About Mobility

Via Michael Yuan’s blog:

    Austin TX is the #3 best city for jobs in America.

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Photo: Statue of “Stevie” Ray Vaughan, Austin musician — Source UT

According to an article in the Austin Business Journal (that refers to a study co-sponsored by Monster.com), Austin Texas is the sixth most desirable city for relocation out of more than 30 cities examined in the United States.

“San Diego, San Francisco and New York were the top three most desirable cities for relocation, but the three least preferred cities also included New York at number one, along with Detroit and Los Angeles.”

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According to a Scarborough Research report, Austin, TX (the city where I live) is the top blogging city (in the U.S.):

Austin, TX, Portland, OR, San Francisco and Seattle are the top markets for people who read or contributed to blogs.

“Not surprisingly, the cities that rank highly for bloggers are also prominent Internet-usage markets. Austin and San Francisco adults, for example, are more likely than the average to have a broadband connection at home,” said Gary Meo, senior vice president, print and digital media services. “Additionally, Austin, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle are markets with large high-tech economies.”

Demographically, bloggers are young and hail from middle class families. They are 66 percent more likely than the national average to be between the ages of 18 and 34. Fifty percent of bloggers are part of a household that has children under 17, as opposed to 41 percent of the total population. Bloggers are 20 percent more likely than the national average to have an annual household income between $50k and $100k per year.

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(Via the Austin Startup Blog)

I’ve been nominated to the Texas Wireless Summit Wireless Industry Award — neat!

The email reads:

Congratulations! You have been nominated to receive the 2007 AWA Wireless Industry Leadership Award at this year’s Texas Wireless Summit. Due to this nomination, we are asking that you provide a 3-4 sentence overview of what you do and what you have done to help further the growth of the wireless industry in Austin?

My response back:

I am co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at eZee, inc., a mobile software solution provider where I am responsible for the company’s technology direction and product development, as well as R&D and industry standards compliance. I participate on various mobile standards bodies and am a recognized blogger and mobile technology writer.

One of my goals has been to help make Austin a leader in mobile and wireless technologies and applications. To accomplish this, I’ve spent many years creating awareness about Austin’s mobility landscape, the companies and individuals, as well as helping educate the local technology community on mobility. For example, I was a founding member of the AWA; founder of the Austin chapter of the MobileMonday global community, and AWA’s mobile application’s SIG. For a number of years I mentored UT computer science students in their senior year software engineering class.

I also am a founding member of the Carnival of the Mobilists global community of bloggers. In 2006, I helped organize and judge the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI) of Central Texas Mobile Content Festival. I also am the leader of the Austin Bootstrap Network’s Mobile Subgroup, and also serve in SXSW Interactive Festival Advisory Board for 2008 on mobile content.

Today I continue pursuing the same goal of helping make Austin a leader in the mobile space.

In any case, win or not, what matters is that I’m hoping that Austin continues to grow in becoming a top region when it comes to mobility, and for that to happen, it takes many parts working together: the University, the local companies and individuals, the Chamber of Commerce, the entrepreneurs and the investors, and others, all working together.

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This year I served in the advisory board for mobile content/sessions, for the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival, where I helped in the selection of the sessions that will present at next year’s Interactive Festival (2008).

I will say that I am very pleased with the number of mobile sessions submitted by community, with more than 40. Awesome. A number of very good sessions, from known and new folks, covering the whole spectrum of mobility, from social responsibility, to mobile web, to new media, advertisement, and development, and other.

These combined with the rest of the submitted sessions covering other topics, it is going to be an awesome 2008 Interactive Festival next year. I can’t wait. You should try to attend…

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Good to see Austin continue to attract well-known companies…

The most recent one is Cray Inc.:

“Austin has a very strong high-tech community in both hardware and software and provides a deep pool of technology and engineering talent,” said Peg Williams, senior vice president of research and development at Cray. “We look forward to becoming part of the community and, at the same time, advancing Cray’s leading-edge technological strength and innovation in HPC.”

Also Google:

“Austin offers an incredible lifestyle merging Texas and technology and a rich and diverse talent pool,” spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger said in a statement. “People interested in applying should check out our listings.”

As well as PayPal:

“Austin is well-known for its strong pool of well-educated, talented professionals with the right level of expertise in technology and ecommerce,” said PayPal vice president of core technologies, Matthew Mengerink. “The area’s reputation as a great place to live and work makes it an ideal location for our center.”

And not that well-known yet, but an awesome place to work, eZee inc.:

“Austin is a great place to start your technology company; a great town to live and raise a family, it is beautiful with great outdoors, great cost-of-living, great university and schools, people are friendly, strong pool of technologist, oh and great music and food,” said eZee inc. CTO and co-founder C. Enrique Ortiz.

Heh, I just made up the above quote, but I’m not kidding, it is true. See Texas is the best place ($) for software developers.

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