I love these things and have wanted to participate for a while, so I'll ask you (Mike) something and offer other HNers my services.
Mike, what do you think about the technology scene in south Florida? I'd like to move back home at some point, and I fear returning to a tech-barren wasteland. It's clear that SFla isn't some tech desert, since you're in SFla and I hear about a lot of events from you. Still, my friends and I generally agree that we'll have to build the culture (via starting up or meetups) if we want it to exist. What's your take? What do you see in the coming years?
And now, my offer: I'm a stats/machine learning student, and I'd like to answer any questions you guys might have--whether you're studying for finals (like me), or you're wondering how ML can improve your work. Just reply to me here or email me (in my profile; don't forget the +hn).
Hey Alex,
I lived in Miami for 7 years and moved to Chicago 4 years ago. I recently organized CodeRetreatMiami.com and a lot of people showed up.
This was unexpected for me. I thought 4 people would registered and 22 people showed up and stayed all day.
My objective with the event was to start paying my dues back to Miami and bring back what I have learned from the tech scene in Chicago.
I contacted a few of the leaders of the local meetups and got good responses from most of them. I also contacted 2 guys that seemed to have been putting a lot into the community and surprisingly both blew me off.
I have been comparing the tech communities of Boston, Austin, Chicago, SF and Miami. People from SF have said that one of the most important key in the startup community is collaboration. By that he meant that you would be able to contact anybody from the tech community no matter how high their position is and most of the times they would be able to give you some time to talk to you.
The same is happening here in Chicago. I could call anybody to ask for advice and they would actually find time for you to meet you. Nobody (so far) is trying to rip off your idea, instead they want to hear your problem and see how they can help.
There are a lot of meetups here and usually a lot of people show up. The meetup with the most attendance is the Lean Startup. On average they get 200 people to a meetup and they come from all over the city and the suburbs. Some people even drive up to an hour and a half to get to those meetups. And not only this but also other tech meetups like Ruby, Android, Drupal. Which means that distance is not important even if we have good transportation system.
The same happens with Austin. You have to drive everywhere just like Miami. Austin has a scene because real state is cheap, a couple of big tech companies are there and there is a college in the middle of downtown.
I would say that even when people say that the problem with Miami is the distances, I would say is not a problem comparing the same to Chicago and Austin.
I would say that the challenges are people communicating with each other, encouraging people to go to events and evangelize an attitude of collaboration.
Well Alex, you know my take on this. Like our bourgeoning young arts and music scenes, tech is definitely glowing. It's not there yet and probably won't be for a good 5 years. The problem is not talent or efforts or meetups; I think the biggest hurdle we have is culture. Overall the SoFla region is very pretentious, reserved and secretive. Open exchange of information, ideas and effort is the only way we'll break into a setup more like Cali or NY. How we can establish that cultural shift is the real question.
there might not be a haskell meetup or riak meetup yet, but you are welcome to start it and my group RefreshMiami will help you promote it/jump start it.
There are a few people who have already commented about what is happening in South Florida. (And there is a lot of activity...) Here is a good thread to follow as it stood earlier this year: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2545955
Separately, Brian Breslin (who's been involved here for quite a few years now) has recently written a blog post about it that is another perspective on it: http://brianbreslin.com/on-building-a-community/
I've also been talking about writing this post for some time now and have never found the time to dig in and do it, but I'll mention some of the highlights that I'd discuss:
- There is an overwhelming interest from many different parts of the community (even those outside of tech) to grow the entrepreneurial and technical skill here in South Florida. City development, local business, chamber of commerce, non-profits, universities, and individual leaders are all quite active in putting on events and getting really great people involved here. (Case-in-point: Rasmus Lerdorf just gave two talks about PHP this week. Zed Shaw was in town back in March for Miami Tech Week. Dave McClure was here some weeks ago at a Biz Dev/VC conference.)
- There are people looking for talent and qualified talent is still difficult to find. I'm personally looking for CTO/entrepreneurs for the two groups I'm advising. Both have some capital and have a strong likelihood of success, IMHO. Companies are hiring here as well! Well established companies doing interesting work! (Senzari, for example, is based in Miami.) It wouldn't be hard to find work, if you aren't picky. And if you have time, you can find a really interesting job within months.
- The community wants to be stronger; to be on par with the likes of NY, Boston, Seattle, SV; but they don't always get involved. Turn-out at events is really hit and miss depending on location, timing and topic matter. I attribute this to a few things: poor city layout making it difficult to get people outside of a 10-15 mile radius to your event, good intentions and no follow-up...
- The tech leadership doesn't support each other as much as I think they should. If you're well-connected and know the right people, there's sure to be resources shared; but otherwise, there's a lot of work that community organizers needs to make to coordinate events and pool efforts across the community.
Overall, I think South Florida could be a really successful area to live in professionally. The momentum as been positive and people definitely care. If I had an extra 5-10 hours a week, I would dedicate that to helping the community become more cohesive and better connected. There's no reason why events couldn't be cross-promoted and sponsorship within the community be more prevalent than it is today.
Mike, what do you think about the technology scene in south Florida? I'd like to move back home at some point, and I fear returning to a tech-barren wasteland. It's clear that SFla isn't some tech desert, since you're in SFla and I hear about a lot of events from you. Still, my friends and I generally agree that we'll have to build the culture (via starting up or meetups) if we want it to exist. What's your take? What do you see in the coming years?
And now, my offer: I'm a stats/machine learning student, and I'd like to answer any questions you guys might have--whether you're studying for finals (like me), or you're wondering how ML can improve your work. Just reply to me here or email me (in my profile; don't forget the +hn).
Happy Friday to all!