Web414 - Milwaukee's Web Community

Microsoft rolls out a beta of a marketplace for connecting businesses to web freelancers: http://www.taskmarket.com/

What similar marketplaces have you tried? I think elance.com is a big one.

Have you ever been on a great team? A great team is 10x better (more fun, more passionate, more productive, more healthy) than an average team.

We don't get many chances to experiment with teams in our jobs. Which is a shame considering how much potential could be unlocked if we could get past boring staff meetings, Gannt-charts, email overload, and the busyness of the typical business.

A mind-blowing team experience is something I want to explore further, so I'm recruiting Milwaukee folks to join me in learning The Core Protocols- a blueprint for forming great teams- and then directing our efforts towards creating a great community improvement project. Will you join in?

WHEN: starting Sunday, October 7, 2:30p
WHERE: Cafe at the Milwaukee Art Musuem
RSVP: http://communitybuilders.meetup.com/

I know, I know... it's not exactly web related, but it is being hosted by yours truly, and I figure many geeks are on board with the green movement. It would be great to see you come!

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Paths to a Sustainable Future presents:
The Sustainability Cafe

When: Tues, September 18th. 6pm-8pm
Where: Urban Ecology Center (2nd floor)
RSVP to relocalize@earthlink.net (and bring a friend!)

Engage your fellow community members in a casual cafe-style atmosphere! Enjoy light refreshments while exploring powerful questions reflecting on what the climate and energy crises mean to us, and to share our hopes for the future, individually and as a community. The Sustainability Cafe is part of a growing global movement to support conversations that matter.

Suggested donation of $2 (UEC member)/$5 (non-member) supports the Urban Ecology Center.

Child care available for a fee. Register at 964-8505.

From the Chicago Ruby mailing list:

This weekend (8/18/07) a member of the Facebook Platform Team will be in Chicago to introduce the Platform and answer questions. Please join us to share ideas, troll for partners on your latest project, check out app demonstrations, seek developer support direct from Facebook Developers, or just socialize with people like you.

Members of the Facebook Platform Team will give an introduction to Platform, discuss best practices around product design & viral marketing techniques, and hold a technical Q&A. Plus other talks on monetizing FB apps, lessons learned, and more. Free snacks, lunch, and drinks/beer will be provided.

Details: http://www.facebookchicago.com
RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=2642140688

Hi all,

Here's a neat idea for how to hold a discussion with a large group of people without it getting out of hand (aka say-your-piece-itis). It's called a fishbowl. Chicago blogger Kesa describes how it was used in a user group meeting:

The room we met in was kind of an atrium type of space. Everyone arranged themselves into a circle, and at the center of the room there was a smaller table with 6 chairs. The function of the central table was for this discussion game called fishbowl. Basically there are 6 seats, and any 5 people can sit in them at any time (always leaving one chair open). People start talking about stuff, and if at any point someone wants to join the discussion then they sit down in the empty seat, and someone who no longer wants to talk can get up and leave. At all times the 5 seats needed to stay filled.

MinneBar was a big success. With nearly 400 registered participants it was the biggest barcamp in the U.S. to date! People are starting to fill in the wiki with links to their photos and notes.

The big last minute surprise was that David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, came to the conference. The organizers knew this would be big, so the only other session going on during his panel discussion was a Nintendo DS thing.

He was very interesting to listen to. Luckily, you can catch it on podcast if you missed it!

Hey, just wanted to let you all know that the next meetup.com web designer get together looks really good. Luke will be starting a series of walkthroughs for taking a web design from Photoshop to valid HTML/CSS. (Great for n00bs like me!)

Apr 20th, 7:00p at MSOE

Here's something that might be fun for a future web414 meeting- Pecha Kucha. It involves a quick jaunt through your last 20 delicious links. Each site that you’ve bookmarked comes on screen for 20 seconds, and you have to explain why you chose to bookmark that site.

via a blogger talking about barcamplondon