The future I see for Little Rock

Posted on August 3, 2010 by

I joke and make fun of Little Rock a lot; in fact recently I was accused by @Tsudo as being the meanest person he knows toward the city. But let’s be honest with ourselves, Little Rock is fairly easy to mock. If you have never been to River Fest and had a laugh at some of the people then chances are you are someone other people are laughing at.

Little Rock SkylineThat is the Little Rock of yesterday and today though. I sometimes hope by calling the people and the city out that we can work together to change these perceptions. I feel this change is inevitable, and once it happens I think we can move forward to the Little Rock that I see of tomorrow.

Over the past week or two I’ve had a handful of discussions with reasonably intelligent people about the direction the city is and needs to be heading. While there are a few who disagree and think we will remain a sub-par city from now until Jesus comes back and saves all the southern Baptist while the rest of us burn, I think the future is much more bright for our little city.

I think we have the potential to become a very high tech city/metro area. I think this will lead to a large and unprecedented amount of growth. I think we will see growth numbers like that of Austin over the past 20 years and find ourselves by 2030 double the population of the 2010 census. In fact I think Little Rock will look a whole lot like Austin only smaller (Austin will easily break 1 million in population by that time). How does this happen? By a unique merging of 3 critical industries: nano technology, wind technology, and internet/computer related technology.

Currently I work in the world of economic development and I am fortunate enough to see a few years into the future at what is coming for the region. Nano technology is fairly new, but has huge potentials for manufacturing. We have had a few nano related startups come into the state, however with the success of UAMS Bio-ventures and the new UALR nano-center, we could be the hotspot of nano technology in the region. I think over the next couple of years we will see a handful of very high tech manufacturing firms locate to the Little Rock area to tap into these resources.

Nordex Turbine

Nordex wind turbine

Wind Power is also making huge strides in Arkansas. In Little Rock we have LM Windpower, Nordex in Jonesboro, and coming soon a Mitsubishi turbine plant in Ft. Smith. Arkansas possesses very little wind power potential of its own, however we serve as an ideal spot for serving areas that do such as West Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and others in the Midwest. Little Rock sits at the intersection of all of this. Thanks to our intersection of i-40 and 30 we have excellent road transportation to the regions. On top of that we have ease of access to the East coast for shipments from France and Germany (Corporate HQs), access to Mississippi River shipping, and an airport that is finally committed to expanding to meet business needs. From these 3 power players in wind power a number of small high tech companies will spring up, likely in Little Rock, to support them.

HP Conway

HP Building in Conway

Finally the area that I think has the biggest potential of all, internet and computer technology. HP coming to town is no small deal I assure you. Combine that with discontent in Acxiom and misplaced workers from Alltel and you have a tech talent base looking for something to do that rivals just about any place in the country. It is a lot of the reason why I want to start the co-working location in Little Rock. I want to provide the resources to keep these people in town and watch them develop something transformational. Outside of those 3 we have a very good core tech community, we have a core social/emerging media community that I would put against any other, and we have a little neighbor to our south west that I think will be the glue that holds it all together.

I predict with the rapid success of Austin’s internet tech community that there will soon be high level tech people look to spin off of larger companies with their own ideas, similar to what happened in Silicon Valley. I think a number of these will want to get out of Austin which is experiencing a higher cost of business do to the rapid expansion. Little Rock features far better office space rent, electricity cost, and internet speed/cost than most other cities between here and there. Mix that with the talent base described above and it could be a perfect scenario.

UALR EIT

UALR's new engineering building

Many people I’ve shared this with have mentioned the lack of education to support this type of industry. I think UALR has shown commitment to provide what the community needs. Unfortunately it is not likely that anything will change in education to encourage this change, but I think education will quickly change as a reaction. Universities are encouraged by donations to provide programs to support and enhance existing industry. Local groups like Acxiom provide both monetary resources and support to keep schools teaching outdated programming languages which ensures a company like Acxiom has a talent pool to feed from. This will change if the environment changes.

So all this (and I know it is long) to say that I think Little Rock has a good future. I think changing the perception is our first and easiest challenge to move forward to a better city. Please drop your thoughts about where you see our future as well in the comments. I will try to make this a regular topic and I would appreciate you helping shape the conversation.

Posted in Economic Development, Life in the LR, We rule this town | Leave a comment

Tweetup Hijack

Posted on July 7, 2010 by

I have a small favor to ask of the Tweetup community. Keith Crawford pours a lot of time and heart into this group, in fact way more than most people realize. I think it is time we try to give a little back to him.

Keith and his wife Sunshine have a baby due in August, so I am going to hijack this upcoming tweetup ever so slightly and ask those of you who can, to bring a baby gift for Keith and Sunshine. They are registered at Baby’s R Us, Target, and I am sure some other places.

If you don’t feel like picking up a gift but still want to give, just let me know and I’ll pool together money from similar people and buy one larger gift. Additionally if someone wants to bring cupcakes or whatever else you bring to these things, feel free to chime in. This is completely a dude organized baby shower so I have no clue what to do other than presents.

Just so you know, Keith knows nothing about this. He is finding out along with you all. Keith has been a good friend through tough times and has helped make LR Tweetup what it is today.

Thanks all of you who attend LR Tweetup, you have made this a wonderful community. See you July 15th

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

I fail as a southerner

Posted on June 17, 2010 by

This typically comes as a shock to most people, but I was born and raised in Arkansas, Saline County no less. I have come to the conclusion over the last couple of years that despite being raised in the south, I am not southern. If it were not for a handful of facial features that I have inherited I would be convinced that I was somehow swapped at birth in the hospital nursery. I imagine some family living on the east coast somewhere with a child that uses the word “yall” every other sentence and has an odd obsession with NASCAR and camo clothing.

With the exception of my immense love of all things college football here is how I come up short.

The accent – They (whoever they is) say you develop your accent early in life based on the influence of the people you are exposed to. This is 100% BS. My family, parent’s friends while I was growing up and neighbors sound like a bunch of people sitting around a tractor pull competition. Yet I cringe when I hear a phrase like “hey yall, I’m fixin to go huntin, wanna come?” Shoot me.

This makes me want to puke

Food – For some reason the first thing that comes to mind when I think of southern food is biscuits and gravy. I cannot think of anything more disgusting than mixing flour and grease and eating it over a biscuit. Same can be said for most southern meals. Cornbread, meatloaf, peas, chicken fried steak, catfish, and most other traditional southern dishes are things I try to avoid eating at all cost.

Music – I have never understood the appeal of country music by and large. I have respect for the few who write their own music, but that is a very small percentage.

Hunting – Let me be up front with something here. I have no problem with people killing animals; there are ecological benefits not to mention I really like to eat meat. I just find the process of putting on hideous clothing (again, I could write a whole post on how I despise camo) and sitting in a tree for several hours. Then if you actually do kill something you have to drag it out of the woods and clean it.

NASCAR – I could write a whole blog post on why I dislike NASCAR. So I will keep this one short, I don’t get the appeal of watching cars drive in a circle for 4 hours.

Heat – The thing I hate most about the south is the heat. Who the hell had the dumb idea of settling in an area that has 110 degree heat index in the middle of June in the first place?

Posted in Life in the LR, Southern Culture | 2 Comments

From Orlando with Love

Posted on May 1, 2010 by

As much as I love Little Rock, sometimes it is nice to get away. Lately I’ve been able to get away quite a bit.

There has been a lot of things going on in my life lately with probably a rush of changes that will meet me when I get back in Little Rock. So it is nice to run away for a while and forget about it.

One thing I have thought about a lot lately though is how no matter how hard in my life I try to escape the Rock she always keeps me. And believe me I have tried very hard a time or two.

I have to say though, all the great people from LRtweetup have made leaving that much harder. We have our drama, thankfully most people don’t see it, but even with that I love you guys.

So even though I need my escape from time to time, I always come back home to the city that loves me. Or at the very least wont let me go.

Posted in Life in the LR | Tagged , | Leave a comment

My @LRTweetup Story

Posted on April 26, 2010 by

Little Rock Tweetup is about to turn 1 year old. As part of the festivities around our birthday we are asking members to share their story about tweetup and what it has meant to them. If you have a story to share, please check out this post and let us hear your story. Here is mine.

I joined Twitter on March 27th, 2008. I had just recently left my position at Aristotle and a good friend from there @varvil suggested I create an account so we can keep up. I in turn used it to follow a handful of friends from Aristotle @robbymatthews, @jbarket, @johnhornor, @djbalance and @robertblake.

Twitter was still a very evolving platform at that point. While I am sure there were some software available, I was not aware of it and did not use it. A retweet was literally copying someone’s tweet and writing in the letters “RT” and their user name. Because of the infancy of the platform I really never became too involved with it early on.

So I sat for around a year following roughly 15 people. I would post occasionally, and read quite a bit more. I started following @ArkBusiness for some reason during that time and around March of 2009 began following @LT as a result of following @ArkBusiness. I had started working for Arkansas Manufacturing Solutions in April of 2009 and I started hearing @LT talk about getting together with some other twitter users at Sticky’s. I asked @AlexTCone who was working with me at the time if he wanted to go, he declined, and I asked several other people and no one really wanted to go. Not wanting to look like a complete loser by just showing up without knowing anyone I sat it out. I did however follow live tweeting with a great deal of interest. I decided no matter what if another one of these meetups happen I was going to go.

Fast forward a year later, my 17 people I am following has turned into 370, and this little meetup that I was shy about has become one of the most important parts of my life.

I have made more friends and connections than I can ever possibly name in a blog post. I could go on until our next anniversary telling stories. Stories like what has come out of meeting @pstrack, how I’ve fell in love with @therep by spending time with @angelmg, how people like @kerrijack have helped us through tough times, how @jamiewalden still owes me a shot, the books we were able to contribute to twestival,  and what @tsudo has taught me about being passionate for what you believe in.

The reality is though, is that these stories are still being written. The book is not closed, not by a long shot. As this community grows and matures there will be more stories. Just like any relationship, not all of those stories will be good ones, and we will likely have hard times. I think I speak for others though that this is more than just a monthly gathering. It has become a very large part of my life. As I look at the future I see the stories being richer and the connections going deeper.

So here is to another year of @LRTweetup, and to the story still being written.

Posted in Life in the LR, We rule this town | 3 Comments

The Garden Craze

Posted on April 19, 2010 by

Toward the end of last summer I started noticing that there is a big of a home garden movement going on in Little Rock. I have seen friends talk about putting in their own gardens, and Home Depot is so packed on the weekends you would think they are giving away free iPads.

We are not exempt from the garden craze of course. When we bought this house one of the things we liked was the fact that it had a separate fenced garden area in the back yard. Last year we decided to till the entire area and plant a large garden. We had a row of tomatoes (around 8-10 plants), a row of peppers (banana and bell), a row of cucumbers, and a row that was half watermelon and half herbs (mint, basil, oregano). In addition we also had a blackberry bush, a lemon bush, an orange tree, a large fig tree, and a big rosemary bush.

Needless to say that was a little too much to keep up with. At first things came in slow, a grape tomato here, a pepper there. Towards the end of the summer though we had 5 watermelons growing at one point, probably 10 cucumbers in the fridge, and more tomatoes than we had room for. In fact the tomatoes got so overwhelming we had to just let some die on the vine.

This year we decided to scale back a little a lot. The orange and lemon trees, while cold weather tolerant, did not survive our unusually harsh winter. We decided to not till up the garden this time and just do a few large containers. This year we have 4 grape tomato and one large tomato plants in a container, herbs (basil, oregano, mint and chives) in another, and peppers (6 banana and one bell) in the last. The blackberry bush is still growing strong, and our figs always produce more than we can eat (feel free to come get some in the fall).

So what is it about this home garden craze that has Little Rock going? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most of us remember eating (or even growing) fresh garden vegetables growing up. Arkansas has a rich farm heritage and it is impossible not to have some level of impact from that. There is also a huge push to eat local foods. We experienced a huge influx of mass-produced food and now finally we are waking up a bit and starting to question where and how our food is grown. Farmers markets have boomed in the area over the past few years. We started with the Little Rock Farmers market, now Argenta is getting in the game. By growing some of our own food it puts us as close as possible to our food. For example when I went out and picked basil and oregano to season dinner last night, I knew the exact journey of that plant.

I know several of friends who read this blog garden. Kerri Case has talked about her gardening experience this year, several of you have talked about it on Twitter, and Jessica Dean has been pushing home gardens for the past year on her Choose Your News KATV segment. If you have  home garden story though drop it in the comments. I might try to do a follow-up post later in the summer once some crops start coming in, and I’d like to share some stories.

Posted in Life in the LR, Things to do in the Rock | Leave a comment

Geeks Rule

Posted on April 16, 2010 by

So today is 4 Square day, and if you have not heard of that I am a little surprised you are even reading my blog, but please continue.

See, there is this little misnomer that geeks are these guys who sit up all night coding and talking about networks on twitter. In fact that is completely not the case, we actually have to keep @tsudo in our LRTweetup group just to be the token stereotypical geek.

Today the real geeks organized a very successful get together for 4 Square Day, at some deli that I have never heard of in the River Market (aptly named four square). While 50 of us were standing outside (yes we actually get sun) I started thinking, we geeks really do rule. I was one of the ones who completely underestimated our geek level, after having an event last night with around 45 people, I figured there was no way we could get all these geeks back out in public, and in sunshine no less, for a second day.

Even in a small city like Little Rock though, we geeks rise to the occasion. We are classy geeks too, no one was talking about their D&D or magic game last night, in fact I doubt anyone had one. We have cool geeks. We have @tsudo who has a heart for doing good that sometimes is a little too big, we have the hipsters @alextcone and (now with the new hair cut) @marleysmom, we have the pretty geeks like @angelmg @kerrijack @amybhole, the creative geeks like @akvalley @donaldg @bryanjones, and then all the others like myself who just count themselves lucky to be around all the cool geeks and help out when possible. We also run cool businesses like @customxm @therep @arkmod @capitalhotel @TakeTimeToGive.

So thank you Little Rock for making geeks cool, you truly are classy.

Posted in We rule this town | Tagged | 17 Comments