Free Advice Fridays

"Advice on How to Start a Business and Get a Permit in the City of Savannah"

If that's been on your mind you should make a point to stop by The Creative Coast this Friday anytime between 12-2pm. Or if you need any other advice. This month's line-up includes:

Cristy Lawrence: an engineer with the City of Savannah and serves as the Development Services Department Liaison, where she helps engineers, developers, builders, and small businesses navigate the building and site plan permitting processes.

Rob Davis: serves within the City of Savannah’s Department of Economic Development as the Business Development Coordinator.  He assists small businesses, by providing technical assistance, during the startup phase and mature businesses with their retention and expansion efforts. 

Shabnam Gideon: Revival Foods. Check them out!

Kevin Lawver: Doer of stuff, maker of web things, manager of products, causer of trouble.

Friday July 6th 12pm-2pm

Free Advice Friday is back inside the office (it's too hot outside)! On the first Friday of every month, (we started in August 2011), we gather folks at 15 W York St to dispense advice to whoever shows up.

Here are our ADVICE GIVERS for July:

Jordan Crook: Tech Crunch

Shabnam Gideon: vegan baking, local/seasonal food, project management

Chad Warner: Blue Lime Studio

We're doing something a little different in March.  We're taking the advice to Wright Square!  Jake Hodesh is going to be hanging out in our new advice booth handing out advice this Friday (3/2) from 12-2 somewhere in Wright Square.  See if you can find him and then get ye some advice!

I'm late getting this out, but we are definitely having Free Advice Friday this Friday (1/6) from 12-2 at the Creative Coast office at 15 W York St!!  We've got an awesome lineup this month:

Steve Hartley - A professor at Savannah Tech with special expertise in historic preservation

Tom Kohler - Connector of people and ideas, wise man and bearded gentle giant

Jillian Rowe - Social media genius

Robin Sherman - Robin Sherman provides editorial and design services for small publishers, businesses, and nonprofits in content strategy, content development, and content marketing; design, layout, typesetting; and social media. 

I hope y'all had a lovely Thanksgiving and survived the Black Friday and Cyber Monday without getting maced, tazed, occupied or bankrupted. If you did get any of those things, or better yet, want some advice about solar stuff, then we've got a great lineup of advice givers for you this month!  This month's lineup includes:

Tom Kohler: Savannah native, knower of everyone, maven, connector and accomplisher of things large and small. Oh no, Tom can't make it!  So, in his place, we've wrangled star of the Savannah tech scene, Chad Warner, from Blue Lime Studio.  He knows a lot about BBQ, downtown Savannah and lots of other things that he's keeping a secret.  You'll just have to ask him and see what he comes up with.

Shabnam Gideon: Manager of projects, rider of bicycles, aware being, preparer and eater of vegetables.

Kevin Lawver: Doer of stuff, maker of web things, manager of products, causer of trouble, newly minted CEO at Music Intelligence Solutions.

And our extra special advice giver this month, Lester Wiggins: solar panel technologist from Savannah Tech.  He's an expert in wind power, solar thermal, electrical construction, inspections and an unknown quantity of other subjects!  You should come see if you can stump him!

We are on for Free Advice Friday next week (10/7) from 12-2 at the Creative Coast office at 15 W York St!!  We've got a great lineup of advice givers with expertise in everything from dealing with the city bureaucracy to web development to... well, we may have a special guest or two.  

I was walking to lunch with a co-worker and she asked if it was "alright to just drop in for a few minutes."  

After I recovered, I realized that this was all my fault and I need to explain the process a little more.   Here's how it's supposed to work (you can see this process in action for yourself tomorrow from 12-2 at the Creative Coast office at 15 W York St in lovely downtown Savannah, GA):

Come in.

Sit down in front of an unlicensed amateur advice-giver.

Ask for some advice.

Get some advice.

Say "thank you".

Stand up

Turn around, walk out the door.

The whole process from beginning to end should take you no more than 5-10 minutes depending on what kind of advice you need.  You could, if you're brave, repeat steps 2-6 and switch to a different advice-giver if you need more than one piece of advice.  

We've tried to keep the whole advice-dispensing process as painless as possible.  There are no appointments, no forms to fill out, no painful injections.  There's just knowledge passing between two people.

We've got our victims for September all signed up and ready to go, and it's an impressive lineup.  So, get ye down to the Creative Coast office (15 W York St) on September 2nd from 12-2 and come get some free advice.  Advice on what?  Just about whatever you can think of.  We'll come up with some kind of answer for you.

Here's who we've got for September:

Shabnam Gideon: vegan baking, local/seasonal food, project management, "random personal stuff" and project management

Tom Kohler: beards, Savannah history, being wonderful and giving sincere compliments

Murray Wilson: satellite television, BBQ, fermented vegetables, project management

Kevin Lawver: eating, comic books, web development, the cluetrain manifesto and corporate guerrilla warfare.

Start with Ethan Marcotte's awesome Responsive Web Design.  After you finish that, start playing with PhoneGap.  It allows you to create pretty killer mobile apps using the skills you've already got.

No one's asked me this question, but I'm going to pretend you did and answer it anyway.  This all started early on weekday morning as I walked around the park with two of my favorite people - Murray Wilson and Tom Kohler.  Tom told us about his idea to set up a table in front of the Sentient Bean, grab a chair and put up a sign that says Free Advice.  He'd get people to man the table all day, handing out free advice to anyone who wants it.  I thought it was a great idea...  and then didn't think about it for months.

Then, one morning in the middle of waking up, I had a flash - we should do something called Free Advice Fridays!  I rolled over, grabbed my phone and e-mailed Jake Hodesh to see what he thought of it.  He loved it and said we should do it!

I see that I have yet to answer my own rhetorical question...  let's fix that.  Savannah is full of really smart people - some would call them experts in their field.  Most of them will share their knowledge with others for the price of an e-mail or lunch.  Unfortunately, most people I've told to just e-mail someone or invite them to lunch look at me like I've just eaten their baby.  So, instead of making you go through the apparently painful process of inviting someone you don't know to lunch, I figured I'd bring the experts and you can bring the questions - no pressure, no introductions necessary.  And why free?  Well, it removes all the pressure from the interaction.  If the advice is good, great!  If not, well... you got it for free.

There you go.  Free Advice Fridays - a silly experiment in bringing people together and showcasing Savannah's awesome people to other awesome people.  I hope to see you at the Creative Coast office (15 W York) this Friday (8/5) from 12-2!!  

The first Free Advice Friday is coming up quickly and we're really excited about it!  We also have our lineup for the first event!  I know these folks, and they're just bursting with knowledge to share.  Without further ado, here's the lineup with what I think they're expert in:

Jim Goodlett - angel funding, running technology companies, mobile industry, motorcycles and out of the way restaurants in the low country

Jake Hodesh - how to get things done in Savannah, weird and wonderful places to visit in the area, New Orleans and pretty much everything else.

Susan Isaacs - all things design, local restaurants, making movies in 48 hours, Grenada and running your own company

Tom Kohler - Savannah history, advocacy, non-profits and BBQ

and me: Kevin Lawver - BBQ, British television, comic books from the 90's, web development and movies

Hello, Savannah!  Free Advice Fridays are coming! The first Friday of every month, starting in August, we'll be gathering folks at the Creative Coast office at 15 W York St in lovely downtown Savannah to dispense advice to whoever shows up.  We haven't settled on the lineup for the first one yet, but we're working on it!

This all started because Tom Kohler mentioned to me that he thought it would be fun to set up a table outside of The Sentient Bean with a little placard on it that said "Free Advice" and sit there waiting for people to come talk to him.  Many many months later, I was trying to get to sleep and thought to myself, "Free Advice Fridays...  Yeah, that'll work."  So, I e-mailed Jake. Jake dug the idea, so here we are.