Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.

I came across this site and idea yesterday and was immediately hooked.  Take the vibe of a BarCamp and focus that energy on something deliverable.  So—I decided to see if I can get the ball rolling on a StartupWeekend for West Michigan.  I’m so tired of hearing news stories and advertisements that start with the words “in these tough economic times” that I want to do something to give the press and the West Michigan community something positive to talk about. 

So meet StartupWeekend:West Michigan.  I have no idea what it takes to pull one of these off, but have scheduled an initial meetup for July 1st, 4:00PM at the HopCat in Grand Rapids.  If you have any interest in helping plan or just attend a StartupWeekend event come on out to join the discussion.

I’ve been quoted - along with several other local W. MI web-heads - in an article on Rapid Growth Media.  No almost-scary photos though…;)

Proving my great mental skills once again, I realized today that I’m about 2 weeks late in announcing the seven-year anniversary of Boyink Interactive.  It’s amazing to me that an effort that started more or less out of desperation has become so ingrained in my being, so intertwined in my family’s lifestyle, and so impossible to imagine otherwise.

Once again I need to thank my clients, my peers in the web world, my family, and the good Lord above for being so richly blessed.

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the first European ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter Conference to be held in Lieden, The Netherlands October 22-23, 2009.  More details and speaker announcements to follow, but so far I’ll be joining fellow EE mavens Ryan Ireland of EEInsider and Brandon Kelly. 

Not only will this be my first trip abroad —but I’ll be leaving my hometown of Holland, MI USA to visit my ancestral homeland.  I’m really curious to see how our local representation of the Dutch culture is similar or different to the actual culture of The Netherlands. 

If you are in that part of the world stop by and say Hello in a language of your choosing.

My hope is that by the end of the event on May 9th, a church will get the ExpressionEngine-based website built during the Building a Church Website tutorial series on Train-ee and we will have raised enough money to fully fund a fresh water well through charity:water.

I say “we” because I need your help.

To learn more about the project and the different ways you can help head over to the Water from a Website section.