New Orleans Net Impact

As a new addition to the New Orleans community, people (both online and offline) are constantly asking me why I moved here. Recently Chris Schultz and Tiffany Starnes asked me to provide a quote they could use for the New Orleans SXSW marketing material seeing as how last year's SXSW was where I first met the Net2No crowd and told them that I was headed to New Orleans after South By for 2 months. When I sat down to write a short paragraph about how I ended up LIVING in New Orleans from that place many moons ago where I simply was coming as an anonymous visitor, I realized that what I shared with them I wanted to share with all of you as well.

The emotional pull on the city keeps proliferating, and I'm making friends and making my way around. Was there one aha moment? There were a series of them. Enough to make me seriously consider moving to a part of the country where I have no family and no friends set in place. Enough moments to make the consideration of moving here more of a pull and then eventually a feeling I could no longer turn off and a decision that I was confident, happy and secure with.

And for each person, the WHY of why they're here in New Orleans (or anywhere for that matter) is different, but for me, well here you go:

**"At last year's SXSW, I presented a Core Conversation around building tech communities outside Silicon Valley using Los Angeles as a model and asking friends to bring people from other cities to join in the conversation. The New Orleans Net2No krewe came in full force. They were enthusiastic, engaged and inspired to take many of those tips back to New Orleans with them and when I found myself in New Orleans this spring I was awestruck by how ambitious and driven they were to build their community. From opening a coworking space to creating Net2No offshoots including a monthly coders event to garnishing national media attention for their entrepreneurial community, New Orleans is a leader in taking tips from SXSW and putting them in action. Meeting the New Orleans krewe at SXSW changed my life and in fact by year's end I had moved to New Orleans permanently. An investment in New Orleans is an investment in the way we all should look at the future of community - driven and sincere commitment to economic development while supporting each others' endeavors." ** By the way, the monthly Net2No meeting is being held TONIGHT at 6pm at Le Chat Noir. I'll be there, if we haven't met yet, please come say hi!

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