Justin Love

Hi, welcome to Windy City Rails. I’m Mike with Yugotastic. I’m standing here with Justin Love. We’re here at the Windy City Rails Conference 2012 and I’m interviewing people who run user groups and technical communities. Justin Love is a fixture in the Ruby community in Chicago and also he helps run the Chicago JS and the Chicago Ruby. And you said you were starting a demo days in the suburbs. Yes, someone else had started the group and posted one message to the message board and it never really went anywhere. His meetup membership expired. So I figured I’ll pick it up for a month, call the people I know in the suburbs, maybe some of the people I know here, or there’s the Fox Valley Entrepreneurship Center, ECC, maybe some people I know in the city to talk. So you’re looking at something that would be connecting developers with entrepreneurs. It’s targeted for, I don’t know if I have the same vision as the original person, it’s demo day. You’re not going to have as many startups in the suburbs. You’re not going to have a lot of people looking for investors. But you do have lots of small businesses, maybe they just do IT support, maybe they’re working on iPhone apps, maybe they’re working on their own cool app. But that’s all stuff you can get up and you can practice your pitch and maybe get some feedback on how to improve it. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technology. Yeah. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technology. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technology. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technology. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technology. Or maybe they’re starting a little site where they interview people that do technical. Hey, you know, if you want to come out, that’d be cool too. There’s a few user groups out there. Now, you’re one of those people that bump into everywhere. You’re dealing a lot with JavaScript and Ruby. How did you get involved with Windy City Rails and Chicago Ruby to begin with? Well, initially I was just sitting out in the suburbs feeling awful alone. Yeah. So I finally decided to do it. So I finally decided to do it. So I finally decided, well, you know, I can’t, you know, go to these expensive conferences all over the country, you know, effectively. So I, you know, got to, you know, take, you know, take the hit and get on the train, take that big long trip, go down to the user groups and find other people doing similar stuff. Yeah, yeah. And eventually, actually it wasn’t too long, I thought, oh, no, hey, that’s something I could talk about. You know, I think it was like originally, like about the same time I went to – Yeah. After Ruby Fringe, it was Future Ruby. Okay. So I did like a lightning talk of here’s what I saw. Yeah. So you got bit by the bug. Yeah. And then somebody else, you know, said like, oh, what’s at Lambda? I was like, oh, I can talk about that. Yeah. So that’s where I started trying to, you know, figure out, you know, speaking and stuff. And then do that once or twice and, you know, where I said, hey, do you want to be an organizer of the group? Yeah. And so, I mean, you’re way out in the suburbs as well. So you got a lot of commutes. Mm-hmm. So looking at starting the demo days out in the suburbs. Yeah. You know, you kind of described a little bit about the difference between being out in the suburbs and doing groups and being down in the city. What has been one of the most obvious differences between being out in the suburbs and going to a group like a CMC or some of the groups starting to see more pop up versus coming down to Chicago? Is there a big difference? Nothing that would be too terribly surprising. I mean, it’s smaller. You get a lot of, like, you know, people, you know, an IT shop or a one-man developer shop a lot of times. A lot of people, they’re just, you know, they’re looking at, you know, pretty basic stuff. You know, a lot of them are doing, like, you know, PHP or that kind of, you know, websites for businesses, you know. Yeah, meat and potatoes. And, you know, that’s providing value to those businesses. Right. It’s just not the cool shiny tech we’re usually talking about downtown. Yeah, yeah. And it’s not quite as hip, hipster, hipster. Mm-hmm. Not as many parentheses. Yeah. And, you know, with the smaller community and, you know, less of the new shiny tech, sometimes they’re kind of begging for proposals. Yeah. But, you know, I think the Fox fill-out computer professionals, you know, take the summer off because people are busy. Right. But they’re generally coming with content, so it’s all good. Yeah. And, I mean, do you think that, I mean, obviously you’re passionate about user groups. Do you think it’s – is that something you would recommend? Is that something you would recommend more people to do? I mean, if you’re out in the suburbs, I mean, I got kids and all that. Yeah. I mean, do you think it’s something that – I mean, it’s very – and maybe just because I do it because it’s that structured social for the people who aren’t, you know, as naturally inclined to the social interaction things. Yeah. So it’s a safe place where you can – But, yeah, it’s very easy out there. You know, you don’t have these big, you know, hundred, you know, member attendance numbers. Yeah. You know, it’s like, you know, go to Meetup and it’s there. Yeah. There’s a couple of them, but – Yeah. So it’s easy to believe that you’re sort of in the middle of a desert. Yeah. And not think that anybody’s out there. So, like, when the Elgin Technology Center sort of sprung up, and, you know, I think the first article was thinking it more like a downtown, you know, startup incubator type thing. Right. But it was like, oh, hey, there’s some other people out here. Yeah. So you find kindred spirits. That’s cool. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.