With the Summer of Appsterdam well under way, our community is growing in leaps and bounds. In order to keep up that growth, we’re restructuring things a bit, getting volunteers and sponsors to take over large swaths of the Appsterdam landscape.
To that end, we’re turning over structural work on the Appsterdam.rs website to Fingertips. They’re making much needed upgrades, especially to the members section, so you’ll be able to manage your own membership listings. We’ll also have searching and filtering to help people find you.
We’re implementing some of the most common requests, such as removing pagination from the lists. We’re also adding a “classifieds” section where you can post or find jobs, bikes, housing, or anything else you need.
In the spirit of openness and community, we’re open sourcing the website. For now that means you can watch our progress in realtime. In the future, this will make it easy for people to add functionality, since our standard response to “you should do this” is “you should do that.”
Another of our Summer of Appsterdam initiatives are Appsterdam Approved Hangouts. These are places where you are free to come and get some work done, knowing you will be both welcome and surrounded by your fellow App Makers.
Imagine a cafe where you are welcome to bring a laptop, have power and WiFi, and sip a beverage of your choice while you get some work done. And, all your friends are there. That is an Appsterdam Approved Hangout.
In addition to cafes, businesses with extra space who’d like to have a bunch of smart, creative people around can become Appsterdam Approved Hangouts. We’re even working up some nice vinyl stickers with the Appsterdam logo to put on your door or window.
By the end of summer, we intend to have five spots picked out, distributed throughout the city. We will also be opening places in other cities in the Netherlands, and eventually throughout the world. This ensures that on any day and in any city, you can find Appsterdam.
Our first location, Appsterdam Noord, is at the NDSM-Werf. This trendy industrial space turned artist’s colony is on the north side of the river IJ, reachable by free ferry, and located conveniently close to the ferry station.
Appsterdam Noord opens for beta testing today. We’re easing into the space, so for the next couple of weeks we’ll be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:30 to 15:30. There’s a limit of 8 people, so you need to reserve your spot.
From the ferry dock, turn right and walk east for one block. You’ll see some blue portable buildings in a fenced in area amid piles of building materials. The sign says Stichting NDSM-Werf and has a logo with two ships on it.
Come around to the back of the building, where we have a terrace with picnic tables. Find a seat, and start building the future.
As part of the Summer of Appsterdam, we’re starting a weekly lecture series where developers from here or abroad can share with their fellow Appsterdammers what they’re working on, or what new thing they’ve mastered, and receive speaker training to boot.
For those who’ve worked at Big Fruit, this is based on the Spotlight On program at Apple, with our inevitable Appsterdam twist. It’s meant to facilitate the free flow of technical information between App Makers, while at the same time creating a pool of people who can speak about technology.
Once Appsterdam is full of articulate technologists, we’ll be the place for journalists looking to interview someone, conferences looking for presenters, and universities looking for lecturers. I’ve helped Apple’s engineers get their presentations ready for primetime, and look forward to doing the same for you.
Here in the Netherlands, lunch means sandwiches (broodjes). In the spirit of togetherness, we’re going to do the same thing we did for our hangover lunch and say bring your favorite broodje toppings. Bread, drinks, and that sort thing will be provided by our sponsor.
Which brings me to the part with the details. Lectures will be every Wednesday at 12:30. You’ll come in, make a sandwich, and settle in for an hour long presentation, which will begin at 13:00. There will be 30 minutes of open discussion afterwards, and you’ll be on your way back to work by 14:30.
Appsterdam’s Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Lecture series will be held at the offices of SourceTAG on the 4th floor of Vijzelstraat 20. They are hosting and sponsoring the event as their way of contributing to the movement. Truly, we are Appsterdam.
I’ll be kicking things off with an introductory lecture entitled “The Appsterdam Way.” The intent is to record these and make them available, so the Appbroaders don’t miss out.
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.