Mike Lee is a product engineer in the Netherlands.
Follow @bmf on Twitter. If you have comments, email bmf@le.mu.rs.
For more information about Appsterdam, check out http://appsterdam.rs and follow @appsterdamrs.
At some point during our volunteer meeting, after announcing the organization had grown too large for all-hands meetings to be our default mode, and after people had broken into groups to work on our Summer of Appsterdam initiatives, I had a really good conversation about that most basic of questions: “What is Appsterdam?”
It, like the question, “Why Amsterdam?” is a hard one to answer, because there are a lot of answers, and the best one depends on who you are. Our movement grows organically according to the talents and passions of its members. We have a lot of initiatives that go in a lot of different directions.
For example, our website serves as a “concert calendar” of events in and around Amsterdam, but we also plan events. We get App Makers together for Meeten en Drinken, but we also offer free work spaces and education. We help people go indie, but we also have a venture fund.
If you try to define the Appsterdam movement by its initiatives, you will quickly run out of words, and the only thread that seems to connect them is Appsterdam itself. Therein lies the greater truth. As a meta-organization, we are not doers, but facilitators.
One good metaphor for Appsterdam is the folk tale of Stone Soup. In a time of famine, when nobody had anything to share, one family put out a huge cauldron of boiling water with nothing but a stone inside, then explained to passersby that it was stone soup, and that there was plenty to share.
Each person who sat down for a meal of stone soup threw something in the pot—a carrot, a potato, a bit of meat—and when the soup was done, they took out the stone, and everyone had a nice meal. We are that way. We take what people are willing and able to contribute. We combine, coordinate, and engineer, and we end up with something nice for all of us.
The purpose of the Appsterdam movement is to bring App Makers together. Our goal is to serve App Makers around the world, and we’ve started that by building a capital in Amsterdam. This is not meant to set off a series of pissing contests over who has the better city. That is the opposite of Appsterdam.
Pissing contests are our biggest enemy. As a developer, I say with the greatest love in my heart, that developers are dicks. Oh, we’re nice to each other, sure, but we’re dicks to most people. Think about it. We insult people who use different languages, different platforms, or even different coding styles. iPhone versus Android. VI versus EMACS. Spaces versus tabs.
Then there are those jerks who can’t even code. We call them biz dev douchebags, marketing douchebags, new media douchebags, the list goes on. We bemoan the dearth of women in our industry, while refusing to hang out with the industries where women actually are.
Our inability to stop picking on each other is holding us back, when threats like patent trolls are looming ready to pick us off one by one. We need to rediscover what we should have learned as lemurs—that if we’re all going to survive, we’re going to need to stick together.
Appsterdam is the first organization that brings together programmers, regardless of implementation detail, marketeers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, scholars, the government, newbies, and anyone else willing to pitch in and be part of a new way of doing technology.
It’s no accident we chose a city with a diverse population whose name stands for tolerance. If you think you get Appsterdam, and you want to have a pissing match about it, you don’t get Appsterdam. We don’t like conflict, and the one thing we don’t tolerate is intolerance.
And we don’t care. We’re bulding a haven for App Makers in the Netherlands because we want to live in that haven. People who have been looking for that, and who are capable of getting along with other people, are welcome to join us here. If you want to fight about it, don’t bother.
The people who get Appsterdam, who will find a first or second home in Appsterdam, are the people who understand that Appsterdam is not a company or a person or a service. Appsterdam is an idea, which has blossomed into a movement, that we are better together—whether you join us here, and build your own little Appsterdam at home.
We don’t care about the naysayers, the haters, and the crabs who would hold us down, because those are the people who make things suck. They’re the ones we’re leaving behind. Appsterdam is what we make of it, and so far what we’re making of it is pretty good, growing really quickly, and attracting a lot of people to this grand experiment.
At last Saturday’s Appsterdam launch party, sponsored by Igluu and Vodaphone, we introduced the new web site, finally answering the question of why we went with a Serbian TLD, .rs, instead of using the more patriotic .nl.
First, you read the URL as “Appsterdammers” as it is a catalog of all the Appsterdammers. We have lists with things like “developer,” “student,” “consultant,” and “available.” That way when people want to, for example, hire an App Maker, they can find one on the site.
Second, although the major thrust of the Appsterdam movement is to build a home for App Makers right here in Amsterdam, we intend to serve App Makers all over the world. As such, and effective immediately, we are going to be accepting members from anywhere in the world, via three types of membership.
Appsterdammers — people who work in Amsterdam
Applanders — people who work elsewhere in the Netherlands
Appbroaders — people who work elsewhere in the world
Up to now, my habit has been to sort any follower who seemed to be in the Netherlands into what seemed like an appropriate category. That way we could have data on launch day. However, the community prefers an opt in system, so from here on out, we’re not going to add you to a list unless you tell us to.
Eventually, we’ll put up a form where you can manage your own lists, which will be particularly convenient for consultants and companies who frequently change their availability or hiring status. For now, though, just tweet at @appsterdamrs what changes you want.
@appsterdamrs Add Applanders consultant developer available
@appsterdamrs Remove hiring
@appsterdamrs Remove me altogether, ye scurvy dogs!
… and so forth.
We’ll also have to modify the site a bit to reflect the changes to the underlying lists, so your membership status may or may not change right away. Bear with us—our web team are volunteers who are spending their free time trying to build a much needed resource for our community.
The site will also serve as a sort of concert calendar for blogs and events in the city. If you have suggestions for the site, or lists you want to see, please don’t hesitate to contact us. The site is here to serve you, so let us know what you need.
It seems I owe some people some apologies. With everyone so excited about the Appsterdam movement, I’ve had to talk to a lot of people really quickly, which has meant boiling a lot of nuance into some very compact sound bites. It is never my desire to offend people, so I’d like to offer up those apologies now.
First and foremost, to my friends at Sofa, I apologize for the sentence, “Sofa wanted to help out, but then they got offered a lot of money to move to the Valley.” I didn’t mean to imply that the money played any part in your decision. Only that it was a nice bonus for the opportunity of a lifetime.
I also didn’t mean to imply that I think the Sofa team is wrong for joining Facebook. If I had grown up here in the Netherlands and was offered the opportunity to move to Silicon Valley to work with a team I genuinely admired, I would jump at the chance. A little bit of walking around money doesn’t hurt, either.
That said, and as much as I hope you guys have a blast, I hope you come back. The more Valley knowledge we can bring back to Appsterdam, the better. And to anyone growing up in the US, in or outside Silicon Valley, you should take a lesson from Sofa and come to Europe for a little bit. Appsterdam would sure love to have you.
Now I must apologize to my brothers and sisters in the great city of Berlin for the sentence, “Berlin is not a good place to raise children.” I didn’t mean to impune the reputation of your fair city, any more than I mean to denigrate any other city. Truth be known, Berlin is my second choice for a developer hub, right after Amsterdam.
The reason Amsterdam won over Berlin is not really about raising children per se. Berlin is a very hip city, grungier than Seattle and San Francisco combined. As such, it’s full of artists and bohemians of every stripe, making it a center for art and culture. If the Netherlands is serious about cutting public funding for arts programs, I think that whole industry should move to Berlin in protest.
We have a bit of Berlin right here in Amsterdam at the NDSM-Werf, where we have our first Appsterdam Official Hangout, Appsterdam Noord. Berlin is heaven for a certain type of person. Amsterdam has something for everyone. It is that compromise, that “middleness,” that makes it the perfect home for our movement.
In a very real sense, location doesn’t matter. We could have chosen anywhere to concentrate our efforts, which is why my search for the perfect place took me to such strange ends as Cambodia and Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.
What matters is that we be in one place. We can work together over the Internet, but we can’t go out for beers together over the Internet. It is that beer factor, or to put it more scientifically, that density, that has Silicon Valley whipping the world’s ass.
You all can spend the rest of your lives debating about the place. We in the Appsterdam movement have picked a place and are already getting together. The great news is, the place is surrounded by a lot of other really great places that are close and easy to get to. Amsterdam is in the middle in a geographical sense as well, and we have a huge airport with flights to anywhere.
Amsterdam isn’t perfect, but it is pretty darned nice, and it’s filled with passionate developers who are intent on making it the best place in the world for App Makers. If you need any more convincing than that, come visit us here in Appsterdam. I’ll be surprised if you don’t want to come back.
Amber van de Velde
Anne Fortuin
Antonio (Willy) Malara
Arne Bolt
Axel Roest
Birgit Reizevoort
Craig Latta
Eloy Durán
Javier Cicchelli
Judy Chen
Kasia Kwiecien
KLAAS SPELLER !!!
Mariela Dimitrova
Martinus Meiborg
Matt Feigal
Matteo Manferdini
Midas Kwant
Paul Siegmann
Peter Robinett
Peter Tuszynski
Robbert van Ginkel
Robert Shepherd
Tim van de Velde
Vijay Kiran
Yakim van Zuijlen
1%CLUB
BNO
Igluu
Layar
Lifelapse
Mobypicture
Stichting NDSM-Werf
Solid Ventures
Startup Weekend Amsterdam
Vodafone
Voormedia
Waag Society
Zwapp
…and all the people who took in a guest, donated money, bought a shirt, retweeted us, gave us advice, did us a favor, or came to this great city to help celebrate our movement.
This weekend the Appsterdam movement launched the Summer of Appsterdam, our first set of initiatives for building the City of Apps. We’ll have the whole summer to talk more about that. For now, I want to tell you about the actual event. I think—I’m not 100% positive, but I think—we managed to throw the greatest launch party of all time.
Lots of people have launch parties, and a lot of them are really great, but most of them only last one night. Our launch party lasted the entire weekend.
Festivities began on Friday night, as people arrived from all over the world to join with local App Makers in taking over the bar terrace of ‘t Loosje. We spent the night getting to know each other over drinks and snacks overlooking the historic Waag building, home of the city’s open data initiative.
On Saturday morning, attendees had their choice of six tours around the city, each lovingly assembled and expertly delivered by local guides. These were not just touristic strolls through shopping streets. I mean, just look at the program for the Appstars tour. That was just one of the adventures shared by each group of App Makers, each giving them a chance to get to know Appsterdam and each other.
Saturday night, we got together at Panama for a big launch party, sponsored by Igluu and Vodafone. I took the stage and delivered a keynote featuring people and companies in Appsterdam. We also had iPad stands where people could see what their fellow Appsterdammers have been working on.
During the party we introduced our website, our summer initiatives, our new and upcoming Appsterdam Noord and Appsterdam Centraal workspaces, and the Appsterfund, a collection of entrepreneurs and investors dedicated to providing Appsterdammers with the help they need to build their companies.
The room crackled with excitement and enthusiasm. People loaded up on T-shirts and stickers, as well as swag and discounts donated to the movement. Friends were made. Business was conducted. Products were launched. Companies were founded.
In addition to the planned events, Friday and Saturday nights we had Appsterdam After Dark, where groups of App Makers went out to experience the unique nightlife that has made Amsterdam famous. If you think you love your colleagues after a night out drinking, imagine how you feel after a night out in Amsterdam.
On Sunday, we had a hangout-warming hangover brunch at Appsterdam Noord on the NDSM-werf. Again, local App Makers gave of themselves, bringing their favorite toppings for that most Dutch of meals: diverse broodje. We ate, drank, and talked on the bank of the IJ, giving us all a glimpse into our future.
The sun shone down on the exhausted but invigorated App Makers and their families as they said their goodbyes and made plans to return. People trickled out to catch their planes, trains, and buses, or got on their bikes and rolled out in search of dinner.
Guided tours of Amsterdam. A family-friendly picnic. The most livable city in the world. Consider the bar raised.
But the real story of the Appsterdam Launch Party Weekend is not how great it was, but how it happened in the first place. We had no money, no patron, no company behind us. People produced a video and a magazine, put together tours, built a website, found sponsors, and took care of a million little details necessary to pull this weekend off without a hitch.
This launch was not my doing, but the work of some two dozen dedicated and passionate volunteers—people and companies who spent their time and money, working together to achieve something great for the good of all App Makers.
This weekend not only introduced Appsterdam to the world, it also validated the movement behind it. Can your launch party do this?
