Meet the Geeks Minutes
September 21, 2011
Attendees: Al Brown, Andi Schlanger, Brad Van Orden, Bill Schlanger, Eck Doerry, Eric Brown, Greck Cannon, Ward Davis, Josh Cross, Kristine Ketel, Sean Tierney, Bryce Bearchell, Jeff Saville, Stacy Fobar, Lee Bliss, Talbert Tso
- Introductions
- Bimonthly meetings
- Possibly change time to after work at NACET — late afternoon/early evening; possibly alternate times
- NACET is a convenient location for all.
- Should other meetings aside from the bi-monthly meeting? Jeff Saville explains more about why NACET wants to support Meet the Geeks and encourage meetings after Sean T. asks about NACET’s motivations. NACET’s goal in creating this group is to develop a cluster of programmers and developers to help each other out and to create opportunities in the community. NACET’s ideal goal would be to have the Geeks come up with a great idea and potentially become a client. Sean T. suggests a Start Up Weekend and explains that in a Start Up Weekend, the participants create and launch a business in one weekend. Jeff S. says that NACET would be behind this idea. The consensus says that it is a great idea. NACET can facilitate this and will plan a date to hold one.
- Lunch and Learns—yes there is interest
- Have Robert McCarter come in to talk about programming
- Experts (from +50 miles away with PP)
- Jim Hisemith (has talked to students)
- ACM (Association of Computer Management) — does demo and a movie at NAU that is very popular. Perhaps they can do the same at NACET for this group.
- This group could also be a good source of potential speakers. A speaker could do a 15 to 20 minute talk and then demo. We could easily involve students in this and could possibly have the presentation on campus.
- Sean T. can do the first one on tools to work with outsourcing and how to manage a project.
- NAU has a Gigs for Geeks board (part-time job/work for pay) on the CS site at NAU. The work does not conflict with NAU. There is also an option to sponsor a Capstone project and the CS department is currently collecting Capstone projects for spring. Discussion ensued regarding Capstone projects. Next year the CS department is moving from semester Capstone projects to year long Capstone projects. See the CS Department Web page for more info or contact Eck D. or Wolf Otte at the University. Josh C. will post the information page that Wolf Otte gave him on the LinkedIn group.
- Quick mention of Start-Up Medics. Tested at Coffee Talk last month and is used to be a “medic” for problems entrepreneurs may have.
- Meet the Geeks site. Garrick B. wrote the site and NACET is sponsoring the site.
- Phase 2 ideas
- Bill has the idea of Post projects and create bids or contact the poster.
- Q&A area to ask question and have it go out.
- Search for a Geek
- Featured Geek
- Video tape for Geek of the Month
- Sean T. suggests not repeating things we can find elsewhere. He feels physical meetings are the real value.
- Potential topic list for speaker calls. Where people can submit potential topics and vote on topics. Also people can post what topics they would like to see. We will use LinkedIn to post and e-mail Stacy topics.
- Flagstaff Business News wants to do a story on the Geeks group. Jeff S. and Stacy F. will work with FBN on the story.
- Membership listing. NACET can develop a form on the site that everyone can add their business name, contact info, company description, etc. to. Sean T. does not want to support another listing and suggests that we use a LinkedIn API to create our member database and pull that into the site. Darryl Brown said that he could do this. Stacy F. Will follow up with Garrick B. regarding how to work with WordPress and API.
- Sean T. thinks that the most useful feature of the Web site and the group would be to passively pass on a “what I have and what I need” feature. Here we could post a job and identify the skills someone would need to complete the job and match it with people who are registered as having those skills. Sean T. will try to get us some software to do this and Jeff S. will publicize it.
- If NACET could find a grant, could we buy any cloud software for the group or any resources? Possibly. We will look into this again.
- Looking for someone in the group to implement and write phase 2 projects. Please contact Stacy F. if interested.
- Is the group interested in having Angel Investors come in to talk to the group to talk about what they are looking for? Yes, they are interested in ones that are specializing in software. The talk would cover what does an angel investor look for, how would they want the term sheet to look, etc. Jeff S. and Stacy F. will plan.
- Jeff S. asks if anyone has read any good books to suggest to the group. He is reading Start Small, Stay Small which is about developing niche software products. Al B. suggested Bio Punk, about hacking biology. Daryll B. read the Four Hour Work Week. Also suggested were: Anything You Want, Do More Faster, Steve Blank’s Customer Development books at cusdev.com, Let My People Go Surfing, The Anti-Venture Capital Guide, and Cryptonomicon (a fiction book about start-ups). Stacy F. will put the book list on the site. A thought regarding presentations: Everyone here could read three books and present their take aways to the group. It could be a book summary lunch and learn. Stacy will create a book section.
- Stacy F. will send Daryll an e-mail to develop api from LinkedIn on Geeks site.
Action Items: NACET will research how to host a Start-up Weekend. Group members should submit topics and/or speakers to Stacy F. at sfobar@nacet.org for lunch and learns. Group members should join the LinkedIn Group if they have not yet at http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Meet-GEEKS-3948738. Jeff S. to work on story with Flagstaff Business News and to promote the group. Darryl B. to work on membership directory. Jeff S. and Stacy F. to plan Angel Investors meeting. Stacy F. to create book list.
