I have agreed to write a monthly article called “Nashville Pulse” for Digital Nashville, the free-to-join networking group dedicated to all things digital in the Music City. The idea is to survey what’s going on in Nashville every month in the digital world, and this month’s installment takes a look at how digital companies are pulling through the recession.

e-learning

This fall, more than 60 school districts across Tennessee, including Davidson-Nashville Metro, will receive $20,000 to serve home-bound students, supplant English Language Learner curriculum or even offer more Advanced Placement courses.

But few, if any, of those additional students will sit in traditional classrooms. Rather, they’ll be taking the courses online.

Read more at DigitalNashville.net.

I have agreed to write a monthly article called “Nashville Pulse” for Digital Nashville, the free-to-join networking group dedicated to all things digital in the Music City. The idea is to survey what’s going on in Nashville every month in the digital world, and this month’s installment takes a look at how digital companies are pulling through the recession.

Digital Game Development

At BarCamp Nashville 2009, at least 58 different presentations offered a veritable plethora of options for Nashville’s digerati to learn about, get involved with and participate in topics as varied as search engine optimization to producing original content for Microsoft’s Xbox platform. At least seven of those sessions, a significant minority in a town known more for honky tonks and healthcare, touched directly or indirectly on a topic for which Nashville garners little clout: gaming and game development.

“It’s picked up really in the last year or two,” says Caleb Garner, who since 1998 has been trying on and off to grow the Nashville game development community.

Gardner and fellow game developer Scott Southworth run Part12Studio, an independent game development company, as well as the Nashville game developer’s group.

Read more at DigitalNashville.net.

I have agreed to write a monthly article called “Nashville Pulse” for Digital Nashville, the free-to-join networking group dedicated to all things digital in the Music City. The idea is to survey what’s going on in Nashville every month in the digital world, and this month’s installment takes a look at how digital companies are pulling through the recession.

coworking

It’s taken over a year, a number of meetings, plenty of online chatter and the wrangling of three distinct initiatives, but it looks like Coworking may finally come to Nashville.

Led by Chuck Bryant and Jackson Miller, with support from the Nashville Technology Council, Coworking Nashville hopes to make an announcement soon regarding available space and a tiered membership plan for coworking aimed at Nashville’s budding technology and general geek audiences. Although Bryant offered a tour of the proposed space, the group is on the cusp of forming a formal LLC and signing a lease, and will wait to divulge details until after a formal announcement is made.

Coworking, for the unfamiliar, targets independent creative types who desire the sense of community and collaboration that comes from a shared work environment, without the bureaucracy of a corporate job.

Read more at DigitalNashville.net.

I have agreed to write a monthly article called “Nashville Pulse” for Digital Nashville, the free-to-join networking group dedicated to all things digital in the Music City. The idea is to survey what’s going on in Nashville every month in the digital world, and this month’s installment takes a look at how digital companies are pulling through the recession.

The recession may be winding down, but Nashville firms remain cautious…

Halfway through September, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claimed “the recession is very likely over at this point,” but cautioned that economic recovery would seem weak for a while.

A quick survey of area digital firms seems to confirm Bernanke’s caveat, as local companies don’t expect a boom in activity any time soon.

“People are looking for ways to save money. They’re really running at a high break-neck rate,” says Bruce McCully, owner and founder of Dynamic Edge, Inc., the IT and computer support firm with offices in both Nashville and Ann Arbor, Michigan. The firm’s products are selling well, but sales of its services and consultation have slowed down, McCully says.

Read more at DigitalNashville.net.