April 22, 2009
The Geek Social, the monthly meetup of tech/science/media minded folks in Nashville, has outgrown the super secret room in the upper portion of Sam’s and as of May 7 will be switching locations to the pool room at the Flying Saucer.
After more than two years in existence, the meetup has proven that there are geeks aplenty in this southern city we call Nashville. And in case you’re wondering what a “Geek Social” is, its pretty much self explanatory. The guys at Firefly Logic started it with no purpose or agenda. They just really wanted to meet others in the community who enjoyed technology and all the wonderful culture it brings. But since the group is so large now, they decided to bring in a job board to help friends find work, and other friends find people to work for them.
And if you’re looking to lay the ground work for a new startup company, keep in mind that Firefly Logic is an official network partner of Microsoft BizSpark , which is a program designed to help accelerate the success of startups by linking them with established companies. So basically Firefly Logic can help up-and-coming companies with services, software, visibility and even offer mentoring in other aspects of running a tech company.
I should also mention that promoters, recruiters and any other unsavory individual who attends will be treated like Cylons and asked to leave the universe.
Official Geek Social site
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Meetups, Technology | Tagged: Cylons, Firefly Logic, Flying Saucer, Geek Social, Geeks, Meet Up, Meetup, Nashville, Science | 
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Posted by Tom Cheredar
March 7, 2009
Certain words, when mass communicated, evoke very distinct reactions. Such is the case with saying “Geek” in Nashville. I’m not sure when this occurred, but very recently I realized it while having an in depth conversation about growing genetically engineered meat in a lab that may or may not take the shape of a sphere. In the middle of this conversation, the topic was briefly changed to Erector Sets (the metal kind, not the dumb plastic ones) and robot gorillas before going back to Lab-grown meat again.
It happened at the Geek Social, a monthly gathering of folks in Nashville who happen to enjoy the same areas of interest. The dialog is a lot like what was described in the paragraph above, but of course also floats into more serious topics of discussion like employment.
“Usually I don’t stop like this to say something — we just let it flow naturally,” said Firefly Logic founding partner Chris McPherson at this month’s meetup. He’s routinely one of the first people to show up at the increasingly packed Sam’s Bar in Hillsboro Village where the Geek Social is held. “We’ve got a lot of friends who are out of work and also lots of friends who need work done so we’re trying something new.”
Chris points to the back of the Mafia-esque “secret room” where a plain, mid-sized cork board leans against the wall. He and all the folks at Firefly Logic had a pretty simple rationale for setting it up: Help people who are friends and who are not yet friends.
Obviously it’s also about helping people get a job if they need one, but if that’s all it was, I wouldn’t be writing about it. I’d hesitate to call it a job board and it seemed like they were on the same page as I was. “Job Board” implies hollow opportunities, empty handshakes, contact information for strangers and even headhunters. If you were there for any other reason than to meet like-minded geeks, then you were out of place. This was just a cork board to help people.
Why?
The most likely explanation is because they were in a position to do so. The Geek Social has grown such a large turnout from the tech community (meaning, people who like to talk about science and technology — career not required), they felt compelled to help others find work and/or workers. Firefly Logic isn’t even hiring any new positions, which was also stated. From the few months that I’ve been attending the Geek Social, I’ve never once seen them put up a company logo either. So, a board for jobs is a responsible action for anyone who can gather those kinds of numbers.
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Posted by Tom Cheredar
December 5, 2008
When geeks meet other geeks, lots of news is then discovered as being unreported – at least this is the scenario that played out tonight after attending Geek Social. The agenda-free gathering provided a small glimpse into the window of cool projects getting coded the folks working at Firefly Logic, who in addition to throwing intentionally vague meet-ups once a month, are leading the mid-state in homegrown iPhone apps.
Apparently the company has dabbled in Facebook applications as well with great success. By that I mean they made one. It was a platform that allowed country music fans to predict the winners of this year’s CMA awards. Typically, the short time span of the app’s release date (which I believe was only days/weeks before the show taped) would be the cause that prevented local media from picking up the story and running it as the lead in their business section. It certainly wouldn’t have appeared in their technology section because those don’t exist. And while that may be the case in this situation, there was no chance of me hearing about the Facebook app and why it was notable that they created one since no one blogged about it.
Personally, I hate Facebook’s initiative for developers to create web applications specific to their social networking site. But, I won’t deny that the site brings in a ridiculous amount of traffic each day and it would be dumb to ignore that. Most developers still don’t like the idea of producing an app for a web site because of the risk for failure and lack of revenue model. So the fact that Firefly Logic created an app for Facebook at all is newsworthy.
So why was the info not better circulated? Mostly because they aren’t familiar with how the media, both local and mainstream, work. When I asked Firefly Logic Partner and Senior Software Engineer Chris McPherson about it, he said it was because no one thought to do it. Having met a handful of others at the company, I have to say I do believe him. Those guys are definitely amazing geek-coders who enjoy their work and not media savvy journo-marketers.
Ideally, Firefly Logic does need a PR/media person who understands technology and tech culture keenly enough to create a buzz about accomplishments, like the Facebook app, that would no doubt drum up additional clients. But, they also need a PR person who understands how to frame those accomplishments for an ignorant local media. The need for such a position will only increase as they take on additional projects, which trust me will happen soon enough [hint: more iPhone apps.]
They actually invited me over to their office tomorrow to hang out and talk shop. Definitely looking forward to it and being able to report some original news of the tech variety.
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Posted by Tom Cheredar
The Geek Social, the monthly meetup of tech/science/media minded folks in Nashville, has outgrown the super secret room in the upper portion of Sam’s and as of May 7 will be switching locations to the pool room at the Flying Saucer.
