In case you are joining us now, and missed the previous posts. We discussed the government’s role, the individuals, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the communities’ role in shaping our tech community in greater South Florida. The last piece we need to touch upon is that of the media’s role in making the area stretching from Key West to Jupiter into a tech hub.

If you had asked me just a mere 6 months ago what I thought the role of the media was in transforming or participating in the future of the tech community, I would have told you their job was to get the heck out of the way and let us innovate on our own, that we didn’t need them or care about them.

Then again, a lot has changed in just 6 months. No, I am not retracting my previous statements about saving newspapers (some of my ideas are already being implemented, speaking of which, where is my consulting fee?). In the last six months we’ve seen the old media embrace digital and social tools to as best as they can so far. They haven’t fully figured out the whole puzzle yet, but they are trying in earnest to get it as quickly as possible. I mean six months ago if you told me the Miami Herald would be putting out an iPhone app or the New Times would have a dedicated tech blogger, I would have LMFAO.

Here we are though, at a juncture between old and new, so how do we get one to embrace the other. As members of the tech community we need to realize that despite our open disdain for “old media,” they have something we need from them: exposure. Depending on your role in new media, its hard to argue with the reach of old media. Now don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a two way street here, old media needs us (tech) to teach them, share with them, and help them adapt to well, us.

So what can we as techies do to help out old media whom we complain about not writing or covering things that interest us? Well we start by helping tap them into our stream. Every reporter, new media or old, needs sources, yet many of us in tech in South Florida don’t communicate our presence to old media. Just because your startup just launched and you blogged about it, doesn’t mean your grandma will find out about it in the paper. You have to inform people at the paper, tv, and radio stations about your new startup. Send them the links to your blog. Be your own PR person. Every newspaper, radio, and tv journalist is going to hate me for this, because they are all going to get floods of emails from the community, but in the end it will be worth it. Why? For the simple reason that the tech community will get exposure, and the media will get to cover something other than foreclosure and unemployment rates rising every week.

I’ve talked about the need for the techies to connect to the media folk, now we need the media to connect back. We need the media to embrace these tools the tech community has built and provided, because ultimately we all need each other.

I started writing this post in early September. Since then, there has been a huge surge in coverage of tech in South Florida, and many of these things I rant about aren’t as big an issue anymore, but I still felt it necessary to get my word out about them.

Perhaps this post would have been better titled “The role of groups in South Florida’s tech Community future.”

Much has been said about the tech community down here over the last 12 weeks. I’ve been quite vocal discussing everyone’s roles in what is our nascent community. I’ve also spent a lot of time during this period discussing the state of affairs with a number of people who responded to my various posts or through twitter, meetups, etc. Ultimately though, the fate of our community as a whole is dependent on the fates of the individual groups we are all actively cultivating.

A lot has changed in South Florida in the last 4 years. A lot of new groups have formed, connections made, and new initiatives started, but we are still ways away from having a robust and marketable community. We’ve done a great deal on our own, but there is still a lot left to be done. One of the critical things that we have to wrap our heads around is the fact we need more groups, both large and small to emerge in south florida.

My buddy Craig Agranoff wrote for the Palm Beach New Times recently that we were suffering from an identity crisis of sorts, or a disconnect with our communities down here, and he may have been right. I rarely venture north through Broward or even less frequently Palm Beach county (no one ever invites me up there, plus I thought all they did was play polo and talk about their gulfstream jets), so I can’t really comment on what’s going on up there, but I can expound upon how I see these groups interacting and playing their part in Silicon Beach.

Now, let me make something clear: I love the fact that there are literally dozens and dozens of new groups popping up. I don’t think that its a bad thing that we now have a tweetup for bagels, or a meetup for beers, or a group for enthusiasts of a specific programming methodology(not language, a method). A lot of discussion has been made about the dilution of the community, but in my mind that dilution results in more and more groups being created that target people’s needs more precisely. Running Refresh, I have come to the conclusion that I can never appease everyone, there is no club that everyone will enjoy, no topics universal, so why bother?

There will eventually be a logistics and scheduling catastrophe when you have so many groups popping up, but that is also going to be a blessing in disguise. No one will be able to make it to all the events (I already gave up trying a while back – sorry if I’m not at your events), but if the event organizers film/record/share their events online, people will be able to catch up on the content, even if they end up missing out on the key benefit (the people themselves). With the abundance of easy to use tools for events and group management out there, its going to become easier and easier for each group to communicate with each other group. We’re growing nodes, and these nodes will eventually work to make our community better and more powerful.

We don’t need to mimic Silicon Valley, that’s a futile effort, we need to forge our own distinct version of a tech community. Maybe we aren’t very strong in venture backed companies, but we are strong in internationalization, and access to emerging markets. We are also an area full of hustlers, people out there doing what it takes to make a buck. Hustle folks. Hustle.

So I recenty decided to start interviewing companies in South Florida or south (all of latin america, etc). The first guys to respond to my offer was a neat little web based company here in South Beach: Roam. Roam is a scooter rental service at its core, and a vehicle rental service in general (skateboards, bikes, etc).

So Ryan from Roam kindly replied to my boring questions, and here they are.

1. What prompted you to start your company?
We have always been kind of obsessed with mid-century culture and in particular iconic brands of that era (Airstream, Vespa, Herman Miller, Russel Wright). These types of brands represent a level of design and quality in everyday products that is really difficult to find today. We also know how much fun it can be to explore a destination using alternative transportation. Getting outside of the confines of a car brings you closer to your environment and really heightens your experience.

So, with a specific interest in Vespas and a desire to promote alternative modes of transportation we launched Roam.

2. What problem/pain point/issue does your company solve?
Currently, the scooter rental market is dull and unreliable. It is difficult to find a quality product to rent with a reliable reservations, services and pricing model attached to it. We use a real time online reservations system which guarantees availability of your product when you want it, it is delivered to you and picked up on demand and there is never a fuel surcharge. We are able to deliver a higher quality product with a set of customer friendly services at a rate that meets and in most cases beats current market pricing.

3. How does being in your city affect your business?
Being in a city is great for our business. The products we offer (Vespa Scooters, Beach Cruiser Bicycles and Longboard/Skateboards) are all city friendly modes of transportation. They are perfect for navigating traffic, low or no fuel costs and you are never at a loss for parking. In addition, being in a city affords an existing network of communication that makes it easier for us to market and promote. It also provides us with a resource pool (technical, marketing, design) that would be difficult to find outside of a major city.

4. Who are your main competitors?
Our primary competitors are the storefront scooter and bicycle rental businesses currently in operation in South Florida. In addition, we compete with the car rental industry, many people don’t consider alternative transportation as they plan their visit.

5. How would you describe your Business/Product/Service, in l0 words or less?
We rent real fun.

6. What is your business model?
We have a hybrid business model, we go to market and conduct our business virtually yet deliver a tangible product and service. All of our transactions are conducted via our website or at the customer location using Motion Tablets and mobile broadband access. Not having the usual costs associated with a retail/storefront operation allows us to offer a much better product and unheard of services at the same or better price than our competitors.

7. Who are your target customers?
Visitors to Miami, generally staying at nicer hotels, who are looking for a way to get around that isn’t a car or a cab. Our target customers usually stay at hotels with concierges who really like the reliability and delivery aspects of our business. Many of our customers find us because they are looking specifically for a Vespa.

8. What makes you different from your competitors?
We are currently the only company offering Vespas for daily and half day rentals, the other businesses in the area rent much lower quality scooters. We guarantee that our scooters are well maintained, emissions monitored (you will not see our scooters belching blue smoke into the atmosphere) and we promise not to ruin the style of your ride with “Rent Me” stickers and phone numbers plastered everywhere.

In addition to the quality of the product, we are the only company with a real-time online reservations system. When you book your rental you can count on the fact that it is yours, there is no hoping the local shop has what you are looking for in stock when you want it. There is never a fuel surcharge at Roam, we deliver you a full tank of gas and do not require to fill upon return-we take care of that for you. We are also the only company that delivers every scooter, bicycle and skateboard directly to you-when you want it. Of course we pick them up as well.

I am not sure if you can rent a skateboard anywhere else in the area, but that is a very unique service that we are gaining a lot of traction with. One more thing, I am sure we are the only company out there that includes a free kite rental with your scooter, just because.

So far I’ve covered a general overview of tech in South Florida, the government’s role, and how local businesses can help; now we need to talk about how you, the individual technologists of South Florida can participate.

In reality figuring out the role of the individual in this grand scheme is both the easiest and the hardest part of this series. Why is it hard? Well for one how do you rally thousands upon thousands of individuals spread out across three counties? How can we rally people across an area of more than 6,000 square miles? An area ranked 7th in the nation population wise. So we’ve covered the logistical challenges, what are the practical challenges of this movement? The practical challenge is finding tangible ways for us as individuals to effect change. Things have to be simple enough and convenient enough for people to partake in them.

Why is it also the easiest? Well its much easier to get you, a free thinking individual, to participate in this movement than to get the company you work for to buy into. It is also easier to effect small amounts of change across a wide group of people which in aggregate amount to a great deal. So here are some simple ways to help grow the tech community.

• Know a someone who works in tech (not just programmers and designers, could be the IT guy, the guy who updates your website,etc.)? Talk to them about the community.
• Know someone who could benefit from technology in their business? Tell them about the various meetups and events.
• Blog about your experience in tech, what you do, where you do it, and why. Promoting yourself as a techy in South Florida promotes the idea of tech in general
• Pass out stickers, schwag, etc. (if we get around to making them, take some for your friends).
• Tweet about events you are going to, or mention them on facebook.
• Create a tweetup! (or a pizzatweetup, whatever the case)
• Host a geek dinner (potlucks are always fun and cheap)
• Tell 2 people about Refresh, Social Media Club, Mobile Monday, SFIMA, SFTA, FDMA, etc. etc.
• Next time you head to a techy event, bring a friend (doesn’t have to be a geek, can be anyone, even better if its just someone who is curious).
• Did you figure out something others might love to learn? Blog it! Sharing ideas and information is how you learned, so spread the love.
• Put up flyers at your school. Lets spread the word old school. Not everyone is actively LOOKING for the community, but might be passively interested if they see it outside their class.
• Don’t be ashamed of being techy, geeky, or into technology

So now that you’ve got some ideas from me, why not share some of your own?

Step 2: Support from local businesses

The last few days I’ve been talking to a lot of people and thinking a lot about how local businesses can support the community. I previously wrote an overview of where the tech community in South Florida needs to reach out for support, and then how I saw the government playing a role in this, now its time to figure out how our homegrown businesses can help each other.

If there is any group that can benefit a lot from having a strong community, its the business community. The benefits are endless: earn business, recruit talent, get feedback on your products and services, network, and more.

So how can local businesses help each other and foster the community? Put their money where their mouths are. Start by sponsoring events, groups, meetups, tweetups, workshops and more. This enables the community to have opportunities to coalesce, share ideas, innovate, and communicate about these new findings. This is a relatively inexpensive option for most companies to dip their toes in. You’d be surprised at how many groups are out there that are merely looking for a place to hang out, some pizzas to eat, and some sodas to drink.

Another key thing the community needs: space. Not so surprisingly, many groups fail to take off here in South Florida for lack of space. Most groups don’t need large spaces to congregate, they just need some wifi, a place to connect their projectors, and air conditioning. If your company has that & is willing to share it, you should post in the comments below, I’m sure we can find someone desperate for the space.

Aside from supporting the local meetup groups and user groups, South Florida businesses need to promote each other. There is an old aphorism “a rising tide floats all boats” this holds especially true in our community. Start reaching out to other companies that complement your particular skill/service-set and work together to share referrals or leads. Ultimately it leads to lower customer acquisition costs and lower marketing costs. Don’t be afraid to send business to other companies, it will always come back many times over. You can ask all my friends, I refer business to other companies all the time, and am perfectly happy to do it.

One more thing I’d love to see is companies sharing their expertise and insights on working in South Florida. We need to create a mentorship system of sorts. If you have any ideas on how this could work, I’d love to discuss them.

As the founder of one of the larger community groups down here in South Florida, I can tell you we are actively working on building tools and solutions to help our members (both individuals and corporations) connect with each other and gain exposure to each other. With that in mind, we still need you to tell us you exist. Simply creating a company or product or service and expecting the users/customers/people to divinely find out about your service is not enough. The community wants to know about you, so tell us.

How do you think local South Florida businesses can help each other and foster the community at the same time?

Step 1 government support

Earlier in the week I wrote about the key steps we needed to take in order to build a vibrant community down here. There are 6 key groups I feel we need support from in order to thrive as a community of technologists. They are: government, businesses, individuals, investors, other communities, and the media. Its easy to point fingers in this whole thing, and not offer up any solutions, so with your help, maybe we can collectively improve upon my proposals/ideas.

There are two types of tech communities, those that emerge naturally and those that are the product of outside stimuli.  South Florida has a small tech community relative both to other hubs (such as Austin, Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco) and to its own size (5.4M people in South Florida), but it has the potential to be a large community relative to other communities worldwide.  South Florida has many of the necessary ingredients to foster a potentially world class community: good weather (most of the time), a number of colleges and universities (over 150,000 college students in South Florida), lots of commercial opportunities (Miami is the financial hub of Latin America), and a very hard working community (given the opportunities). What we’re missing is support from the government. 

Paul Graham wrote a great piece “Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe” back in February, and he posited that it would cost you about a million bucks per company to fully seed, fund, and grow a company in a non-traditional tech hub. He suggested that for the price of a stadium (cough Marlins cough), a city could fund a thousand of these companies, which in turn would create substantially more jobs and economic growth in the area.

We don’t need, nor have the capacity for, a thousand companies to be funded, but could very much benefit from 30 or 50 new companies being sprouted here in South Florida. At that rate you’re talking about $50 Million (by Graham’s estimation), which pales in comparison to the $1 Billion for the Port of Miami tunnel or the $515 Million Marlins’ stadium in Little Havana.  Tech in general can also be seen as a boost to all the other industries South Florida is famous for, tech improves them.  Who says we here in South Florida can’t invent the next piece of technology that revolutionizes the cruise industry, or make our airports better, or our entertainment industries more profitable? These are just a few existing industries down here that currently have to look ELSEWHERE to facilitate their tech and IT needs.  The only thing preventing that from happening is money.

So what are the key things we need from the government, in this case the cities, counties, and state of Florida?

• Investment funds (There is an intitiave with the florida growth fund, but its half-baked at best.)
• Small scale grants .
  $10k-25k to local businesses with guarantees of doubling their GRANTS(not loans) if they meet certain goals/requirements (business coaching, proper tax filing, local spending)
• Small scale seed investments
  These would be in the $25-100k range. Enough to start most businesses in tech (outside of biotech) and build a prototype. This cash helps the small tech business get to the series A stage.
• Large scale growth funding
  $100k-5M for existing businesses to grow beyond their current means. This could also be in the form of lines of credit to reduce the risk for the fund.
• Incubators/business centers
• Cheap or free space made available to entrepreneurs around the region. 
• Central hubs for business training and support
• Offer continuing education and workshops
• Tax incentives
• On top of the fact we have no state income tax at the personal level, we need to further incentivize companies to either move here or stay here.  There is an immediate 4% sales tax advantage in Florida over California and a 9% income tax difference as well.
• Local spending/hiring incentives
• If legal, it would seem to be a win-win if the governments can incentivize local companies to hire other local companies. (shop/spend local)

So how do we make any of this happen? We call our councilmen, our commissioners, our mayors, our congressmen, our senators, even the governor.  We write to them. We write about what we want to do with the tax-payer dollars that are currently going to ridiculous things like building a stadium no one wants, or a tunnel no one needs. 

Next up: How local businesses can take part in this movement.

A couple weeks ago my friend Alex De Carvalho wrote a great piece about the history of the tech community in Miami over the last few years. He isn’t the only one in South Florida who has been extolling the virtues of our blossoming community, my friend Craig Agranoff the pizza expert also wrote about the community down here a few months back. This got me thinking: what do we need to take the community to the next level? Can Miami and South Florida make it to the next level where it doesn’t need tireless community organizers like AlexDC and myself?

What is it going to take to make Miami the Silicon Beach we need it to become? It’s going to require a lot of money, time, space, energy, and dedication. It’s also going to need a space to revolve around, an incubator/coworking facility/meeting space etc.

Key things that I see being necessary to make this happen:

1. Support from the local government
1. That means getting the mayor and others to invest some money in order to spur the local economy. This is about bringing businesses to the city that employ people. That in turn leads to tax revenue.
2. Support from local businesses
1. We need companies to be willing to sponsor the space/effort, put up money for events, hire companies from the area, and provide marketing support, etc.
3. Support from individuals/entrepreneurs
1. People need to be willing to get out of their home-offices, get off their couches, and rally behind the space/concept.
2. People need to bring their laptops, their energy, their enthusiasm, and their ideas.
4. Support from investors
1. Every investor is looking for deal flow. A central hub would expose them to what’s around here every day.
5. Support from the community/groups
1. At the moment there is very little collaboration between social groups in South Florida, which is very much a reflection of how individuals in South Florida self-segregate into their respective cliques. But to succeed, these groups will need to rally together for the good of the whole.
6. Support from the media
1. We need to get coverage for these companies

So are these things possible in South Florida? I sure hope so. I’m very interested in making this happen. Much of this stems from my idea of turning Coconut Grove into a tech hub, which I wrote about a few months ago. I still consider the Grove the best location for this type of endeavor to come together.

How can you help? Tweet about this, comment, share this with friends, colleagues, etc. Let’s use the power of social media to get the ball rolling on an idea like this. This is more than an individual part of the city; this is about a movement. A movement to bring forward thinking, innovating, enterprising people to South Florida.  Our future as a city and a region is dependent on fostering the innovation that will fuel the economy locally, regionally, and internationally. There is no compelling reason why we can’t be the innovation capital of Latin America and the South East.

Throughout this week I will be expanding on each of these points, presenting solutions and ideas for each one.