And as a special bonus, Jake is ready and waiting to sponsor some local teams of 1-3 people! So, if you were on the fence, now there’s absolutely no risk! If you’re interested, ping Jake for the details: jake@thecreativecoast.org.

I hope to see you there!

(there’s a chance I’ll be out of the country, but I’m going to do my best to be there to do my job as a mentor & judge)

First, here are Josh’s slides from January’s Refresh. If you’re still unclear on what a meme is or why the internet contains LULZ, you should check them out.

Secondly, Josh has posted details about the Rails Machine Hackfest / Fireside Chat / Ping Pong / Drinking event that’s taking place on Tuesday. Sign up and hack / ping / drink and/or chat!

Thirdly, the Economic Gardening folks have gotten Coke’s Global Director of Interactive Marketing to come down to Savannah and tell us how Coke does their marketing and interactive things. His name is Irvin, so you know it’s gonna be good.

Fourthly, get yourself some Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.

And, a late addition, fifthly, if you’re entrepreneurial, you should do the Creative Coast Fast Pitch thing!

I gave it to my son early this year and he loved it. He made it through the whole book in a couple weeks and is still going back to it to play with the examples. It’s an easy to follow introduction to programming principles, with clear examples and exercises and isn’t condescending at all.

So, if you’ve always wanted to learn how to program but don’t know where to start… now you know. And if you wait until Friday to order it, you can get it for 40% off! Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up creating the next Google or Twitter…

And if you’re already a developer but want to be better, The Pragmatic Programmer is a must-read. It’s language agnostic and provides design and career tips from experienced developers. Really, you must read it.

• Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality – Josh and Brad both recommended this one
• The Ten Faces of Innovation and The Art of Innovation both by Tom Kelley from IDEO. We got the brainstorming process I showed last night directly from the first book, and I’ve heard Tom present the concepts from the second in a presentation. IDEO does some amazing stuff, and it’s well worth checking out their process.

I’ll get more details from Dave Malouf in the next couple of weeks, but he’s presenting on personas next month, which should be a lot of fun.

If you’d like to sponsor (ie: provide beer) next month, let me know.

Also, we don’t have a speaker for November, so if you’d like to share something awesome with the group, let me know.

Want to let me know something? kevin-at-lawver.net will work.

Speaking at conferences is fun and a great way to build confidence. It can only help that Geekend is local and run by cool local people. Still not convinced? Why not? Think you’re not smart or good enough to speak at a conference? Well, I’ve spoken at conferences all over the world, and I’m not any smarter or better than the people in the audiences where I’ve spoken. I’m just willing to get up in front of them and share what I know (or what I think I know). It’s not hard, really. It’s not even that scary once you’re up there.

So, submit your proposal today, and let’s see some more local talent on the schedule!!

(and don’t forget – July’s Refresh is 7/20 at 7PM at Thincspace – and we’ve only heard one “Yay for bowling shirts” comment, so if you’re interested in a Refresh bowling shirt, please let me know or post a comment!)