RoR Happenings in NOLA with RubyConf

New Orleans is home to many exciting happenings in the world of Ruby on Rails this week as RubyConf comes to New Orleans for the first time.  We’re excited to be hosting events at Launch Pad and sponsoring events through Flatsourcing.  I wanted to take a minute to share everything that is going on this week.

  • RoR Training Fundraiser – 11/10 9am-4pm – Jumpstart Lab is hosting an all-day training session at Launch Pad on Wed.  This class is an excellent TDD/Rails3 primer.  I’m personally looking forward to taking this class and challenging Anton to a code-off next time I’m in Kazan. All proceeds from the class are going to a Teach For America classroom. Sign up here.
  • RubyConf – 11/11-13 – RubyConf will be held at the Hilton Riverside and features three days of fantastic content.
  • RubyHappy Happy Hour – 11/11 5-7pm – Join us at the IP building for happy hour in the IP building and at Capdeville hosted by iSeatz, Audiosocket, Flatsourcing & Launch Pad. Sign up here.
  • Ruby Bayou Meetup – 11/11 7pm – Following the happy hour, take part in New Orleans’ own Ruby Bayou monthly meeting at Launch Pad. Register now.

I’m excited to be supporting these through Flatsourcing & Launch Pad, and most of all, I’m excited to take the class on Wednesday and start rocking the rails myself :)

Art without Commerce is a Hobby

  • October 17th, 2010 /
  •  Chris Schultz /
  • 1 Comment

Art without commerce is a hobby.

Chef Joe Bastianich offered up this statement in the NY Times magazine as his motto a few weeks back, and it resonated with me.

I’ve been having lots of conversations lately with people who are trying to crack the business model code for art.  Benjamin Reece, Robert Fogarty, Ross Hinkle are all building businesses around beautiful artistic expression.  But they’re building businesses, so commerce is key.

Business model options might be:

  • Consumer pays to consume the content
  • Brands pay to commission and be integrated into content
  • Advertisers pay to post ads beside the content
  • Give away the art to generate service business

What other methods of monetization do you see? What do you think works best?

Platforms like Kickstarter are today’s version of art patronage with a crowd-funded model, but they just fund the creation of art, not revenue generation from the art.  Ben pointed me to this post by Mark Cuban about the exhaustion facing content creators.  The bottom line is the independent artistic content production business is incredibly difficult to monetize.

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Why We Do It

Once in a while life offers up a truly humbling moment.  Last week I had the pleasure of seeing this piece in Portfolio magazine proclaiming me “The New King of New Orleans.” While it is truly a treat to read an acknowledgment of all of the things we are working hard to accomplish, I was most touched by this email I received.  I’m posting it with her permission.  A good reminder of why we’re working so hard. Thanks Renée.

Chris:  I just read the article on you in the Portfolio Today e-newsletter & want to say Thank You. As a native of La, I get such pleasure seeing people like you who aren’t from La help my wonderful state.  See, I love Louisiana and I make sure everyone in my current state of Texas knows it.  I have not conformed to a Cowboys or UT fan … I stay true to my roots and have always been proud to be from Louisiana.  Being in Dallas when Katrina/Rita hit was one of the hardest things for me.  All I could do was watch every devastating moment on CNN and hope that everyone I knew was okay, including family.  No matter how hard I would cry when I watched CNN nightly, I couldn’t stop watching.  My home state was devastated.  More importantly it was hitting parts where I grew up.  I grew up in Houma, going to Grand Isle and New Orleans frequently.  My mom went to school at Loyola and my parents met while both living in NOLA.  The Camellia Grill is their favorite restaurant … as children we hated it because we were forced to eat there every month when we went to NOLA!  Now, I appreciate it and am just glad it is still there.

Louisiana is often a state that gets the wrong attention and is often overlooked.  It’s really hard for “us” to see other states devastated and tended to so quickly; yet our state suffers and suffers and it feels as if not much is done.  When people like you move to La and do what you do, it makes all the difference in the world.  I only wish I was in a position that I could do that myself.  My 7 year hiatus in Texas has been much longer than I’ve wanted, but I know I’ll be able to give back to La somehow, someway.

So, thank you from the very bottom of my heart.  You’ll never know how much people like you mean to Louisiana natives like me.

Let’s Geaux Saints!

Renée

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Launch Pad’s role in New Orleans recovery

  • August 31st, 2010 /
  •  Chris Schultz /
  • 1 Comment

On this 5th anniversary of Katrina, there has been much reflection about New Orleans.  We have made many strides as a city, yet there remains much work to be done.  The city is broad and diverse and I wouldn’t for a minute pretend to know the challenges that so many have faced over the last five years.

One bright spot has been the emergent entrepreneurial community in New Orleans.   I been a New Orleanian equal parts pre & post storm now, and it amazes me how different the business climate is today.  There is a collaborative, bootstrapping, can-do spirit driving us and the last few years have been the most inspirational of my business career.  There is something truly special going on in New Orleans right now, and I am humbled that the people of Launch Pad, our community, is playing such an vital role in this resurgence.

There has been plenty of coverage this week about what is going on in New Orleans, and I wanted to share some of it with you here.  Thanks to everyone in New Orleans for being here and to everyone else for your love and support!

Get Involved in TribeCon 2010

We have been hard at work for the last month getting things fired up for TribeCon 2010.  Thank you to all of you who made last year such a success, and we can’t wait to have you back to New Orleans again for this year’s edition of the conference.

We’ve started to get things fired up for this year, and want to engage you to help us shape the conference and the programming.  It’s a community-powered conference and we really appreciate your engagement.

THE BASICS

SPEAKERS

Interested in speaking, or know someone who would be great, we want to know about it.

We really appreciate any ideas you have, help us create the content you want to see.

SPONSORS

We are looking for sponsors for this years conference.  Please contact Chris Schultz at chris@voodooventures.com to receive a sponsorship proposal.

ENGAGE

Last year this Google Group (our Tribal Council) truly shaped the conference.  It was a huge help to Tiffany and me, and we deeply appreciate your support in pulling this together.  We hope that you’ll once again share ideas, feedback, brainstorms with us right here.  We truly value our community.

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