Mike Lee is a product engineer in the Netherlands.
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For more information about Appsterdam, check out http://appsterdam.rs and follow @appsterdamrs.
My fiancée Judy is a consummate gamer. The other day I was horrified to see she’d started one of these “harvest and harass” games that have become a cancer on our industry. At the risk of paternalism, I suggested she choose something else to play, to which she protested that she wasn’t able to find anything better. Everything out there was either too violent, or too Zynga.
Since my Twitter stream is a veritable who’s who of the industry, I thought I’d tap the collective wisdom to get some recommendations for her. Capitulating to popular demand, I thought I would share people’s recommendations with all of you.
Note that while I didn’t specify platform, Judy is an iOS gal, so I’ve listed things with an “iOS > Mac > Other” bias. Still, many of these are available on other platforms. Use your least unfavorite search engine, or check the developers’ sites, for different versions.
For starters, a lot of people recommended games by PopCap. These guys are the kings of casual gaming for a reason, and have published games on platforms I’ve never even heard of. Here are their iOS offerings:
Someone recommended anything by Llamasoft. I would have said anything by ngmoco:), yet they were conspicuously absent from people’s recommendations. Why is that?
Last Thursday we had an open house and grand opening of Appsterdam Headquarters at Westergasfabriek, located at Pazzanistraat 41. The students from the Rietveld Academie’s Sandberg Instituut have been working alongside us App Makers for the past few months as part of their VacantNL masterclass. It’s been fun working in a place that changes every day.
The time finally came for their “Vacant Appsterdam” project to end, so they presented their final project to their faculty, and we had a little party to celebrate. Of course we’d like to thank the people who shared this occasion with us, the students and faculty who worked so hard to make a place for our community, and the Westergasfabriek whose generosity has made it all possible.
The best way to thank them is to get you to come see the place. We have lots of tables, chairs, and unique architectural elements, all made from cardboard. This side effect of our zero-budget operations really comes to represent us as a movement, and as App Makers in general. You don’t need a bunch of funding or a fancy office to get started. You can build your great idea on a cardboard desk in a tucked away corner.
You really have to come see our HQ while you can. We’ve only got one month left until the Westergasfabriek needs the space. Better yet, bring your laptop and come get some work done on your app. We have plenty of plugs, bandwidth, and workspaces, standing and sitting, from dark and quiet, to bright and social.
This place is provided to the App Makers for free by the Appsterdam Foundation. The love our volunteers have for the community we serve impressed the Rietveld folks so much they helped build the place. It impressed the Westergasfabriek so much they let us use the space for maintenance costs.
Those costs, as well as direct costs to the students for things they couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal, come to a few thousand Euro. Part of that has been paid for by the Foundation, via loans from the board members. It’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it is a test of whether our community can really support itself.
These past few months have really shown me the importance of having a place like this, where people can come to be inspired, to be productive. More than that, having a pin on the map associated with Appsterdam, having a place, a destination, for people coming here for Appsterdam, has really played a big part in our recent growth.
The Rietveld folks infiltrated our community, got to know us, then formed—through an organic, iterative process that we would recognize as agile—a sculptural representation of our community, of the spirit by which we associate. That piece of expressionist art inevitably takes the form of a free communal workspace, which you can all be a part of by bringing your laptop and working on your projects.
In addition to this contribution, and the contribution of the volunteers who show up every day to staff the place, we’ve all had to throw some of our own money into the mix, in the form of loans made to the foundation in order to get things done. We hope to repay those loans, and push things forward, with money donated by individuals and organizations in the ecosystem who appreciate the value we’re providing.
There are three ways you can help. The first is to help us spread the word. We want our HQ to be used, to be active, to be vibrant. Tell the story. Show people the pictures. Make sure everybody knows about this cool place—this living sculpture, a monument to App Makers and their work.
The second is to make a donation via bank transfer, or by Paypal (donate@appsterdam.rs). You’re going to be hearing this from us more often, because we’re essentially following a public radio model here. We provide services we think everybody needs. People pay us based on how useful they find what we do, based on how much they can actually afford. There are people who find that business model naïve. The best way to prove them wrong is by donating.
Finally, you can help us keep this experiment going beyond May 15 by providing us a new space. We don’t have any money, but we have a readymade community of amazing, creative people who are also a skilled technical resource. You need only come hang out at any Appsterdam event to see how vital this community is, what it can do for you, and what you can do to perpetuate it.
I’ve spent a year now talking about all the real, tangible benefits of living in the Netherlands, like reasonable health care, achievable education, and easy access to Europe. I’ve talked about high-minded concepts like freedom and community, and practical ideas like doing business in world markets. It’s high time I talked about some of the intangible benefits of living here, that contribute to the overall experience the Dutch call “gezellig.”
For starters, there’s the weather. People here like to complain about the weather, but I actually appreciate the fact that it’s rainy and cold much of the time. Bad weather makes good weather seem like great weather, which is why when the sun does manage to shine, everyone in town drops everything to bask in it. Unlike the nicer regions of the globe, global warming can only make things better here. Worried about rising water levels? Two words: beachfront property.
People complain about the food here, but as an American, it’s actually a huge improvement. Unhealthy food makes life healthier. No need to drive through for a bucket of Colonel and a pint of dipping gravy when you can pull your bike up to a FEBO and get a tube of deep fried gravy to fix that gravy jones faster than you can say “black tar heroin.”
I hate to say this, but the Dutch are such nerds that being here is like being normal. It’s not just the liters of milk being passed around at raves. The country is full of smart women, which produces tangible diversity, but also has the intangible benefit that said women are all the more accepting of smart men. Dutch women love nerds. There, I said it.
But the best thing about living here, the absolute best thing, is that April Fools’ Day is actually illegal in the Netherlands. During the big speech reforms of the early ’90s it was decided that the level of tangible harm and public annoyance places it on the “hard jokes” side of the line. This from the country that allows a comedy club dedicated entirely to jokes about blowing up Chicago.
One of my proudest achievements as Mayor of Appsterdam is the diversity of the ecosystem we’ve built. Not only has that led to a technology festival founded by a woman, we regularly have 40-60% female attendance at our events. That means in an industry that struggles to attract its fair share of women, we’ve experienced female majority.
We’ve grown past simply scratching our heads and wondering where the women are. We’ve learned from the people who’ve tried simply lunging at women, or using reverse discrimination to solve this problem. We’ve come up with a methodology that is not only easy on the soul, but provably effective. It boils down to the same trick we use to make great products: provide a great experience for everyone.
Put yourself in the shoes of a young woman interested in programming. She walks into the computer science club and is greeted by a pack of sweaty, staring males with less than average social graces. Can you blame her for turning tail and never looking back?
The first problem we have to solve is breaking up that pack of sweating, misbehaving males, which still exists, except now the clubhouse is a bar. And the thing is, the girls are trying to get in, if only on account of how much whining we do that there are no women around, but they’re still being turned around.
If every other person in the bar was a woman, women would immediately feel more comfortable. When people bring their significant others to technology events, we have a much more diverse crowd, and women instantly feel more comfortable. I hate to say it, but this also keeps the men in line, as their girls will smack them if they start acting out.
I no longer agree to speak at events that aren’t willing to buy two coach tickets. Encouraging your speakers and attendees to bring their partners improves the diversity of your conference. It can be the crucial element in the community building that makes a great conference.
It’s as simple as letting people bring their partners for free. Most of them will only show up for the parties and do something else during the day. If you want to be super cool, you can organize some fun stuff for the non-techies to do in town while the nerds get their nerd on. The best way to a nerd’s heart is through their partner.
Welcoming partners to your conference not only makes for a better show, it makes it easier to show up in the first place. There are a lot of shows happening these days, and having to leave your partner behind is a major reason not to go to yet another tech conference.
One other thing: if we want to make women feel welcome, we need to stop discriminating. Nobody I know in the industry considers themselves sexist, but they still discriminate against women for things other than being a woman. Prime example: we tend to look down on people in marketing. Guess where all the women went who were turned away from computer science? Marketing is like 90% female.
By welcoming all people, by seeking to find something in common with everyone, we improve the experience for everyone. The end result is not just a gimmick, but evidence of a larger phenomenon, a rich diversity perfect for training a new generation of entrepreneurs, independents, and employees, all thinking on a global scale. That’s just good business.
It’s been interesting seeing people’s reactions to my announcement that I’m giving Appsterdam to the App Makers. Most people are happy to see me take a break, excited to see what I come up with next, but a little worried how the organization will fare without me. I appreciate the concern, but let me assure you, it’s misplaced.
First, because it’s not really about me stepping down as much as it is me setting an example that I hope leads this community organization into being run and led by the community, and not a set group of people. There is no permanent leadership class in Appsterdam—just people taking their turn, ready to serve.
Second, because I’m not really going anywhere. I’m just changing my focus to longer-term goals. I did the doing for a while, then I did the teaching. Now I’m ready to teach the teachers. The success of a generation is not judged by its children, but by its grandchildren, so I’m giving the reins over to a new generation while I’m still around to guide them.
There are more, less obvious changes in the works as well. I’m cutting my speaking schedule way back, to about a quarter of what it is now. Instead, I’m going to be dedicating a lot more time to the Appsterdam Speaker Bureau, meeting demand for my stage presence with an army of even better speakers.
Like I said before, we’re all about results. When the work done by the volunteers of the Appsterdam Foundation pays off, the ecosystem they have built inspires new creativity. Where before the dreams of the community were met with calls of “not possible,” at Appsterdam gatherings they found support, inspiration, and likeminded individuals, to build their own engines of change.
I’ve already told you about the Appsterdam embassies, local implementations of our open source movement, starting in Delft, then spreading to Warsaw, Milan, and now a number of other cities. It won’t be long now before every city with App Makers has their own version of Appsterdam.
I’ve already told you about Apps for the Planet, the on-going hacktivist collective founded by Casper Koomen whose events are not just about the joy of getting together to work on projects, but in focusing those efforts to make the world a better place. I was most impressed when they teamed up with Pachube to teach people how to program the Arduino by having them build air quality monitors.
Now it is my very great pleasure to introduce you to Appril, a month-long festival of App Making born right here in Appsterdam and driven by the amazing Jacqueline de Gruyter and her team of volunteers. When I look at all they’ve built, and how many people they’re brought together, in just a few short months—and I think about a very determined Jacqueline at many an Appsterdam event, overcoming setbacks and making things happen—it fills my eyes with tears, and my heart with pride.
If you’re looking for a chance to change the world, to become a teacher, to join people like Casper Koomen and Jacqueline de Gruyter in the pantheon of future heroes of Appsterdam, now is the time. Whether you’re bringing your knowledge to Europe, or bringing your experiences in Europe to the world there’s never been a better time, or a better place, to take up the mantle of knowledge.
We’ve called for pilgrims. We’ve called for students. Now we’re calling for teachers. We want Appsterdam to be a bright shining beacon in dark times ahead, but we can’t do it alone. We’re trying to solve the world’s problems, one app at a time, and we could sure use your help.