We’ll be back in June with another take on agile development by special request, and then we’ve got something special brewing for July that should be both different and a ton of fun. I’ll fill in the details as we get the details ironed out!

I expect the presentation to be really good and I’d hate it if you missed out. So… come to ThincSavannah tomorrow night!

Being creative isn’t just for a select group of crazy scientists and weird artists. It is a skill from which each of us can benefit. Living in an age of abundance where we produce more than we can ever consume, creative thinking is essential to be competitive. This presentation will explain what creativity is, why it is important to everyone, and how anyone can increase their creative potential.

Sounds pretty awesome, right? And if that’s not enough, the dudes at Focus Lab will be providing pizza and beer!

And, to switch things up again (not on purpose), Refresh this month is on WEDNESDAY, the 18th at 6PM – still at ThincSavannah! I hope to see you all there!

Also, while I’ve got you, would anyone be interested in doing something like Startup Weekend in Savannah?

There, warning out of the way, we can all get back to work. I hope to see you tonight at 6PM at ThincSavannah!

In talking to my fellow panelists and doing reviews of our own content, I thought that this could be a really useful topic for Refresh. I think all of us could use some constructive feedback on how we present ourselves. So, my idea for March is that I’ll give a really short introduction with some of the things I’ve seen in reviewing hundreds of resumes over the years, and some things that came up during the panel. Then, we’ll break into groups and each go over each others’ resumes, provide feedback, and then we’ll get back together at the end and see if we can spot any larger trends or tips.

What do you guys think? Is it useful to you?

And, of course, the details:

• What: Refresh: Resume Review & Rebuild!
• When: Tuesday, 3/20 @ 6PM
• Where: ThincSavannah – 35 Barnard St

I hope to see you there with resumes in hand and ready to give and get some constructive feedback!

Here’s Erik’s description:

I like to learn and to share with others. Over the past three years, I have learned countless lessons as a business owner – both good and bad – and wanted to share part of the Focus Lab story and detail some of those lessons. Keep in mind this will be told through the eyes of a designer and developer, neither myself or my business partner Bill Kenney considered ourselves “businessmen” when we started. Since we entered this venture with numerous blind spots, we now want to shine some light on what we have learned to help others who are going through the process. I’ll talk about things I’ve learned about running a creative services business and hope to learn something from you as well.

We’ll be at ThincSavannah at 6PM on 2/21. I hope to see you all there!

Oh, and if you’re already a part of a creative business in Savannah, check out Made in Savannah and add your company to the list!

As I said last night, we don’t have a speaker for February yet, so if you’re interested in speaking, please come forward! If you’ve already agreed to speak in February, and I’ve forgotten, please remind me (and thank you).

And I also asked you guys what you wanted to hear in 2012, so, here’s a poll you can do to tell me (you can choose up to 3):

I’ll hopefully be back in a couple weeks to tell you what’s coming up in February. Stay tuned…

We’re back in our normal location: ThincSavannah at 35 Barnard St (3rd floor) on Tuesday, 1/17 at 6PM. I hope to see you all there!

I’m also thinking of doing a Tech Book Trade-In this month too. I’ve got a bunch of geeky programming books I’m not using and don’t see myself needing anytime soon. It feels like an insult to the authors to let all this knowledge gather dust on the shelf, so I was thinking I could bring them to Refresh and you guys could help me find good homes for them all! What do you think?

I hope to see you all there!

The point of this post is to continue the discussion and open it up for folks who weren’t able to attend last night. We said we’d:

• post the list of the three things the Creative Coast is delivering to the city
• and the big list of ideas you guys came up with.

You guys (the Refresh Community) are supposed to:

• Share this post with your respective communities (the Savannah community on Reddit was mentioned, for example).
• Add links in the comments to cool things happening in other cities.
• Add comments adding new ideas or fleshing out ideas from the list.

And that’s it! Let’s keep this discussion going! It would be a shame if the energy and passion expressed last night fizzled and doesn’t end up helping to change anything for the better.

The three things the Creative Coast is supposed to deliver to the city are:

• A list of innovative things being done in other cities that could be done here.
• A job description for the role of CTO.
• The results of the meeting with the Refresh community.

Jake and Murray are going to see what they can provide of the work that’s already been done. If they can share more, I’ll add to this post.

And the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the giant list of ideas we came up with (plusses afterwards mean it was mentioned or upvoted by another person):

• Make computers easier to admin
• Pay city bills online! +
• City Bike Share +, pedicab rental
• Free city-wide wi-fi +
• Open parking spot finder
• Renewable energy alliance
• Traffic/congestion updates for truck drivers
• Smart energy meters for all new buildings & homes +
• Digital Divide/marginalization – access to hardware/software/signal +
• Maker/hacker space + – connect to areas w/ digital divide & (unintelligible) issues
• cost-saving technology – improve efficiency in existing systems +
• Resilient self-sufficient communities
• Restructure county/city websites
• Restructure public transit reliability & predictability ++
• Open, transparent government – open data
• Reach out to “normals”
• Connect cities within GA/statewide public transit +
• Citizen involvement in government/idea sharing with government/Participatory government
• Agile development practices adopted in government
• Relationship between wisdom and technology – tap into people in Savannah with practical wisdom
• Make history accessible with one click
• Practical, attainable, grounded in feasibility
• How do we close the digital divide and the “real world” divide at the same time?
  • How do we educate everyone on the potential of these ideas/technology
  • Most address the broadest common denominator/accessibility
• Human potential & infrastructure
• What’s the “scoring/rewards system” for Savannah? How do we decide the divide?
• The city as API-open data/community analytics
  • Code for America
• How do we get access to city interfaces
• An app for “What do you want, Savannah?”/Advocacy & “City Docent(??)”
• Crowd-sourcing data analytics/trouble spotting
• Crowd-sourcing crime reporting/statistics
• Crowd-sourcing text/email 911
• Crowd-sourcing Foursquare for crime!!
• How do we make these services analog?
• What happens to 311 data?
• What are the city’s core values, mission statement, personas?
• City coding competition – reward/public-private judges/kickstarter
• Involve local students!!
• Who are we?
  • Government
  • “Come heres”
  • “From heres”

Now bring on the discussion!!

The Creative Coast wishes to gather some insightful feedback from the Savannah community on what truly makes a city connected and technology-enabled. As our city grows we want to make certain our city’s technology infrastructure advances with innovative systems and approaches. Well here is your chance. Come along, bring your ideas however wild and crazy and we will capture them and present them to the city who has patiently offered to listen.

And instead of our usual location, we’re going to do this one at The Creative Coast’s office at 15 W York St, at 6 on 12/20! So, come along and bring some crazy ideas about what we can do as a community to enable innovation! I hope to see you there!