Learning to be Agile
Six months ago, I made a promise to myself that I would learn Ruby or Python. At that moment, I had been to one too many hackfests where I felt limited by my skill set. I could conceptualize, write, design, coordinate, do front-end work, and make web projects look good on the outside, but I didn’t have the chops to build what I wanted to build, and contribute in the way that I wanted to contribute. I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and theorize about possibilities; I wanted to build stuff.
Continue reading10 Quotes from SXSW
This painting that I spotted on the side of a food truck serves as scientific proof that Austin is ridiculously cool. Yes, it's an octopus with a mustache, riding a bike and talking about vegetarian food.
Last week I hung out with tens of thousands of tech folks at SXSW in Austin, Texas. It was my first time at South by, but definitely not the last. Surrounding myself with such a concentrated pool of geeks made me feel like a kid in a candy store. The people who show up in Austin not only believe in the power of technology to move society forward—they are actively engaged in building the world they want to see.
There’s no way that I can describe all of the awesomeness of last week in a single post, so I thought I’d share a few quotes from some of the keynote presentations and panel discussions that I attended. If you have the time, I recommend listening to some of the talks. That said, here are ten SXSW quotes that I scribbled in my notebook:
Continue readingIdea Hacking for America
On Saturday, I went to the Chicago Civic IdeaHack with the Code for America crew. Code for America is a nonprofit that finds passionate people across the country who want to use technology to help cities. Think ultra-geeky, open source, AmeriCorps-style projects that make governments work better.
Photo credit: Venchure
Sound awesome? Well, it is. It’s also the type of thing that makes me wish I had 80 hours in each day so that I could work on every cool open source community project in the universe. (Will someone please make an app for that?)
We started the day with speakers who talked about tech-based community projects in the works, such as Purple Binder and the Firehouse Community Arts Center.
Later, we were asked a question: What would make Chicago more awesome?
Continue readingChicago’s Fair Trade Generation
Practicing our superhero powers: flying, invisibility, telekinesis, super-human strength, that sort of stuff.
Those who know me know that I love working on projects that help my community. That’s why I was psyched when I was asked to lead a media training workshop for high school students on behalf of Chicago Fair Trade. These superhero students are organizing clubs and leading student activities that promote Fair Trade and help Chicagoans gain awareness about labor rights issues. The students wanted to learn more about effective communication and using digital media for a cause, so I led an afternoon workshop last Friday at the Chicago Fair Trade office.
Continue readingGeek Out Chicago
Last November, I met Nicholas Young for coffee to talk about Chicago’s tech community. Nicholas is a producer, a photographer, a filmmaker, a software developer, and one hell of a geek. He also created Geek Out Chicago, a bi-monthly newsletter to connect techies/geeks to local events.
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