Florida Creatives – Creating a Community of Innovation

Location

In just a few days, Florida Creatives will have been a regular event in Orlando every month for 3 years. This is a cause for celebration. I hope you can all make it out to the festivities.

2010 is going to be a big year for Florida Creatives, with the Brevard circle turning 1 year old, and new circles starting in South Florida and Lakeland.

Come and meet some likeminded folks - people who are always learning, working to change the world, looking to create something new, or people who just like being social.

Thanks for 3 awesome years of your input, ideas, friendship and support. This group is reaching a new plateau, it is entirely due to our members, whom we ask little of, but who give us so much.

Admission is free, there is no sign-up form, there are no nametags, just come and be yourself, and the creatives will guide you from there!

Attention all:

If you can see this message, the site has been upgraded! Please let me know what is messed up... the upgrade went a little TOO smooth.

Update: OpenID login as well as Facebook Connect are working again. Now I am going to send a comment to see if the notifications still go out.

In a few minutes, I will be disabling commenting and any new posts or edits. I don't want the content on the site to be inaccessible, but I am going to be upgrading the site software, so I don't want any changes to get lost in the process.

The site should be back to normal in a few hours, running on some new software!

Over the years both Flash gurus and Web Development Gurus have argued over standards, both from a technical standpoint when creating and deploying websites and content as well as user-based standards with UI development and experience, as a take-away. The utility of the website, being a competent component of branding. This is to say, Utility + Messaging ≠ Branding = User Experience.

Location

BarCampOrlando is back and is going to be bigger and better than ever. The Orlando Scene has quickly proven it can put on one of the premier BarCamp events in the US, and quite possibly the world.

BarCampOrlando is a 1 day 'unconference' offering all attendees the opportunity to share their knowledge by giving short talks on ANY subject. This year we will have 3 different rooms to showcase the participants and sessions of different lengths to accommodate more content then you can shake your marshmallow stick at.

BarCamp by it's nature has no schedule, no keynote speaker, and no main topic of conversation - the participants decide the who, what, how, why and when - we just pick the where!

Please register for the event so we can plan accordingly!

P.S. BarCamp may still be looking for sponsors - any amount will be accepted. We have a "fill in the blank" sponsorship available for those who can't swing $100 or $300, as much as they might like to.

[ All though this post identifies brand building and the creative developed for the communication industry, I think it applies to anyone that spends there time expressing what might have been previously considered inexpressible ]

How difficult is it–trying to explain a new idea or concept to someone? Especially when there may not be supporting materials to substantiate the use/need/purpose of the idea. It's difficult. And even more difficult when the people you may be communicating with have absolutely no familiarity with what you are talking about.

NEWNESS IS PROFITABLE

1) The FCC will approve the use of Sex robots provided they use haptic technology, because of growing concerns about hygiene. You can look at the robot, but you can't touch-it. Touch-screens are cool, but–um, everyone keeps touching them–icky.

2) .com might become the second highest TLD behind China's .cn ( what does this mean? Well, more people will buy/register .cn domains over .com )

Alex Williams, a New York Times reporter, sent out a request through the Likemind organizers mailing list asking a few questions about the event that has grown to be an international affair every month. Here is a sample of his article:

To Erin Middleton, a 27-year-old brand strategist in Dallas, the word “networking” calls to mind “stodgy business types in suits,” who are “very uncomfortable and poor at engaging conversation,” she said in an e-mail message.

Melissa Clark, an advertising account manager in Minneapolis, said there is “something smarmy” about the word.

Peter Bihr, 28, a media consultant in Berlin, was even stronger in his denunciation. “ ‘Networking,’ as a word, makes me feel like I get a physical reaction, I hate the term so much,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “It sounds all like strategically talking to people and trying to be their friends. It’s not authentic.”

So, what exactly, are these three doing at 8 a.m. on the third Friday of each month, meeting with other young professionals at their local coffeehouse?

They are participating in likemind, a monthly kaffeeklatsch for creative professionals, held in 55 cities around the world, including Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Malmo, Sweden.

Read the rest of the Likemind article on the New York Times' website

The article calls out the no-agenda, no-hard-sell nature of Likemind, the differences with Meetup.com events, the similarity to Unconferences, or Green Drinks, and even gives some literary reference.

Our next Likemind in Orlando (or anywhere else) will be Friday, December 5th. Jim Hathaway and Ryan Price are the co-organizers of the Orlando Likemind.

If you work in marketing, design, advertising, or something more squirrely, please check out Likemind, the conversation and the coffee are never cold, and always welcome in the morning.

Varick reminded me. Anyone up for another gathering? Perhaps somewhere new, undiscovered, untapped, unrefined, unknown, well-known, well-designed, well-managed, well-thought-out, inexpensive, expensive, big, small, in house–with a mouse?

Perhaps we can try to meet up before the next PKN event.

To my knowledge, Marc Rapp, Chris Wojda and a couple of other folks got together in Jacksonville last week under the banner of Florida Creatives (or maybe it was Pangea Day?).

This is... awesome.

Chris is starting up a Pecha Kucha (pechak-cha) night in Jax that will be held at the art museum. Chris is also the Jacksonville organizer of Likemind, which is how we know each other.