Railing Against Nashville-->

Let me preface by saying that I love Nashville. I read this article about Luke Kanies leaving Nashville for Portland. I have considered moving back to Portland as well. The only reason I haven’t, is that my girlfriend is somewhat hesitant to it. We have a son together and live just outside of Nashville, in Hendersonville. The main reason I’ve wanted to leave is I feel socially estranged in Nashville. It’s been almost impossible to build any good group of friends with common interests. The parties I’ve thrown (with free alcohol, music and plenty of space) have had about a 30-50% rate of people actually showing up. That’s around 15-25 people, which is good but I keep inviting the same people (who seem to be friends) and they keep not showing up. If you are one of those people there are many of you that have valid excuses and that’s cool as I’m probably not mad at you or I would have told you. But a friendship has to go both ways. If I show up when you request my presence and I can never count on you to call me out of the blue and ask me what/how I’m doing or show up when requested then there is a problem. Maybe the problem is I’m not important enough )-: But people in Portland never made me feel like that. I would get calls from people out of the blue on a regular basis and I still have contact with people in Portland even though I haven’t lived there in 7 years. I visited last year and it was like I never left. Friends came together and welcomed me back.

I’m pretty sure it isn’t because people are assholes here in Nashville. Generally people feel (IMHO) self-absorbed, conservative and don’t go out of their way to contact you. But they are very friendly in person and talk up how much they enjoy your company. Then you never hear from them again. I’ve met people I really liked and there are couple people who I consider good acquaintances  who I hope will eventually become friends. It just seems like a lot more work that I even had to put in to the effort in Portland, Oregon.

The tech community here as I said on my comments on the other post is not very great. I have put some considerable effort to help but it has not been returned and I have been mostly ignored when I put in effort which is discouraging to say the least. The NASHDL group is okay… and I have people within there that I don’t want to offend but I have had a lot of people tell me they felt uncomfortable going there and it’s not very inviting. I understand what they mean to some degree.

Marcus Whitney went to great effort to create user groups and encourage the local development community. Others that have encouraged the community in one way or another are Nick Holland (as previously mentioned in another article), Jackson Miller, Ted & John Chapin and Dave Delaney. There are others but I’m not as well connected as some so these are the few I know of. Many others keep to themselves and I feel this is due to some of the resistance I have mentioned. I have invested financially once with meager but reasonable returns and invested with my time/effort twice only to be outright ignored and sidelined. I’m an entrepreneur and don’t have time to be bothered developing things and investing in things that are a waste of my talents and energy. As far as that goes it would be difficult to get me to start anything by myself. I want to but I’ve seen how that goes and the only way I will do anything is if I can help someone who already has "the wind underneath their wings".

My business has not survived or thrived due to Tennessee but generally in spite of location. The only thing good about this location for my business has been the cost of living and the outside perception by our clients in more expensive areas of the world. We have been able to give a perception of cost effective due our location in part. There have been some relationships I have built recently that have been helpful for my business and my knowledge of business but that has been a long time coming. The good news is it doesn’t just apply to the tech community in Nashville. I have dealt with other industries in Nashville for my research on a website we are building. Seems they are all about the same way. They are not very trusting, have a secluded and competitive mentality, conservative and even combative when it comes to business. There’s a strong mentality that there is only just enough to go around and we must fight for the scraps of opportunity. However, if we would all open up a bit, lighten up a bit and relax we would find a world of opportunity at our feet. I operate my business as if there is enough to go around and we can all build more opportunity for ourselves through the sharing of knowledge and general cooperation. I hope that we are a beacon for others who want to operate this way.

Let me be clear. I don’t want to complain and just be part of the problem but I do want to feel free to state my observations from 4 years in this city. I’m willing to be a part of any proposed solution that people may have that has any chance worth of working or adding to the solution. My memories here have been a good part of my life that I love. I really came in to my own here and my son was born here. I would like this to be a place I would be proud to raise him and be proud to operate my business as it grows but so far I’m not convinced. I see some awesome efforts on the part of my colleagues and I hope they snowball in to the community becoming super awesome.