Geekdom
By:  Michael Valdes

Nick Longo wanders the hallways of Geekdom like a kid in a toy store and every aisle brings a smile.  Even as it's "mentor-in-chief," Longo really has no idea what Geekdom will produce next.  Yet, he is convinced that they are creating the perfect place to do it.

"People take their ideas and they sit in their basement with them," Longo says.  "They stay in their living room. They are afraid to just put it out there.  To get some feed back and bounce it off of people.  This whole place is about bouncing it off."
  Founded by many of the same people who started tech-giant Rackspace, in just nine months, Geekdom has brought together over 400 creative entrepreneurs who pay a small monthly fee to call the downtown location home.

They are required to put on training sessions and information classes on what they do for a living and what they can do for their fellow... well, geeks.

"If your a developer and I am a web marketer, most of the time, we are not speaking the same language," says Longo.  "But our goal is the same.  It's to create a really cool business that makes money."

The guys with "True Ability" are a perfect example.  They developed software that will allow employers to get a better idea what a potential employee really knows about their business.

Co-founder Frederick Mendler says, "We have a marketing company based out of Geekdom.  We have a user interface designer based out of Geekdom. We get law advice from Geekdom.  We get P-R advice from Geekdom."

The young software team is convinced their effort to get their product on the market is six months to a year ahead of schedule just from working with others at Geekdom.

That is just one example of the ideas generated constantly.  Some work... Some don't... But, Longo says, that is exactly the concept.  To build a place where ideas become actual products faster and remove the idea that you have to be a genius to work in the tech industry.

"Tech is more vocational", Longo says.  "It's not just about brain matter and high-theory and being the most intelligent or genius level. It's not... It's not... It's about being passionate. "

And that passion, Longo believes, will change San Antonio forever... one geek at a time.

"We are about removing the service worker attitude and becoming empowered.

"This is about education."Geekdom