James Archer described the refresh movement best.
“For those not yet familiar with it, Refreshing Cities (an unofficial group name) is a social/business organization created by designers and developers across the country who are tired of not having a well-rounded web organization available to them. It was created by the community for the community.”
Dallas was the first city to be refreshed and since then Phoenix, L.A., Pittsburgh, Boston, and most recently, Seattle have joined in. The Refresh Cities create an offline community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of Internet developers in their area. Sound good? It is.
I think that out of all the Refresh Phoenix members, I get the most out of these meetings. I’m the youngest second youngest member and therefore have much less experience then many of the older members. I’m just a teenager. I haven’t been to college. I don’t know anything about running a business or freelancing and I’ve only been creating websites as a job for less then a year. I can use all the help I can get.
The Refresh meetings have helped me in so many ways. The best thing about them is that their are so many cool people to talk with and they all know a lot more then me. It’s great to pick their brains. I learn a lot from them just by listening but some of the time I get so confused I just nod my head and act like I know what they’re talking about. I’ve also been able to get help and suggestions for my own projects from people at the meetings. I think all the Refresh members really enjoy putting the sites they’ve seen or the usernames they talk to with faces and speaking with the people face to face.
Many people come to the meetings just so they can find a job or find good people to hire. This is the best place to look and if that’s the only reason you come, I don’t think there’s a problem with that. That isn’t why I go because right now I’m way too busy enjoying sports but as soon as school ends I’ll be in need of a job again and the meetings will be a good place for me to look.
The meetings are appropriately named because Refreshed is exactly how you feel when you leave the meetings. I always feel better prepared and more excited about my (future) career when I leave. It’s great to see the wide variety of talent in the Phoenix area and I’m glad the Refresh movement is marching on. I think it would be cool if in the future when people think of Internet Development the word Refresh came to their mind. Every web developer, designer, guru, etc. can benefit from a Refresh in their area.
For those Refreshers in Phoenix the next meeting is on February 7th at the Common Grounds Coffee House. ASU’s Technology Officer, Dr. Adrian Sannier, will be speaking. He’s a great speaker and you should also check out his podcast and blog. I hope to see you at the next meeting!