Like-minded residents meld ideas in Jelly sessions to spur projects

In an unassuming library above a downtown Las Vegas coffee shop, a technological revolution is quietly taking place.

The Jelly movement, a type of casual co-working, did not start in Las Vegas, or even the U.S., but members of the various Vegas Jellies may have perfected it.

The groups meet once a week at The Beat Coffeehouse & Records, 520 Fremont St .

The goal is to get like-minded individuals who care about similar issues or goals in the same room and let nature run its course.

Many tech startups have spawned from the Jellies, such as mobile game developers WaBam Games.

This type of entrepreneurial attitude and burgeoning tech startup scene has made Las Vegas one of the nation's top emerging markets for technology employment, according to a recent report from Chicago-based commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which has offices in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas added 6,898 tech jobs in 2011 for a 22.9 percent year-over-year gain, taking the No. 2 spot on Jones Lang LaSalle's ranking of markets by high-tech employment growth, according to the report. San Francisco remained No. 1 with 28.6 percent annual job growth.

Shaun Swanson, a mobile app developer and avid Jelly attendee, said it all began about a year ago with Vegas Tech Jelly .

"We learned a lot from the emergence of Tech Jelly," said Swanson, whose latest iPhone app, Ayloo, was conceived in the Jelly environment. "We set loose constraints and let the community determine what happens. In a sense, it's like bio-evolution for ideas, social connections and relationships."

In the short time the Jellies have been active in Las Vegas, many projects have spawned from the collaborative atmosphere.

One of the more notable ones is the Build a Greener Block project, which transformed a nearly vacant swath of Main Street, just north of Charleston Boulevard, into a two-day pop-up bazaar featuring live music, an organic grocer, boutique stores, community classrooms and a park, all with the intention of promoting sustainability.

Brandon Wiegand, a vice president of a local commercial real estate brokerage firm and fellow Jelly-goer, said a project such as Build a Greener Block, which he helped organize, would not have been as successful without the efforts of the Green Jelly community.

"What the Jelly did was give the project a platform to launch from," he said. "When you have that critical mass of people and all the right ingredients together, cool (stuff) happens."

It is that experimental mentality that makes the Jellies a success, according to Dan Ebel, an entrepreneur and regular Jelly moderator.

"There is no one person in charge. It's any speaker, any topic," he said. "It is extremely important to realize how powerful these networks can be. Cool projects come out of this."

There are about six Jelly groups that are regularly active, promote events and feature regular guests. The topics range from a sports Jelly to a food Jelly, and Ebel said new ones are cropping up nearly every month.

To find a schedule of meetings, visit The Beat's events page at thebeatlv.com .

For more information about Tech Jelly, visit vegasjelly.com.

Contact Paradise/Downtown View reporter Nolan Lister at nlister@viewnews.com or 702-383-0492.