Developer Community And Conference Conversations: Mike Hall Interviews Randy Ellis

[Music] hi it's mike again with UGtastic today i'm sitting down with randy ellis randy is the lead ambassador for the absterdam chicago absterdam not amsterdam absterdam chicago uh user community hi randy uh thanks for taking the time to sit down with me hey mike nice to meet you again we saw each other go to a conference here in chicago the first one here actually in chicago and it was a great time meeting you and to learn more about UGtastic thanks thanks yeah and it was great to learn about absterdam i interviewed mike lee while i was there and uh i kind of got a good idea of just how much uh how big this movement was i had never heard of before but can you tell me a little bit about how you got into absterdam and and what what is absterdam and what is it doing here in chicago uh i just like the first comment uh on your interview with mike lee that was a great interview that uh you had with them and uh mike's just a great guy uh i i got to meet him later on in the process and we'll definitely go into that later on in the interview but uh great guy uh and then to go into your other questions about how i became interested in absterdam yeah the funny that how the journey started is initially i was going to create my own organization uh i came from a business internship back in 2011 and i felt once i commenced out of that program i felt that we needed a more uh community base in regards to people learning different technologies different platforms and different experiences when it came to technology so i started doing my research and started saying hey you know maybe i can start this on my own but then of course that became a very heavy lifting project within itself very cumbersome you know how it is as far as uh you know when you're starting your own business you know so i had other projects other interests that was also in parallel with that so then i started digging a little deeper as far as what currently exists uh here in chicago or just in the country for that matter and then i was able to do a lot of research and i was able to do a lot of other research and you know other other organizations that i came across and i looked at their uh criteria i looked at their requirements and you know some of them even you know they had like membership fees and i didn't feel like that was you know necessary uh when it came to a person wanting to learn i wanted to make sure that uh everything was free of access uh knowledge is free at the end of the day we have the internet now it's not like we have to go to the library 15 some odd years ago and and learn about what's going on in the country and what's going on in the world so we've been able to do a lot of research and learn about a specific uh topic of interest now at a push of a button we have instant gratification as far as how much information that you want to learn of course doing your proper due diligence because you know you can you can get overwhelmed exactly lose focus exactly you know so uh after you know i did my proper due diligence uh amsterdam was a clear choice i i said hey um you know i want to learn more about this recently finished doing uh it was one particular event i want to say wwdc not this year but the year prior so i started you know looking at their press in regards to them i said hey you know do they have a organization or do they have a community here in chicago and of course didn't see it so i was like hey this is a no-brainer uh you know you know this is you know chicago is a budding uh technology ecosystem with a lot of people a lot of talent a lot of creativity so it was just uh me going uh and contacting napshedam so i took the shot i uh corresponded with them sent an email out to him saying hey you know my name is randy ellis yada yada and i would like to bring a embassy here to chicago so after that honestly i didn't expect to hear anything back you know so maybe i think maybe a couple of weeks went by and then i got a uh response from uh aline and aleem is the embassy coordinator and he came over he didn't come over but he responded back to me and said hey we think that's an awesome idea let's talk over skype i had a talk with aleem as well as paul darcy who was the ceo of um of apshidam and we just took it and ran from there i started uh getting the embassy kit information and here we are today so it sounds like it's a lot more than just oh i'm going to slap a logo and on my user group and call it absterdam there's i mean you describe the concept of embassy ambassadors ceo so it sounds like it's a it's a lot more um organized than a typical organization user group organization um so is is the way what what when you say that you're an ambassador here and there's embassy here in chicago what what does that mean well typically what that means is we are uh we call ourselves a meta organization uh that's you know part of our mission and what that means for those that don't know is a metal organization is part is is of an umbrella and then you have little embassies with under that umbrella sort of like subsidiaries and then that entity kind of runs itself it governs itself uh within its own world uh we still follow the same rules mission we still follow the same goals we still have the same uh advocacy that we would if we were the headquarters in the netherlands but we apply our own culture you know you look if you closely look at all of our embassies uh overseas in different countries and as well as different uh cities if you look at our logos our logos incorporate our culture so if you look at the chicago uh absterdam you'll notice the water tower logo with the chicago stars uh if you look at um absterdam you will see different icons of their culture so we kind of morph we embrace our culture because we don't want to bring a culture that is not of ourselves from where we're from because that so you have there's the there's the style the theme the encompassing organization but each individual uh region has its own identity that still retains it belongs to part of this greater whole but while still uh maintaining its unique flavor exactly so you know with that um embracing our own culture we're able to engage people a little bit more we're not uh coming in as aliens or outside uh people trying to uh occupy something that we don't know about i'm chicago born and raised so i know all the great spots as far as where to get a great beer i know the great you know bars where we can do meet ups at so what we do is that we want to indoctrinate the culture as much as pop as much as possible when it comes to absterdam and those embassies uh within those particular cities or countries so do you meet monthly or is it how how do the meetups work and and where do you where do you meet at that's a great question uh when it comes to uh absterdam chicago in particular we do monthlies and what we want to do is start increasing the frequency of those meetups and we want to make sure that we meet at the right time and we want to keep up with the frequency of those uh meetups i just wanted to test uh our market to see if there was interest we launched back in march at the creative chicago expo uh at the cultural center and we had some uh great uh response from that we had about 60 people sign up uh to be advocates and and support absterdam and then we started our meetup group uh which is absterdam. meetup. com i hope i got that right uh but we'll adjust in the in the in the show notes great and um and then we had right now we currently have about 47 people in the meetup right now so roughly we have over 100 advocates right now for uh supporting absterdam chicago and and its uh mission cool now one of the things we talked about earlier was that there's a project that's coming out of absterdam chicago the local ux and i thought it was kind of interesting how you would be having a an actual physical product coming out of the community how does that work and what what what exactly is that product that's great and just to backtrack real briefly uh you know pretty much with abstinence what we what we do is that not only are we an organization of people that develop uh things or in our spare time or whenever we have a moment within our regular nine-to-fives but we want to uh i guess encourage people to constantly develop and create great things regardless of what their time is so for an example best example before i go into local lux is uh mike lee you know he created uh lumen's uh chemistry uh if you're familiar with that ipad game and that was something uh that was created externally of absterdam but it was created in the mid-1990s and it's in the mid-1980s and it's now in the mid-1990s so it's kind of like we represent our our companies through absterdam um if you go to localluxapp. com which is the company if you scroll down to the bottom you'll see a a url that says powered by absterdam and that's the thing that i want to continue to push uh throughout uh any projects that i get behind because not only am i representing local lux but i'm also representing a lot of other companies that i've been working with for a long time i've been working with a lot of other companies that i've been working with for a long time i'm not only am i representing myself but i'm also representing absterdam in regards to what we release now just to get into local lux uh that particular project is something that's been in the making since late last year it's a hyper local marketplace for independent uh makers so if you for instance uh love to make uh handbags i don't know why but just for an example but you don't carry stuff yeah it's only a piece of much right it's only a piece of much right and you're a manufacturer and you're a manufacturer and you're a manufacturer and you're a manufacturer and you're a manufacturer and you're a manufacturer and you're a you want to cast a wider net you want to be able to get your product out there yes we have things that that currently exist in the marketplace we have Etsy uh we have other uh independent uh markets we have another one our square market just released about a month and a half ago but it's not really a hyper local experience and that's where i feel that there's an absence because from a local perspective i feel we have a social obligation to not only the global community but also your own backyard you want to make sure that money is flowing throughout your local economy and propping it up because once you spend a dollar at walmart you don't really know where that money is actually going at the end of the day and you know facts are there is that every dollar is spent at a big box corporation 45 45 cents of that uh goes to you know corporate jets or you know uh their all kinds of stuff exactly it's not going to the manufacturer the the creator the maker exactly uh but if you look at the numbers you will actually be able to see if you support your local economy through uh buying uh local produce from farmers markets and you see that that money actually that dollar is is extended out able to have better communities you ever have you you have better schools better uh policing better environments for children and and and overall have a better family environment uh so that's my advocacy with local lux and you know we're accepting people to come on uh and be alpha testers we have about 100 people right now and it's just a great experience uh we're uh just one more thing we are in the middle of a crowdfunding contest and we have about 17 days left and we're actually in first place uh we have uh we're about 30 about 30 funded right now and uh we're just smoking the competition right now so you know if anybody would you know love to assist you can definitely go to our website uh localluxapp. com and follow the prompts as far as being able to pledge i can't promise that this is going to be deployed before then but deployed that's i'm a developer but i published this but but uh i'll try to get a link out but the um the the thing that interests me about that is when i talked to mike lee uh that it was focused on uh that amsterdam was a business that was aware of the community that it was in and and there was the study that was done by the university of amsterdam or helsinki sorry for uh whoever is uh goes to those i i apologize to any alumni of either one of those institutions if i got it wrong but uh that uh that there were studies about how these technical communities can um support and prop up their local community their local businesses is that kind of where the idea for local lux came from is saying okay we're focused on our own regional community and that was kind of the instigator and and how how does it work with amsterdam is is this a product that is developed underneath the amsterdam um brand or how does that work uh there's two questions there's yeah i'll answer the first question uh essentially the what we want to do with amsterdam is we want to say we're i wouldn't stay in charge but we have a responsibility to support uh you know our own local we can only reach out so far uh when it comes to your own backyard you are the surveyor you are the protector you are the advocate for where you live so before that report actually even came out um you know i was already on that advocacy uh coming from my business program because we're very strong supporters of being community leaders uh our the business program that i was a part of we actually made a a creed that we want to have a thousand community leaders by 2017. and with that i kind of uh put myself in a position to say hey not only do i you know want to become a a an inspiring serial entrepreneur uh also of a great successful business but i also want to support my community at the same time so during my my research you know i wanted to be able to say hey this is a great company now you know that is you know capitalistic you know we're a business we have to raise money but you know where that money is going it's going to the advocacy of supporting our own city supporting our own state and supporting the underdogs because we don't get much uh uh notoriety or press when it comes to people uh that we represent that's in the basements of their homes uh doing one of the things we're going to do is we're going to be able to give them a voice and give them a platform to actually say hey here's a smartphone app that people can uh embrace and see what you're offering and pay for it and and and get that experience uh the second question is well can you repeat that yeah it was um that you're launching this product and it's and it's powered by amsterdam but how does that work and how do you get that experience and how do you get that experience and how do you get that experience and how does that work is it is it being released underneath the the trademark of amsterdam or do you work with other amsterdammers to develop the product how how did that work um great question how this pretty much works is that since i'm a part of amsterdam since i'm the ambassador slash member i would like to call myself a member and you know no type of hierarchy exists as far as i'm concerned uh but what i do is that we incorporate members to help out with the project for instance if i had a challenge ahead of me that required uh some type of dot net or some type of uh objective c uh things of that nature i would put a beacon out to our our amsterdam community and have someone chime in and help me uh with that challenge and move it on from there uh it just creates a holistic uh point of view we want to be able to if i'm ha if i have a marketing question or if i have a technological question or if i just have a seo question we have a thriving community of these experts that's able to chime in and we can talk via skype or email whatever the case so when i say it's powered by amsterdam that's exactly what it means so it's like in that respect it's acting kind of like a um a trusted network almost like a i want to say like a like a trade group where everybody is in the same uh industry and they can help each other and provide connections and things like that exactly exactly my point yep well thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me randy i really appreciate it thank you and i appreciate it and i'm looking forward to UGtastic the interview everything else that you guys going out and we'll be uh in touch soon about the upcoming events that we have going on great great i'll try to get those posted thanks thanks all right thank you user groups with lots to say interviews and more no way sharing great ideas in the tech community fascinating conversations a plethora of information find out for yourself today at ucastic. com