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January 25, 2007

The future is already under way at Providence Geeks

I had a great time last night at the monthly Providence Geeks gathering at AS220 on Empire Street. It was also the one-year anniversary of the event.

I spent some time talking about neighborhood networking with Alan Tear, who's deep into Providence's Summit Neighborhood Association.

I met Jo Lee, cofounder of CitizenSpeak, which offers free email advocacy tools to grassroots organizations and local activists. She and my web-developer daughter found common ground on using their skills for good purposes, and both have a motherly interest in the reopening of Providence's Nathan Bishop middle school. (Meetings are scheduled around the city early next month to discuss the recommendations for city schools offered by Ohio education planning firm DEJONG Inc. ProJo story: Consultant recommends renovating Providence schools, building 7 schools at $792M)*

Blogger Tom Hoffman was joyful as he passed out chocolate cigars to celebrate the birth, at 4:14 a.m. yesterday, of his daughter Vivian Geller Hoffman.

I finally met photo blogger Woneffe (Jef Nickerson) and Matt Coolidge of Greater City: Providence and the Rhode Island discussion hub at Urban Planet.org (with subforums for Providence, Pawtucket and Blackstone Valley, and Newport), where people interested in improving city life gather and post.

O'Reilly tech books author and AS220's house geek Brian Jepson is a fixture of these gatherings, and as we left he was happily poring over a four-inch-thick book on game design by the blue glow of a hublike gizmo.

We arrived just in time to grab name tags -- Jack Templin, always the gracious host here, noted that they spare shy geeks the ordeal of introductions -- before Owen Johnson gave a short presentation of his viral tool Rentometer -- you just can't help plugging your rent in to see how it compares (or whether you can afford to live there at all), and of a more utilitarian property management tool, iiProperty. They're hiring.

If you're at all interested in what's percolating in local tech, here's the place to mingle. You don't have to know motherboards to fit in -- there's as much focus on what's worth doing as there is on how to do it.

The event is billed as a dinner (eating is optional), and, after ordering at the counter, your food is delivered to wherever you're sitting or standing. There's also a full bar.

There'll be another meeting next month. Check the blog at Providence Geeks to find out when.

*Update: According to an email from the grassroots East Side Public Education Coalition, the meeting about Nathan Bishop Middle School is to take place Wednesday, Feb. 7 from 7-8:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King school. They expect to hear Mayor Cicilline on Providence public education and Bill Bryan of Gilbane Construction on building options.

The group has a blog at http://espec.wordpress.com/.

Update 2: Owen Johnson gave the presentation of real estate tools. I originally typed another last name for him. Sorry for the brain blip.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:19 AM | Permalink