By Monica Hooper
monica@fyijonesboro.com
Refresh Jonesboro, a group of people looking to “refresh the creative and technical culture within their own city or town” will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Edge Coffeehouse on Tuesday, Aug. 19.
“Our meeting will feature an “Introduction to CSS” presentation in which we learn about the basic building blocks of CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets. CSS allows you to easily separate content from design allowing you to have complete control over the style of your website,” Steven Trotter, founder of the Jonesboro group, said. “Jennifer Ledbetter of GeeksMakeMeHot.com will be our speaker for this event. She has been coding CSS themes for content management systems for many years now. Her themes are used by thousands of people in the blogging community. She currently works as a Content Developer for a local CMS provider, YourWebPress.com,” Trotter added. Trotter explained that Refresh Jonesboro is part of growing movement within the United States and Europe of individuals seeking to enhance the technical culture within their city or town.
Trotter said he started the Jonesboro group because he’s worked with web pages since he was a teenager. “The web is my career, my hobby and my passion. Refresh takes this to the next level by allowing me to help build a community which can then help Jonesboro’s technology market network thrive and expand,” Trotter explained. Trotter said he has three goals with refresh Jonesboro. One is “to build a community of designers, developers, web hobbyists, artists and others who can share knowledge,” he said. Secondly, Trotter said that cultivating a “geek culture” will create networking opportunities for individuals who are technical savvy and keep them in the area, which is good for Northeast Arkansas’ economy.
“And finally,” Trotter said, “we encourage everyone who comes to our meetings to bring their business cards for our business card swap. One of the goals of the Refresh movement as a whole is to promote local talent. Refresh members can use their newly-formed network of professionals to promote local business and form new partnerships. “For example, people are often surprised to hear that there are several Jonesboro companies who provide technology services and products such as a fully-featured content management system (CMS), custom web application development, electronic billing solutions, interface design and more. There is a lot of positive innovation coming out of Jonesboro, and the potential is here for even more new media endeavors,” he added.
For more information on joining Refresh Jonesboro visit refreshjonesboro.org or email iwanna@refreshjonesboro.org or visit Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/refreshjboro for meeting times and locations, local geeky events and impromptu lunch meetings here in Jonesboro. Trotter said, “Members range from marketing strategists and graphic artists to HTML hobbyists and freelance programmers. You’ll fit right in as long as you would like to be involved in establishing an open community where we can share what we know, grow better at what we do and have fun doing it.”
This week's meeting featured a presentation by Jennifer Ledbetter of 
