Rhode Island Nexus

We're just over one week from Maker Faire RI, and the online buzz is really picking up. Kipp Bradford and I are thrilled to be working with WaterFire and the City of Providence to bring Rhode Island's own Mini Maker Faire to downtown Providence for a second year in the row.

But what exactly is a Maker Faire? The original Maker Faire (which is put on by my employer) started in 2006 in San Mateo (right near San Francisco International Airport), and has been going strong ever since. In that first year, there were probably about 20,000 people in attendance: they came to see robots, life-sized games, science projects, kinetic sculpture, human-powered rides, music, technology, art, and so much more. At the last Maker Faire (2010 in San Mateo), about 80,000 people came. And now Maker Faire has expanded to Detroit and New York City.

It's reasonable to describe Maker Faire as the world's largest Science Fair. MAKE describes it as: "A family fun festival to MAKE, create, learn, invent, CRAFT, recycle, build, think, play & be inspired by celebrating arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, science and technology."

Maker Faire Rhode Island is one of several Mini Maker Faires (including North Carolina, Boston, Ann Arbor, Aspen, and Kansas City. Mini Maker Faires are a bit smaller than the (last year we had 40 exhibitors and several thousand attendees), and they are put on by the local community, who is responsible for fundraising, planning, and executing the event.

This year, Maker Faire Rhode Island takes place on August 28, 2010, at the Bank of America Skating Center, Providence RI, from 3pm-11pm. It's free to attend, and it's free to exhibit. If you have a project that you'd like to show off, please visit the web site and click the Submission Form link there.

What's more, Maker Faire RI is happening at the same time as Maker Faire Africa, which will be represented by Steve Daniels who is launching his new book, Making Do: Innovation in Kenya's Informal Economy at Maker Faire RI.

If you'd like to volunteer, we could use your help too (you'll find a link to register as a volunteer at the Maker Faire RI web site). But there are plenty of ways to help as well; we've set up a Kickstarter project where you can donate (and we have some cool rewards for people who donate at the $10 or $50 level). But above all, you can help the most by coming and exploring the projects and makers we'll have exhibiting. You can see the list of confirmed makers right here. But keep checking back because we are still adding exhibitors.

George Loftus, President & CEO of the Ocean State Higher Education Economic Development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN) also serves as the President of a regional optical network (RON) called NEREN, Chairs the Architecture & Operations Council of Internet2 and is on the Board of Internet2.  George will be presenting at the June Providence Geeks Dinner - Wednesday, June 9th 5:30-8:30pm at AS220. RSVP and details here.

Entering our 11th year, OSHEAN, is a consortium of over 30 non-profit and government entities that delivers IT solutions to its members.  We focus on "technical solutions that are better delivered by working together." OSHEAN members include every institution of higher education in RI (and four in SE Mass), all the hospital groups, several state agencies, and RINET -- which includes all of the K-12 and libraries in RI. 

Through the leadership of OSHEAN and its members,  Rhode Island has built a regional and national reputation as a leader among the education and health care IT communities. Our tiny state is a major player in the world of Research & Education networking and infrastructure - a little known world that is shaping the broadband infrastructure for Rhode Island, New England and the nation.

Here are some highlights of what OSHEAN is undertaking:

• OSHEAN operates a 500 mile optical network throughout New England - a vital part of the future of our Knowledge Economy.
• In addition, OSHEAN is in the running for $33M in federal stimulus funds to expand a dedicated fiber backbone to reach all five counties in Rhode Island and neighboring Bristol County, MA. This backbone would enable us to serve the educational, health care, and public safety facilities throughout RI.
• OSHEAN is deeply involved with national backbone advances with Internet2 and regional broadband capacity advances with NEREN.
• OSHEAN is also supporting the efforts of the Ocean State Collaborative for Advance Resources (OSCAR) and is playing a key role in developing a vision for a green data center here in RI.
• In co-operation with the Ocean State Libraries, OSHEAN have been awarded a $1.2M federal and Champlin Foundations grant to expand the number of computers and computer training in 70 public libraries in RI
• OSHEAN is deploying the Cumulus (R) Cloud Computing Service -- a private-cloud IaaS solution (Infrastructure as a Service) that provides our members with virtualized resources located at our Safe Harbor facility in Springfield, MA.

I hope to see you at the Providence Geek Dinner on June 9th, where I will go deeper on each of these topics and more. RSVP and details here.

We aren’t the first company to ship live lobsters anywhere in the U.S., but likely the only such site owned by a team of landlubberly marketers and web developers. The coveted Lobster URL was originally registered by founder Andrew Rock because he wanted his email address to read ‘rock@lobster’, but a chance meeting at the Providence Place Apple store led to the recruitment of an excitable new group of owners and re-entry of the site into the heart of the 2009 holiday gift season.

Lobster is always a cause for (or effect of) celebration, so we wanted the brand to capture the authenticity of the experience. Naturally, we sought out Nail Communications, whose work on the trademark and site design receives raves not only from the design community, but from practically every customer with whom we enjoy a direct interaction.

Driving traffic to the site in such a competitive and fragmented industry is the job of master search strategist and opera tenor Matt Van Wagner and his team at Find Me Faster. Beyond stoking the fires with doses of PPC, Matt is deploying some unique approaches to link-building that are part of a multi-part case study he recently wrote.

And oh yes, the lobsters. Our relationship with one of the largest shellfish distributors on the Eastern seaboard, the Ipswich Seafood Group, gives us access to an abundance of fresh-caught shellfish, shipped ‘just in time’ via a proven fulfillment operation.

Our business model is built around a level of quality and service that enables us to justify up-than-commodity pricing, rapid increases in monthly volume at acceptable customer acquisition costs, and a constant influx of web innovation. If you’ve got any ideas, or references to other RI companies that you think would help further our cause, drop me a line at marc@lobster.com. (Best reply this week gets a free lobster dinner.)

Many Rhode Islanders already enjoy the benefits of high-speed Internet. But we and the rest of the nation compete in a global economy where innovation and knowledge are primary drivers of economic growth. Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. We are increasingly reliant on broadband and the Internet across all aspects of our lives and simply couldn’t live without it.

Go to broadband.ri.gov to learn more about the project, and click on the “Test Your Internet Speed Now!” button to take a simple speed test and add your Internet location information to the Rhode Island broadband map.

Introducing Broadband Rhode Island

The State of Rhode Island is participating in a national program called the Broadband Data and Development Program (BDDP) which is being spearheaded by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce.

The goal of BDDP is to develop a database and map supported by the NTIA and accessible to the general public of all of the broadband services available in the United States and its’ territories. All fifty states and six territories are contributing data to this effort. We are responsible for developing and managing the Rhode Island piece of the map which will also be made publically available.

How can you help?

Our team is working right now to collect the data and put together the map of available broadband (also known as high-speed Internet) in the State of Rhode Island.  But we need your help! The speed test, which is one of the methods we are using to verify the data being gathered for the map, is a very easy and an important way for Rhode Islanders to get involved in this effort.

Please go to our new website broadband.ri.gov and click on the “Test Your Internet Speed Now!” button. The more speed test information we get, the higher the confidence we can have in the mapping data. And if you can’t get high-speed Internet where you are, there is a place to report that as well.

Now is the time for Rhode Island to build on its broadband foundation and support the national agenda to increase broadband access and adoption through better data collection and broadband planning.

Please take the speed test at broadband.ri.gov. We greatly appreciate your cooperation.

I first considered the idea of a local WordPress meet up back in Fall 2009, when we saw WordPress starting to really pick up steam at our local web shop, C. Murray Consulting. I had enjoyed a couple of the local web dev meet ups started by Andrew Shearer, but I wasn’t sure if WordPress had broad enough appeal for the Providence networking scene.

Then, between speaking gigs at WordCamp Boston this past January, I was greeted by at least 10 fellow Rhode Islanders – and those were just the ones who sought me out. They included fellow consultants, developers at local universities, bloggers / journalists, and even small organizations and sole proprietors interested in WordPress as a platform for getting their word out. Not least among this passionate crowd were Suzanne McDonald, a writer/journalist who had recently moved to Newport, and Ken DeBlois, a member of Brown University’s web services team.

Sue and I met again at South County Open Coffee. We started chatting about WordPress and online publishing, and before we knew it, a couple of other attendees’ were sharing their WordPress questions and stories with us. These experiences reminded me that WordPress interest and passion wasn’t just limited to the usual tech and geek circle, but was compelling to casual writers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs outside of the “usual” tech networking circles. When I asked Sue and Ken if they would be interested in co-organizing a meet up, they eagerly agreed.

There are an estimated 20 million WordPress users, and Rhode Island (along with the bordering MA towns) is not immune to its popularity. RI Nexus favorites Providence Geeks blog and Maker Faire RI website are both WordPress powered, as are popular hyper-local websites like the Providence Daily Dose and Greater City Providence. Our own repertoire of local WordPress clients is as diverse as a local university and hospital all the way across to some small partnerships and 2-3 person businesses. And I know our story is not unique among local web shops.

On Monday, we launched the Providence WordPress Meetup website (and Twitter account: @WordPressPVD), and announced our first gathering: Monday, April 26th, at 6 pm, at McFadden’s. In addition to networking and a chance to pick the brains of fellow attendees, Providence startup DandyID will be our first speaker. DandyID’s WordPress plug-in has been downloaded over 30,000 times, and has been hailed by outlets like Mashable as a top solution for integrating your social identity with WordPress. Oh, and did we mention free drinks for the first 15 attendees, courtesy the first sponsor?

Within one day of announcing the meet up, between email, Twitter, and our RSVP comment thread, we received a dozen “likely” or “yes” responses – not including our speaker or the 3 organizers. I’m looking forward to meeting people like Tom Flanagan, who runs the Residential Properties blog, Michael Dietsch, who runs a lively cocktails / spirits blog and writes for a column for Edible Rhody, and Melinda Rainsberger, who’s WordPress powered portfolio is filled with rich visuals.

Whether you’re a WordPress developer, developer wannabe, blogger, business owner, or you’re just curious about WordPress, this is your meet up. Won’t you join us?

Providence Career and Technical Academy is an inner city public college preparatory and career readiness high school. Over 90% of our students are at or below the poverty level. All students attend school for eight hours per day so that they can meet their college readiness requirements and attend their career and tech classes such as electronics, graphic communications, automotive design, culinary arts, etc.

Many of our students are also involved in an after school robotics club. This year we competed at two regional robotics events, bringing home 1st place in the FTC US FIRST RI regional and winning the Rookie All Star Award at the Boston FRC US FIRST Regional. For more information on FIRST please see www.usfirst.org. Both placements allow our students to now compete in the world championship in Atlanta, GA April 14th - 18th. This accomplishment has proven that Providence students can compete and win in highly technical field such as robotics, which includes computer programming, and mechanical and electrical engineering.

Unfortunately we are in desperate need of funds to send our students to the world championship in two short weeks. Any donation would be greatly appreciated as our students do not have the financial means to pay for hotel and air fare. Please contact me at 401-300-9285 or send an email to catherine.rickert@ppsd.org if your interested in donating for our trip.

Watch this video of last week's events. Our robot, RhodeRebels team 3280 is highlighted at the end, demonstrating how we successfully built a hanging mechanism. Our students are truly amazing!