Last night I attended the Geek Dinner organized by Pito Salas, Bela Labovitch, and Adam Green. It was an opportunity for “geeky-but-not-exclusively-geeks” people to “hang out, casually munch on cheap food and compare notes on stuff that people are working on.” There were probably about forty people there, and the energy-level was high. Various people made announcements about local startups which are hiring (always a positive note) and the large-group had a spontaneous informal-yet-spirited discussion (which ranged in topics from viability of web-based MS office-like apps to advertising-based business models).
There were a number of friends from and familiar faces which I’ve seen at the Web Innovators Group (WebInno), the group which I organize, a collection of people engaged in internet and mobile innovation in the Boston area. Last night’s crowd, true to its moniker, was definitely “geekier.”
We held the most recent WebInno event last week, and Brian Del Vechhio’s photo shows our successful 100+ person turnout. You can read two good summaries of the event on Adam Green’s and Ray Deck’s blogs.
There’s an inaugural session of Mobile Monday Boston this upcoming Monday night, which should be a great event as well. Shimon Rura’s Startup Meetup Group, though I haven’t been, sounds like it’s gathering some momentum, too.
All of this activity was summed up nicely in a conversation I had with Mark Withington today, who organizes the popular Boston PHP group. He said, contrasting to just a couple years – and even months – ago, “There’s something going on in Boston.” I couldn’t agree more. A year ago, I lamented about some of the cultural dynamics in town, but I am now seeing a resurgence of excitement and a trend towards change. All of the groups mentioned above each aim at partially distinct constituencies with differently formatted events addressing different needs, but they all promote the larger tech community in Boston. And I am happy to be a part of it.