I came to Charlotte in January of 2008 to pursue my professional passion of working with Ruby on Rails. I selected a Charlotte startup over one in the Bay Area because I believed in the business. During our time here, my wife and I have come to love Charlotte deeply, and have made it our home. I am an advocate for Charlotte, and I’m also an admirer and exhibitor of its entreprenurial spirit. After moving here for one Charlotte startup, I’ve founded or co-founded two others, and joined a fourth as its CTO.

I am co-organizing Charlotte Startup Weekend 2. I am donating my time because I believe in the format, and that it’s exactly what Charlotte’s maturing entrepreneurial environment needs to take the next step. During my time as a freelance consultant doing networking in Charlotte, I came to be familiar with a great deal of this city’s talent in design, software development, marketing, and entrepreneurship. I believe it’s time for this claim that I know to be true to become widely believed: this city has an incredible talent base and tremendous potential. By participating in Charlotte Startup Weekend, you’ll be teaming with some of Charlotte’s best and brightest for an inspiring weekend of networking, friendship, and working together.

The agenda is available on the CSW2 website, but here is a summary. On Friday night, after opening remarks, those who have an idea they’d like to put before the group to create will pitch their concept. A small number of those concepts will be selected, and teams will self-organize based on what and who they’d like to work with. Work will begin. Food and drink will be provided. Advisors will review and offer commentary on your progress. At the end of the weekend, a panel of judges will decide who has won. Depending on the organizers meeting their sponsorship goals, there may be prizes awarded the winners. Perhaps our winner will have an opportunity to become tenants at our host sponsor, Packard Place!

The primary sponsor of the Startup Weekend brand is the Kauffman Foundation, whose mission is promoting entrepreneurship. A study from that group in 2010 begins When it comes to U.S. job growth, startup companies aren’t everything. They’re the only thing.. The study reveals that, both on average and for all but seven years between 1977 and 2005, existing firms are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year. By contrast, in their first year, new firms add an average of 3 million jobs.

I’d exhort us all to build new companies together here in Charlotte. Practicing will make us better, and you could meet your next business partner at this event. You’ll have a chance to know what everyone on your team is capable of, and you’ll be comparing results with your peers for weeks to come. You’ll look at what has been accomplished by a group of strangers in one weekend, and you’ll wonder what’s possible in your own business with your own teams in the next two weeks.

So, go register!. And if you are interested in sponsorship, please contact me at jim at jimvanfleet.com and reference CSW in your subject line.

• I will speak at Ignite! Charlotte for a second time, this time in front of a sold-out Neighborhood Theater.
• My wife Megan and I will have a pre-natal visit and our last ultrasound before the birth of our first child, a son, in April.
• My wife’s parents will make their first visit to Charlotte, bringing their dogs with them. We will have ten living creatures in the house.
• I will turn 32.
• My wife will have a baby shower.
• My parents will visit with the intention of selecting a new home for themselves, here in Charlotte.  After that selection, I expect the logistics of their move to be made in a short amount of time.
• I will attend a meeting of CRTEC which promises to become the home of Charlotte’s technology leadership, followed by a meeting with another CRTEC member to discuss our vision of Charlotte’s software development community.
• I will attend an all-day workshop for entrepreneurs focused on preparing for investment and attracting investors to small businesses, put on by the BIG council in conjunction with the SBTDC.
• I will submit a talk for RailsConf 2011.
• Megan and I will attend a Punch Brothers show at the Neighborhood Theater. Chris Eldridge is a dear friend of Megan’s.
• I will celebrate the one year anniversary of going freelance with it’s bspoke.
• Adam Howell and I will observe the one year anniversary of Work Montage and our product Mocksup.
• And finally, although a more formal announcement will be forthcoming, I’ve altered bspoke’s charter to accept a full-time CTO position at Otherscreen, a web and mobile startup here in Charlotte, NC. It is a true privilege to be working with this team already, and you should expect big things.

That’s in addition to client work and the particulars of every day life. If I am overly quiet or missing for a good portion of February, now you know why. If I owe you something, please keep reminding me. Except for you, Raquel, I’m almost done with your recommendation.

At the Web 2.0 summit in 2006, when EC2 had not yet redefined what Cloud meant, Jeff Bezos refers to “muck” and “undifferentiated heavy lifting” that takes up to 70% of the time you spend on your idea. He’s speaking, of course, about a platform that will make him and his company extremely wealthy, as it enables a raft of startups– a platform based on elasticity of compute and disk resources.

As software development consultants, Jeremy and I both spend our professional careers utilizing compute and disk resources. The Cloud, whatever it means now, is a part of our professional lives. We are among the few (we happy few) who can differentiate what Jeff Bezos characterizes as “undifferentiated”. As a businessman who will have two startups survive their first year as profitable companies, I have a different feeling about undifferentiated work.

As a software consultant, I am in constant need of contracts and legal review. When I searched for a retainer contract, the results were terrible. Further, when you use documents that you find on the Internet, it’s clear that your enterprise is unlikely to get the upper hand during litigation, as you’ve had no counsel.

Although Jeremy intimates that taxes are something for which “tools exist” that cost “pennies a day”, this has not been my experience. I believe a good CPA is essential to any young business, and yet they seem to take pleasure in not being differentiated. CPA’s evoke the first lines of Anna Karenina: every good one is the same, but the bad ones are all different– unique in their particular brand of incompetence.

One point that I feel Jeremy is very right to point out is the benefit of low overhead of our industry. It removes one element of the many that keep “code monkeys” tied to cubicles in jobs where they are under-appreciated and misunderstood. There are many others. How will I find work? How will I keep it once I have it? I don’t know any lawyers. None of the lawyers I know do business contract law. I don’t know any good CPA’s. I don’t know anyone who knows any good CPA’s. How will I manage my time working from home with the distractions there? I hate timecards! How much am I going to have to pay for insurance for my family? Obama, Obama, Obama! The list could be endless, and its effect is to chain developers to those unhappy cubicles.

I feel, as Jeremy does, that co-working can address many of these questions. While I feel that the ideas he proposes may require no encompassing formal entity, I think there exists a model for a company that does have formal structure to provide different benefits that directly address the above concerns. It can lower the overall costs of what are typically large one-time or annual expenses, as well as provide a convenient payment scheme for freelancers and small development shops. It can provide access to group health care over time. It can optionally provide many related services, as Ask Sunday or Freshbooks might, either directly or through discount codes. It can provide professional community, not just in the physical world, but in the connected virtual one. In other words, some undifferentiated heavy lifting.

The element I’m most excited about is that of having membership equate to ownership. With a proper set of bylaws and founding members, I believe it can be demonstrated that two concerns of freelancers and small shops can be addressed in meaningful ways. Most developers are used to receiving a predictable sum every (say) two weeks. This is unlikely how they’ll be paid by their clients. By collecting receivables jointly, and distributing among all owners, it can function much in the way a credit union does from day to day. It can provide a payroll service that allows developers to just get the direct deposits and have less to worry about when it comes to managing receivables. As the concept matures, I believe that paid, “workless weeks” can be introduced to those who are billing enough. There is a set of numbers to be cracked, and I don’t even know any lawyers that would be up for this, so I can’t really move the needle farther than this. But it’s a great idea. If you use it, let me know, and I’ll sign up and sit on the board.

(Via The Mecklenburg Times.)

Things I missed.

• Tweeting my frustrations with “the way things are”
• Questions my followers could help me with
• Talking about what I was listening to
• Complimenting @blairblends on his fab new avatar
• Announcements of big achievements (I had two!)
• Marking tweets as favorites.
• Reading tweets from friends
• Reading tweets from people who can teach me something I want to learn.

Things I did not miss

• The noise
• Being among the first to know about scandals or deaths
• Green avatars
• Reading tweets from people I am trying to keep tabs on

What Now?

I think it’s time to focus a little bit more on the people who I like the most on Twitter. This is going to mean unfollowing a lot of people I have been following for a long time. It’s going to mean unfollowing some people who follow me. I’m OK with that.

I also felt like I had more creative energy for bigger projects. I was surprised how much not tweeting meant for my “blog ideas” lists or ideas for my book. I think I’ll be moving toward just the occasional tweet during the day and doing most of my tweeting at night.

But overall, I found it an interesting experiment. If Twitter is a big deal for you (and I imagine some of you reading this might fit that description), I recommend taking some time off and seeing what you learn.

The house is really rounding into shape. As far as I know, there is no finer moving coordinator in the world than my wife Megan Van Fleet, and she has done a masterful job getting us unpacked and sorted as usual. There are still a few odds and ends about, but overall I could not be more thrilled with how it’s turning out.

The Surprises

It’s difficult to pick the most pleasant surprise thus far about the house, but there are a three I can think of off the top of my head.

Living right

First, having a hot tub in the master suite is great. I internalize a lot of stress (although I’m making progress on communicating– just ask my boss!) and its a tremendous stress relief possibility. Mmmmm, jets.

Not a vacuum.

We also got that little fellow over to the right there, and it’s been awesome! It would be impossible for it to seem more like vacuuming the lawn, because you need to run the power cable along with it. But it starts instantly and doesn’t stink when it’s done. I was very happy to give it a try and it turned out great. Megan got home early on Friday and says she did the entire yard (including edging) in 90 minutes.

X-cape!

The final surprise has been how little furniture that we need to credibly live here. I was worried about going from a 1800 sq. ft. townhouse with one sofa to a 2900 sq. ft. home without having to spend a lot of money on furniture, but so far we’ve just picked up an additional matching chair from IKEA. Megan went to IKEA and spent less than $200, that should tell you all you need to know.

The Big Ticket

I spent a majority of my day today on my office. The effect of having a real office with a door I can shut that has a good music system is already reminding me how important those things can be to me. I feel gears deep inside turning that are rusty from not having turned in a long time. Megan got a chuckle out of me telling her that I felt a bit of magic in there. I even got a very nice painting from Megan’s stepdad Bob. Bob, if you’re reading, THANK YOU. It reminds me of where I grew up…

Graves Festival

…namely, the mountains. Graves Mountain Festival of Music is where we go to hook up with Megan’s friends from high school, who are now my friends as well. It was a delightful time, and next year I’m committed to staying longer. This trip was particularly satisfying since it was our first time back in three years. We missed 2007 for our wedding and European vacation preparations, and we missed last year because of my bad back.

Check out this picture, guys. Beautiful. It’ll also wrap us up for this installment, I think I heard my phone ring.

• Shopping for a house
• Making an offer on a house
• Having the offer accepted
• Getting financed
• Closing on the house
• Moving in
• Unpacking

Well, they have multiple things in common, but the one I’m thinking of is that I apparently do not consider them blogworthy.
I will now shamelessly steal from my wife’s blog to show off.

Backyard with pergola, concrete planters for my herb garden, and fence.

Dining room from living room, heading back to the kitchen.

Master bathtub, “bathed” in sunlight (waka waka waka!)

Master shower with pebble floor. 3 shower heads cropped out.

Master bedroom. Doors lead to custom closet (that I will rearrange once I get my mitts on it!)

What will be our nursery in 8 years.

Guest bedroom! Come stay with us and help up unpack!

Guest bathroom off the hallway upstairs.

Basement with TV nook and stairs to upstairs den.

Backyard with more of the “wild” section of the yard on film. And a river runs through it.

Kitchen–fridge and desk area. This is where my laptop will live!

Den off the kitchen with bar area. Woohoo!

Jim standing in the dining room! And plenty of ceiling space to spare!

Front Living Room with fireplace and beautiful front door! (Not pictured (but just around corner and wired to front door and windows): Security system…phew!)

Office with built-in bookshelves and built-in nook)

In the interface itself, the links never looked like they were working, so I stopped doing it. I see now that they do work! But I think it came together well! For those of you who like shorter things http://tinyurl.com/clt-discgolf-map is usable.

1. I was a DJ in college at KTRU for several years. (I probably scanned that logo.) My favorite story came during my first shift when I satisfied all my playlist requirements during the first hour of my shift, then played Brainfreeze in its entirety for the second hour. I had one caller who claimed to be on their way to their probation hearing prior to returning to jail, but Brainfreeze still put a smile on their face.

2. My three cats are a Volunteer, a Longhorn, and a Tar Heel.

3. I have probably imbibed 100 cases of Cherry Coke Zero this year.

4. My middle name, Alanson (uh-LAN-son), has been in my family for three generations. It is my father’s first name, and his father’s middle name.

5. I have been a part of a volunteer, non-profit organization called CISV since I was 11 years old. Its message is that children are basically the same the world around, but they grow up in different cultures. I haven’t lived in the same city as a chapter since I was in high-school, but I have never stopped volunteering.

6. I am a recovering video game “addict”. I think Megan may hate World Of Warcraft more than anything in the entire world. I probably logged thousands of hours on Super Smash Brothers for the N64. I once won a game of NCAA Basketball on the SNES 132-0 without using the reset button. I found every exit on Super Mario World for each of the three saved game slots. I am pretty sure I spent my entire freshman year playing Diablo and reading comic books.

7. If I were to review my resume for college application at this point in my life, I doubt that I could remember 50% of the things on it, even though I know I must have done them.

Next up:

• Megan
• Elizabeth
• Kate
• Tasha

Since picking up the Wii version of Rock Band at the beach this summer, Megan and I have both really enjoyed it. It turns out Megan Van Fleet is an excellent drummer! I don’t play drums that much, but when I do, I struggle on easy. She can definitely get through all the songs on medium, only struggling on the hardest ones. I’ve had to try to up my game and start practicing hard guitars, but we really don’t play that much.

I’m Not Fat, I’m Big Boned!

As a part of my post-surgery life, I’ve been referred to Elite Physical Therapy here in Charlotte, and it’s unbelievable. Joe kicks my ass twice weekly, and has also taken his own time to show me how to kick my own ass at the Y. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

As a result of physical therapy, I now consider myself 99.99% pain free. There is only the slightest bit of very occasional bother. We have been working on restoring my flexibility, core-strengthening (which relieves stress on the back), and recently more total body activities. I have definitely learned that you do not need weights to get stronger; your own body can provide all the resistance you need.

I am excited about getting back into a rhythm of going to the gym. I went last night to do a full session on the elliptical runner, and I was reminded about how I used to start plenty of days that way. It’s been over 18 months since the last time I was doing that, and I’ve definitely lost a few steps, but I came home energized.

Still a Geek

charlotte.rb has a new Meetup group sponsored by the guys at Engine Yard. It has been a bit of a relief to have a chance to participate in a professional group that I did not have to start myself.

I am working a lot more with Rails 2.1 and it’s new features. I hope to be able to write up some of it soon.

I am also working on a talk that I hope to present at RailsConf 2009— it won’t be just another Scaling Rails talk, I promise you that. It’ll be the first talk I’ve ever really spent time and energy on, and I hope to have enough fun making it so that if it gets rejected, I will still think it was worth it.

Fall’s Season Passes

Farewell, Monk, Psych, In Plain Sight, and Burn Notice! We will see you again soon. Here’s what we’re ready for this fall.

• House
• Heroes
• Pushing Daisies
• Project Runway (I’m getting destroyed this year in our fantasy Project Runway showdown)
• Desperate Housewives

and Megan has these upstairs

• 90210
• NCIS

Still Church Goers

For those of you who are familiar with my typical routine, it may surprise you that I really look forward to going to church each week. Megan and I became members of the UUCC earlier in the summer, and it’s something that we both look forward to every Sunday. It encourages us both to better habits (like just going for it and waking up earlier) that we’ve both struggled with a bit at times.

Thanks

I am slowly getting around to writing letters to everyone that’s impacted my life. My handwriting is bad enough that the experience may not be 100% pleasant for the recipient, but I was inspired by a service given by a guest speaker one week. He read aloud a note that his son had written him years ago, in conjunction with a gift of a book. It was clear, even years later, how this note made him feel so wonderful and happy.

We all have the power to do that for the ones we love. I want to encourage everyone to take a little bit of time out of your day to write from the heart to the people you love. They will never forget it, and it will make you feel good, too.

I, also, hope to write here more often. I am trying to get back into a lot of habits, and sometimes the last thing I feel like when I get home is more keyboarding.