One of the motivations behind Bloomington Startup Weekend was a chance to contribute to improving the national perception of technology in the Midwest. Members of Smaller Indiana—a BSW sponsor and a new online community devoted to professional development and innovation in our state—have been discussing this matter at length. While the degree of optimism varies, the underlying consensus is that no one will confuse Hoosiers with residents of Silicon Valley.
That can change.
Source: Rob Cottingham’s Noise to Signal comic.
Established a month ago by Pat Coyle—a tech-and-business savvy evangelist and current Indianapolis Colts Executive Director of Digital Business—Smaller Indiana is an example of steps taken by locals to change the perception of the region as merely industrial and farm country. This Ning community is an effort to leverage network technology for local gain. Members range in age and background, coming from all corners of the state to connect and collaborate on how to paint a more accurate picture of the Midwest as a tech center. Smaller Indiana is filled with valuable human resources and ideas.
One of the discussions gaining some traction on Smaller Indiana is hosting a regional blogger unconference. I will be one of the organizers spending the morning of Saturday, February 16, chatting about how to make this possible. It has been great to see Bloomington become more active as an online content producer. My list of local bloggers continues to grow, and the number of Bloomington twitterers is exploding (thanks to a healthy early adoption rate among Informatics students). I am editing the BlogNetNews channel for Bloomington (or will, the moment I get some post-Startup Weekend time) and will be trying to encourage some new bloggers this weekend.
While Indiana is not likely to sprout a new Google in the short-term, the future is necessarily built off of the communities with which we engage today. To that end, I invite and encourage readers with interests in information technology and design to start the process by joining local organizations, including any of the following:
- Smaller Indiana—in particular, look for groups like the School of Informatics, Blog-for-All, and the Hoosier Twitosphere
- UXnet—Bloomington has its own blog and will be looking to organize some user experience activities in 2008
- Bloomington Geek Dinners—organized by Ben Fulton of Envisage, this is an every-six-weeks-or-so gathering of local technologists to talk shop over food.
- Bloomingpedia—Mark Krenz of Suso.org started a very successful community wiki for Bloomington with almost 3,000 articles created. He is trying to do the same for the state of Indiana.
- Bloomington Startup Weekend—We have exceeded our goal, expect more press, and are just 16 spots shy of our capacity of 100. If you want to attend, please buy your ticket now.