Tag Archives: planning

Building Arizona’s Future: Jobs, Innovation and Competitiveness

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

This past April I attended the 96th Arizona Town Hall in Tucson Arizona. The New Economy: A Guide For Arizona serves as background information on the event. The result of the Town Hall was a set of recommendations (pdf). Recently [...]

Posted in AZ, Community, Education, Gangplank | Tagged arizona, Community, creative class, creatives, economic development, music, phoenix, planning, policy, politics | 2 Comments

Sunday Book Review: The Great Reset by Richard Florida

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Richard Florida returns to form in this book. He is spot on in his assessments of our current [...]

Posted in Community, Creativity, Education, Sunday Book Review | Tagged creative class, creatives, downtown, economic development, Education, innovation, planning, reading, reset | Comments Off

Political Bites: Cubs Spring Training Subsidy

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

What do you think of Mesa’s decision to fund the Chicago Cubs’ spring training facilities?
Apparently Mesa failed to do it’s homework. Lake Forest College studied 30 cities over 30 years and found that 27 experienced no significant impact from new [...]

Posted in AZ, Political Bites | Tagged arizona, cubs, economic development, incentives, mesa, planning, spring training, stadium | Comments Off

Political Bites: Local Public Transit

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

What, if anything, can cities do to lessen the impact of transit budget cuts on residents?
Most cities are facing their own budget issues and probably are not in much of position to shoulder the impact on behalf of their residents. [...]

Posted in AZ, Political Bites | Tagged arizona, economic development, funding, planning, politics, transportation | Comments Off

Arizona Town Hall Session I & II

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

Ran into @szylstra and @kimberlanning tonight at the Arizona Town Hall. So here is the 10 second overview. About 150 people are selected to participate in the Town Hall. They are then broken in to groups by the organizers. The [...]

Posted in AZ | Tagged arizona, AZ, Community, economic development, innovation, phoenix, planning, policy, politics | 12 Comments

Sunday Review: Practices of an Agile Develoeper by Andy Hunt

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

I have decided to do a dead simple book review every Sunday. Some of this is to just share what I’m reading. Rather than go with some complex rating system a book will either be a thumbs up [...]

Posted in Agile, Productivity, Sunday Book Review | Tagged Agile, excellence, motivation, pair programming, planning, Productivity, reading | Comments Off

The New Economy: A Guide For Arizona

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

Getting ready for the 96th Arizona Town Hall, I am reading their report Building Arizona’s Future: Jobs, Innovation & Competitiveness. It references a 1999 paper from the Morrison Institute The New Economy: A Guide for Arizona. It lists eight principles [...]

Posted in AZ, Gangplank | Tagged arizona, chandler, Community, creatives, economic development, Education, excellence, Gangplank, innovation, new economy, planning, policy, politics, sun corridor | 2 Comments

Sunday Book Review: User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

Thumbs up means I highly recommend reading the book. A thumbs down means read something else unless you have free time on your hands.

Take Away: Best book on the market about writing user stories. Mike makes agile easy [...]

Posted in Sunday Book Review | Tagged Agile, planning, reading | Comments Off

Dysfunctions of (Agile) Teams

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Derek Neighbors

Over the holiday break I read Patrick Lencioni‘s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable“. The premise is that each dysfunction builds upon the dysfunction before it. Much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Below is an illustration of [...]