Questions? Ask @Daniel Gerous on Twitter
We got with the program and burned all the feeds so we can track your awesome participation. Please Subscribe or update your settings:
Main Gangplank Site Feed (Aggregates all content);
http://feeds.gangplankhq.com/gangplankphx
Gangplank Studios Podcast only feed:
http://feeds.gangplankhq.com/gangplankstudio
Rock on party people, rock on.
PS: We’ll have more feeds in the near term, specifically for event schedules and Academy sessions (video)
Luz and James Archer put on a great little event within hacknight this week that they labeled Photo Mojo. It is similar to phthrd. The concept (loosely) is that a bunch of photographers of various levels and backgrounds all meet up. Then a set of topics/words are chosen collectively. The photographers are broken into teams and have a set time to shoot and edit photos that represent the set of topics/words. Each team can then submit one photo per topic/word to be evaluated. A winner for each topic/word is then chosen. Fun is had.
For this Photo Mojo the words were Orbital, Epidemic and Scholarly. The time frame was one hour.
Here are the winners for each topic/word.
Orbital
Epidemic
Scholarly
Seems to no longer be available. 
You can rate the photos yourself on Pix.ly.
CerealBar Phoenix is this Friday, November 14th at 8am. If you want to come hang out with your fellow geeks, eat some yummy cereal, and talk about what’s happening in Phoenix tech this is the event for you! Visit the website, please sign up so we know how many to plan for!
I had started to create the upcoming speaker list for Gangplank brown bag sessions earlier this week and passed it around to a few of our anchor tenants to get feedback and ideas. It then dawned on me that we have been doing these sessions for nearly 5 months and that it would be a good idea to get some idea of how those participating felt. At Integrum we do something at the end of every week/iteration called a retrospective. This allows us to inspect and adapt what we do and how we do it to follow a cycle of constant improvement.
The retrospective can take many formats, because our brown bags get a sizeable attendance I decided to use the what should we keep doing, what should we stop doing and what are we missing approach. Within seconds people were giving excellent feed back in each category. Below are the raw items expressed.
Doing Well
Grass roots marketing
Branding (member owned)
Events (Startup Weekend/Brown Bags/Etc)
Unified community
Fun
Consistency
A Lot in a short time
Doing Poorly
Lack of chairs
Variety of Topics (get wider)
Poor update of events (not facebook)
Introducing/welcoming new people
Communicating vision
Promoting coworking aspect
Starting on time
Whats Missing
Offer more things at hacknight
User generated content
Skill matching
Reaching out to other communities
Community projects (opportunities to give back)
Startup Wednesday
Ambience (paint it damn it)
No way to give back
How to participate at a higher level (path to involvement)
Clock
Sponsorship
Reach outside current items
Random Fun (ie: lipdub, etc)
Teams (dodgeball, softball, etc)
Place to have discussions
So what does this mean? What are should we do with this information? Well we need to keep doing events. Have an event that you need a home for? Let us know. We need to keep having fun. Come join us having a good time! We have made a commitment to get a few chairs for co-working every month until we are no longer short. We need folding chairs for events and hacknights. Do you have some to donate? Know where to get a good deal let us know!
We brainstormed topics and speakers (and will share later in this post). James Archer from Forty has stepped up and is putting some things in place to help us welcome new people and introduce them. The hacknight website needs to be people not project centered and allow for people to contribute more readily. We are getting some of the necessities of life finished (like hanging the projector) and are about ready to start adding the decorators touch. Interested in helping, LET US KNOW. We have decided that we want to make a section of the commons open to be redecorated on a regular basis allowing it to reflect the community directly. We hope to add a clock. Joshua Strebel of Obuweb and Steve Swedler are hard at work getting us an energy drink sponsor.
If you haven’t noticed, we want your participation. Do you see opportunities and have the passion to fill them? Let us know. We want to empower you to help make the Gangplank commons your own.
The discussion on speakers and topics resulted in the following. I will be adding this to my current list. If you have suggestions please let us know.
Speakers
James Armstrong (trademark/copyright)
Brent Spore (design)
Tara Hunt (co-working, social networking)
Patrick Sullivan Jr.
Patrick Sullivan Sr.
Dean Heckler (furniture designer)
Rene Gutel (newspaper)
Kevin Burke (Angel Investor)
Erika Feinberg (Active Living)
Topics
Artists
Architects
Tax CPA
Pyschologist
Sociologist
Branding
Interactive Design
Industrial Design
Business Management
Successful Business Owners
PR
Green Tech
Updates on local stuff
Share projects (demo day)
Sports Team/Performance
We wrapped up the session discussing what might make good Academy sessions. As part of that it came out that that concept of “camps” make sense for Academy structure as well. 2-8hr concentrated events around a theme. iPhoneDevCamp, BarCamp, MarketingCamp etc only in a myriad of verticals. KnittingCamp 2009 baby!
Academy (camps)
Database architecture
Lan Party
Water color painting
Yoga
Typography (@luzbonita has offerred to step up!)
Accessibility
Design Web
Gangplank Junior
Photography
Photohard (@luzbonita has offerred to step up!)
Sales
Knitting
Scrapbooking
In a nutshell, this is a call for participation. We look forward to hearing from you.
Dear Mr. Parsons,
Can I call you Bob? Great.
So Bob, My name is Daniel Gerous and I represent the technology incubator and co-working space in Chandler Az: Gangplank. Gangplank is a vibrant hub of activity that provides free co-working space for hundreds of web freelancers, and other creatives to utilize, network, and play. In addition Gangplank is also a technology incubator currently assisting 4 projects with investments of seed funds, development and marketing assistance, and the occasional Tropical Smoothy from Coffee Island of 1430 W Warner Rd
Gilbert, AZ (Our lunch hour sponsor)
Heard this all before? Yeah perhaps you saw the feature story in the business section of the Arizona Republic, Page B5 - Nov 5th 2008.
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2008/11/04/20081104biz-gangplank1105.html
So to get to the reason for my letter. We took an impromptu survey of some of the folks at Gangplank today and came up with about 1250.. 1250 domains registered at GoDaddy between us. We also estimate we register 5-10 new domains a week for various current and future project ideas.
Let’s cut to the chase; Gangplank would like to invite GoDaddy to sponsor our community efforts here by donating at no or reduced costs; domain registration and other hosting services. The momentum here is building, and we wish to partner with other Arizona based businesses to bring a little more Silicon, to the Valley of the Sun.
Please consider our request, you may contact us at the information provided below.
Furthermore Bob, should GoDaddy choose to pass on this historic opportunity, I will regrettably be forced to challenge you to a dance off in the Gangplank Dome.
Please view this cautionary video as evidence of the righteousness of my dance challenge.
http://www.vimeo.com/2119928
Serious, your ankles will snap with the force of being serv’d. I don’t want that for you Bob.
Thank you Bob,
We look forward to Partnering with GoDaddy on this: the voyage of Awesome.
And Remember: BE DANGEROUS
You may contact us at:
http://gangplankhq.com/
info{@}gangplankhq.com
1-877-GANGPLK
UPDATE:
Well I did not hear from Bob, but I did get this from Warren Adelman, CEO of GoDaddy.
@DanielGerous Saw your post. Happy to hear more. I hadn’t seen that article in the paper. I dont think either Bob or I are dance threats.
I Look forward to working something out with GoDaddy. The dance off challenge has once again proven to be the cornerstone of effective corporate communications.
First in a series of mind blowing cinematic wonders;
http://www.vimeo.com/2116180Have you been to gangplank yet?
Unwitting accomplices in order of apperance: Jimmy Jeffers, Matt Gist, Byron Bowerman,Justin Crossman, Beau Fruschetta, Dan Ritz, Chris Chandler, and Jade Meskill
Some images © AcmePhotography
Congratulations to Beau Frusetta and his team for launching the first Gangplank original product.
In 30 days he was able to flesh out his idea, get a great design together and roll out the first set of features for this beta. This is quite an accomplishment for both he and Gangplank’s incubator.
I’m proud of Beau for sticking with it and not punching me in the face for all of the constant pressure. It’s an amazing accomplishment, and we look forward to all of the feedback you all have. If you are interested in a beta invitation, contact Beau at beau@datedesigner.com.
Many people start but few people make it to this point. Congratulations Beau!
We are proud to officially announce a new anchor company here at Gangplank. We welcome Ed and Francine from Stealthmode Partners as our newest anchor. We look forward to their advice and experience. There is so much more coming… Get ready. It’s getting dangerous in here!
Simple. Breakfast and Hangin’ Out!
Cereal Bar is a breakfast gathering of folks with something in common. Techies, startups, neighbors, or whatever. The only criteria is that you have cereal. And I suppose that’s optional too. We will be providing the yummies and we are looking at you to provide the interesting conversation.
Simply put we are hosting a Cereal Bar Friday November 24th at 8am.
We have been doing Hacknights for quite some time. They have taken on a life of their own and that is what makes them so special. They are what the people who attend them make them out to be. You might find people competing in Mario Kart on the Wii or rocking out to Rockband. You could find them watching political campaign speeches on a 100″ jumbotron or arguing politics over a 3″ you tube snippet. They might be hacking on the next greatest thing or finishing up a client project. They might laughing at their own jokes or in heated discussion over what will change the landscape of the community. You might find them listening to a podcast or making one. The truth is you never quite know what to expect and that is the beauty of it.
Several Integremlins wanted to better capture some of the spirit of what goes on and built a fantastic application to help track who comes to hacknight and what happens here. If you are a regular attendee you should sign up and let others know what you are working on.
Easy online tracking of search engine rank positioning finally possible. The future of search tracking is here
In five minutes your massive event is already planned, every person and seat is accounted for. Get in on this hot seat.
After one month in development, Gangplank announces the Beta launch of Date Designer. Do you have an invite?
All the PHX pirate party people are flying the Gangplank colors. Find out how to get onboard. soon
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