What is CenPhoCamp?

Dis­claimer: Cen­Pho­Camp is not affil­i­ated with Cronkite School or Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity. We are grate­ful to have the use of their world-class facil­i­ties for our event.

Cen­Pho­Camp, first devised by me and Yuri Art­ibise is late 2009, was cre­ated to help greater down­town Phoenix small busi­nesses use the tools and access the com­mu­ni­ties that are read­ily avail­able to them. From social media to phil­an­thropy groups and week­end brunches to clever, word-of-mouth mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, we know that greater col­lab­o­ra­tion ben­e­fits every­one. Phoenix, espe­cially what we con­sider Cen­Pho and down­town, can’t afford to act as sep­a­rate enti­ties any longer.

But research­ing what works takes time, it takes money and it often takes a level of under­stand­ing that doesn’t come natively to most peo­ple. The skills that busi­nesses need to suc­ceed in the new econ­omy need to be taught to those will­ing to listen.

Cen­Pho­Camp is that solu­tion. Designed for small busi­nesses to learn from other local com­pa­nies, area lead­ers and media pro­fes­sion­als, Cen­Pho­Camp, now run by me and Si Robins, is here to pro­mote col­lab­o­ra­tion, exchange ideas and strengthen the local community.

–Cen­Pho­Camp is free of charge to any attendee
–Speak­ers are cho­sen based on what they can offer the entire com­mu­nity
–Spon­sor­ships pay the rent at Cronkite and appe­tiz­ers at the after party
–Food and drink are pro­vided by the atten­dees
–Orga­niz­ers work on a vol­un­teer basis only

Wel­come to the sec­ond Cen­Pho­Camp. We’ll have the speaker sched­ule con­firmed the week of Labor Day.

Thanks, and see you Octo­ber 9!

January 2010 CenPhoCamp speakers

Ten­ta­tive Octo­ber 2010 schedule

Jan­u­ary 2010 Schedule

January 2010 sponsors

Cen­Pho­Camp wouldn’t have been pos­si­ble with­out the gra­cious sup­port of the com­mu­nity. Every speaker, pan­elist and spon­sor have offered their time and/or money to allow us to rent the Cronkite school and pro­vide some food and drinks for atten­dees afterwards.

The fol­low­ing four com­pa­nies are spon­sor­ing each of the four rooms we will be using. Tony’s Light Rail Blog­ger will be in room 252, Kimber’s Verve Co will be tak­ing over room 202, Derek Neighbor’s Inte­grum will set up in room 444 and Jane’s Prac­ti­cal Art will set up in room 314.

Thanks to all of you for mak­ing this hap­pen and good luck.

Light Rail Blog­ger
Tony Arranaga blogs about the ligh­trail in Phoenix — and uses social media to help spread the word about his expe­ri­ence using alter­na­tive trans­porta­tion. Tony uses social media to not only pro­mote his blog but also to start a con­ver­sa­tion and get peo­ple think­ing about rid­ing their bike, shar­ing a ride, or using the light rail/bus to get around the Val­ley. Exactly how he starts this con­ver­sa­tion is what he’ll focus on dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion at Cen­Pho Camp.

Verve Co
Verve is a full-service Inter­net solu­tion provider. We have pro­vided a wide breadth of design, soft­ware and mar­ket­ing solu­tions for a vari­ety of busi­nesses all around the globe. Our skill set cov­ers a full-spectrum of key rel­e­vant Inter­net dis­ci­plines that allow us to cre­ate pow­er­ful solu­tions tar­get­ing mea­sur­able results. We under­stand both the tech­ni­cal and mar­ket­ing aspects of the Inter­net and are able to fuse the two together to cre­ate truly effec­tive solu­tions for busi­nesses just like yours.

Inte­grum
Inte­grum empha­sizes busi­ness value, speed to mar­ket and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion to build remark­able Ruby on Rails web appli­ca­tions. Inte­grum has worked with orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes, from star­tups to the enter­prise. They uti­lize Agile soft­ware devel­op­ment method­olo­gies and pow­er­ful tools to deliver your project on time, and on budget.

Prac­ti­cal Art
At prac­ti­cal art, every­thing is hand­made by more than 70 dif­fer­ent local Ari­zona arti­sans. In their large store­front on Cen­tral Avenue, north of Camel­back, they carry over 2,000 func­tional, usable wares in glass, ceramic, metal, wood, fibers, and more. Expect to find things like wood bowls and uten­sils made from local fallen trees; glass­ware and ceramic items in any use­ful shape you can imag­ine; scarves, blan­kets and other knit or woven fibers; clas­si­cally hand­crafted fur­ni­ture, jew­elry, soap, and paper. Just about any­thing use­ful for your every­day life that is hand­made in Ari­zona can be found at prac­ti­cal art!

prac­ti­cal art is also afford­able des­ti­na­tion for every­one: most of the items sell for less than $35. prac­ti­cal art is the per­fect place to find a trea­sured gift. prac­ti­cal art has been named “Best of Phoenix” by the New Times and “Best in the Val­ley” by Phoenix Magazine.

Shane Cathers, Telling Your Business Story

Thanks to Shane Cathers for giv­ing us some great infor­ma­tion on video!

Spon­sored by Bloom­ing Rock.

Derek Neighbors, Activating Passionate Groups

Excel­lent job by Derek Neigh­bors to get the crowd riled up.

Spon­sored by OnePhoenix.

Matthew Petro, From Suburban to Returning Customers

Nice work by Matthew Petro.

Spon­sored by PhxRail­Food.

Susan Baier, Justin McHood, Making Your Business Memorable

Good work by Susan Baier and Justin McHood here. We may have lost the video, but their slides are GREAT.

Jack Smith, Intro to Twitter

Nice work by Jack Smith. Love the Rail­Life shirt.

Ahead of the curve

Looks like we’re not the only ones who think that spe­cial­iza­tion and focus is good.

Great arti­cle from Wired on why smaller is often better.

Paul Martinez, Intro to Blogging

Huge thanks to Paul Mar­tinez for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in CenPhoCamp.

Spon­sored by Medi­aWatc­hAZ.