Tech Geeks Know How To Party
I plan on writing more extensively about some of the startups at Friday night’s TechCrunch meetup (notably Moola, Punchbowl and Mzinga), but wanted to post some initial reactions to this terrific event.
As Nathan already mentioned, it was quite a packed party, felt more like a regular night at a popular Boston nightclub rather than a private party–but I don’t say this as a negative. If anything, it shows how dedicated and passionate the Boston tech community is (although I’m sure the open bar was also quite a draw). It did make it a bit hard to schmooze and mingle as much as I’d have liked, but I did get to chat with some great people, and enjoyed taking it all in. While I’m a veteran of social media events this year, this marks the first purely technology oriented event, and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.
The first thing I did upon arriving was an interview with the folks from Perkett PR, one of the event’s sponsors. I was pleased to meet many of the Perkett crew, Christine Perkett, Lisa Dilg and Jeff Glasson in particular, and chat with them about social media, blogging, and the intersection of technology and PR.
Some other highlights:
Got to chat with my favorite Usual Suspects of the Boston social media scene, including Scott Monty (we rather enjoyed admiring the odd nature of some of the offered hors d’oeuvres) , Julia Roy (wearing fantastic grey boots that I now covet), Amanda Mooney, Susan Getgood (who remembered to take home one of Perkett’s cute souvenir martini glasses, unlike yours truly) and Yianni Garcia.
Managed to acquire nearly 100 new Twitter followers courtesy of the “Brogan Effect,” in which one Chris Brogan simply tweets that people should follow me and I am suddenly inundated with lots of juicy Twitter Bacn. I’m starting to suspect, truly, that Chris is some kind of evil genius and that we will one day all be answering to him.
I did not win the MacBook Pro (drat!) from Mzinga’s booth, but did get a swag bag with a copy of We Are Smarter Than Me, which I’ve yet to read, so I am psyched to have gotten it for free. For what it’s worth, I also did not win the Wii. I keep entering Wii contests and losing–does this mean I’m going to have to break down and buy one for myself? Want!
Crashed on Nathan’s couch and stayed up eating Rice-A-Roni and re-hashing the event, including whether or not WASTM’s cover with the bees looks far too similar to Larry Weber’s Marketing to the Social Web. I’m thinking it’s a coincidence, he’s wondering if the same person designed both covers. You be the judge.
So, many thanks to the organizers of the event, it was a true highlight of a great year getting involved in this community. Perhaps I’ll see you at the next social media breakfast next month.
Technorati Tags: TechCrunch,TechCrunch Boston MeetUp,mzinga,moola,punchbowl,Scott Monty,Amanda Mooney,Julia Roy,Susan Getgood,Chris Brogan
Filed under: NaBloPoMo, VC, social media, startups
Sarah, it was awesome to hang out with you and Nathan at the event. The only thing missing at this event was Gravel:)
BTW-How cool is the title of “We are Smarter than Me?”
Maybe they are hoping from the spillover from the Bee Movie ???
It’s sort of an obvious metaphor for the community, albeit an interesting one. Typically “we” don’t like the hive mentality (think of the Borg from Star Trek), yet both these books use it, and from what I’ve heard Bee Movie celebrates conforming to vs. deviating from the norm.
Great to see you too — have a great Thanksgiving.
[...] to name, but Doug Levin (the CEO of Black Duck Software), Chris Herot (the CTO of Zingdom), blogger Sarah Wurrey, and social media expert Chris Brogan have all posted recaps of the night that you can peruse as [...]