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Comment by pxlpshr | Hacker News Reader

One of the best things you can do is get connected and get involved. Check out http://www.texasstartupblog.com, it's ran by Alex Muse and he's in Dallas... they're doing their own mobile startup: http://www.biggu.com. Reach out to him and see how you can get involved, and monitor the blog...

In Austin, checkout StartupDistrict.com, AustinStartup.com, Austin Tech Happy Hour, Conjunctured(.com) Co-working, and a lot more.

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Totally second this. Find your local hubs for entrepreneurs, tech people, inquiring minds etc, and get involved. You don't need to be hung up on the concept of having your own Big Idea, and it's great that you aren't. There are plenty of startups out there who would welcome someone like you - I know I would, if I was in the right country. Not sure of the situation in Dallas but here in the UK hanging around universities is a good way to meet people with ideas but little practical experience.

Learning is great too. As others have said, if you find an itch to scratch, you might end up working on an idea without even realising you've had one.

At the risk of sounding totally clueless, how do you find local hubs like that? I live in the twin cities in MN, and all that I know of is the ruby.mn ruby group, which is pretty talkative on the ruby list. Is there some online startup community that's arranged by region, or do you just have to know the right people?

http://meetup.com ?

Get in touch with John Erik Metcalf. He's starting a seed incubator in Austin, and I'm sure he can introduce you to some stellar companies in the area.

Good call. I missed the first Dallas meetup and then complete forgot about it. I'll be at the November 10th one for sure.

Ruby nerds have a good group going: http://groups.google.com/group/dallasrb?pli=1

Refresh Dallas usually has good turnout; topics are a mixed bag for a non-designer, but entrepreneurial people, in general: http://www.refreshdallas.org/

I heard this is a good book for sparking creativity: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0911121005/

In general, I look at new forms of identification, communication, and connection. The network is the overwhelming source of value, and any way to translate between meatspace and online is worth thinking about.

Fundamentally, what will excite you to work on depends on you. A great idea to me may not be to you. What do you care about? Why? What problems are there around those things?

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