Tech Cocktail 2: What a Party
Last night's Tech Cocktail 2 party in Chicago was worth the trip from Minneapolis. We had a chance to interview guests for a full three hours and learn about tons and tons of companies in the Chicago market. Some we had heard of before, such as Feedburner, but this was our first chance to meet the people behind the popular RSS company who powers the feeds for this site. And we met a lot of start-ups in the truest sense - some having launched only last week - and learn about what motivated them to build a world-changing application.
Here is a behind the scenes photo from Tech Cocktail's co-host Frank Gruber's shots from last night where I'm interviewing Jeff Pulver who flew in from New York City for the event:
Ben, together with the latest addition to the Technology Evangelist crew, Jeremy Elfering, are working the cameras behind me while I chat it up with Jeff.
We're working on turning last night's video into content for this site, so hop on our
RSS feed in you're interested in watching the interviews as they go live. For now, here are a five highlights from my perspective:
1. The size and energy of the party. Frank and Eric have a LOT of friends and they're a very social bunch. People seemed to do a good job "shaking up" who they were talking to in a cocktail sense.
2. Hearing an ex-Microsoft employee tell me that he chose Ruby on Rails for his new start up.
3. Learning about the various restaurant related web sites popping up in the Chicago market. I'm looking forward to seeing them move into Minneapolis, being a restaurant junkie.
4. Listening to Jeff Pulver's thoughts on where Internet TV is going.
5. Watching Frank Gruber and Eric Olson have fun. They put a lot of work into making this event a success and clearly managed to enjoy the party as well. That's the real sign of a successful night.
Jeff Pulver and
David Dalka have written up summaries of the event with photos, and the rest of Frank Gruber's photos from last night can be found
here. I noticed co-hosts
Frank Gruber and
Eric Olson haven't gotten around to blogging about last night's event on either of their blogs or at
TechCocktail.com, which is another of a great party.
Thanks to Frank and Eric for helping accommodate our cameras at the party. We're already looking forward to Tech Cocktail 3. If you're interested in attending the next Tech Cocktail I recommend hopping onto the
Tech Cocktail RSS feed so future announcements will show up in your aggregator.
Like I said in my blog entry, meeting you guys for grub before the event was great! I'm sorry I wasn't able to connect with you later in the evening regarding Scoble, he really wanted to meet you guys when I told him about you.
Hopefully we'll talk over the weekend. I look forward to expanding our relationship - I hope I can bring value to you as well - you guys are such a positive and wonderful influence.
Thanks so much for coming out for the event and capturing on HD quality film. If our guests had a quarter the fun Eric and I had then I would consider it smashing success! ;)
Ed: What you're doing with this blog is fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing the video interviews you shot for Tech Cocktail 2. It looks like Frank and Eric did an amazing job. For #3, I'll have to see if Frank will send an invite my way :)
Thanks for the kind words...you are definitely invited! TECH cocktail events are open and free so we would love to have you. ;)
1. Posted by: Eric Olson on October 13, 2006 3:03 PM:
Thank you guys so much for coming. I am dying to see the video you shot! The event was a ton of fun and I hope you can make TC3 as well. Talk soon guys. :-)
Cheers,
Eric