, we can hook you up on the internet, but the EventBrite service slaps us with an extra $1 service charge.
http://thinkanddrink.eventbrite.com/

We will be keeping the venue open as late as everyone wants to stay, so call the babysitter, put out the cat, and tell the wife (or husband) not to wait up for you! The conversation can continue until the wee hours of the morning! The Cameo will keep the bar open as long as we need it.

Who will be there?

Gwendolyn Anello is a co-owner of Anello Consulting out of Merritt Island. She consults several organizations in the areas of communications, market development, community and public affairs, and fundraising.

Chris Blanc is the Marketing Director for the Enzian Theatre and the Florida Film Festival. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s involved in several other local communities, and had a hand in creating the Dandelion Cafe.

Darren McDaniel is the creator of a feature film (The Essence of Irwin), the founder of a local internet startup (Petentials), former programming director at the Downtown Media Arts Center, and has done PhD-level research Sociology at Vanderbilt.

Julie Norris is the owner of Dandelion CommuniTEA Cafe and the host of Front Porch Radio on WPRK 91.5FM every Wednesday. She’s also a new mommy! Congrats!

John Rife was a media missionary in S. Pacific / Asia, a founding member of Interactive Expeditions (IntXinc.com), is an independent documentary filmmaker, a video blogger and is currently pursuing an MFA in Digital Media at UCF.

Lance Turner is the founder of the Ourlando movement and the owner of AEonBlue in Winter Park. You’ll see Lance at tons of local events snapping pictures or signing up small businesses to bring the local color.

The Cameo Theatre
1013 E Colonial Dr (corner of Mills & Colonial)
Orlando, FL, 32803
Map Link: http://bit.ly/2gK2BC

About Florida Creatives

Ryan Price and John Rife hatched the idea for Florida Creatives Happy Hours in Ryan’s kitchen 3 years ago, and the event is now a fixture in the Orlando community. FLCreatives has expanded to Jacksonville, Brevard County and South Florida. The first New Media Think and Drink was held in January 2008 at Redlight Redlight in Winter Park. John and Ryan are planning to hold Think and Drink several times a year. Get more info at www.FLCreatives.com or follow @flcreatives on Twitter.

Media + Communitty -or- FLCreatives Discussion Series October 1, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : Local, , , , ; comments closed

In preparing to plan for a local event in October, namely Bringing Arts and Technology Together (BATT), I went through the process to reserve a space and get a few people involved with the organizational parts.

Long story short, we didn’t have enough time to pull off BATT. Time to take baby steps. At the same time, we still have a venue reserved, so it’s time to pull other ideas from my back pocket.

In the last 3 years, Florida Creatives has had an important role to play in helping the community grow, but we can take it farther. Our network (and network of networks) is capable of reaching all kinds of people around so many subjects.

I started a wiki page on the FLCreatives site to outline and suggest a format and possible topics for FLCreatives discussions. My main concern right now is the discussion we will hold on October 16th in the evening. Here’s my first draft:

The Role of Media in a Community

A collected panel of community leaders with a successful track record will be given the stage and a chance to share their thoughts and stories using media to communicate with:

* Their community members
* Traditional media
* Other organizations
* Their volunteers and employees

New forms of media seem to appear every day, and what used to work in a print, TV and radio world may not fly in the world of social networking and YouTube. Some more established community leaders will have had to adapt, and those with newer missions will have had to make it up as they go along. We can hear from both sides in a panel like this.

EDIT: New Media Think and Drink Event RSVP

We have already confirmed 2 panelists:

Why do this event?

BarCamps and large events are great, but they only happen once a year in a given city – it would be hard to organize them too often. Happy Hours and Likemind are fun, but we try to keep the agenda out of those events. Ignite is great as a showcase of local talent, but there is no real theme to the event. The idea here is to pick one subject and pick it apart from several view points.

I always like following up a great discussion with some brainstorming, time to make plans and get things done, so my ideal would be to follow a great discussion with a “think tank” the following day – this is what the unconference format is great for – have an empty schedule and fill it with all of the things in your head after you get energized and inspired, then have a room full of people who are willing to talk about anything.

The discussion series should be followed by a BarCamp-like event to let people workshop on the discussion’s topic from the previous evening. It’s great to have time to “sleep on it”, go and reflect, then get back together and get stuff done.

We’ve got the venue for Saturday the 17th as well, and they’ll be happy to leave the chairs and equipment set up for us to hold a ‘Camp style event on day 2 if we want.

Photowalking, Anyone? September 15, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : Local, , , , ; comments closed

The last photowalk (at least that I know of) was back on April 10th. Anyone up for another? Perhaps through College Park? Perhaps October 1st? October 6th? Just asking…

EDIT: I went ahead and picked a time and place:

Orlando Photowalking
Tuesday October 6, 2009 at 5:30pm

Harmoni Artisan Meal Market
2305 Edgewater Dr # H
College Park, Florida 32804
Get Directions

How to Kick Ass at Your Job – Slides from Ignite Orlando #2 June 24, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : HowTo, Local, , , , , , ; comments closed

Before you get too far into your creative endeavor, stop and think about why you got into this in the first place. Creating a Mission statement can tell you why, but should not tell you how, when or how much, but a Vision statement can. Arnold, Cyrano and Kermit can help too.

IgniteOrlando Ryan Price
View more PDF documents from Ryan Price.

Presented at IgniteOrlando just moments ago.

Drupal Community Helpdesk at CoLab Orlando, First Fridays June 4, 2009

Posted by Ryan in : Coworking, Local, Tech, , , ; comments closed

12:00 – 1:30 PM, June 5th, July 3rd, August 7th, September 4th at CoLab Orlando

It might look something like this

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.