Check Your Calendars !

Well, okay at least check the DC Tech Events calendar maintained by Ross Karchner.  As many of you in the DC area know, we have a habit of holding great events on the same night, making it hard for many of us to be everywhere at once.  Based on some feedback I have gotten here on the blog and also from people I meet, there is a definite need for some type of process the various communities can use to make sure we can not step on each others "feet".  

An initial step for planners out there should be to stop by the DC Tech Events calendar I mentioned above to pick a good date for everyone.  Now obviously sometimes that may not be possible and that is understandable.  But at least if you check we may be able to avoid those conflicts. There are also DC Tech Events groups: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

So if you have an event, check the calendar and if you have a date in mind Add it to the DC Tech Events calendar HERE.

Also, you can add this link to Google Calendar, iCal, and many other calendar apps to subscribe to the events right there and always be up to date.

Also, if you have a blog or web site, go ahead and add a link to the calendar in your sidebar like I did under DC Community Stuff, see it over there ?

DC Photowalk Pics

Here is a look at some of the pics I got form my photowalk yesterday in Washington DC.  IT was the Cherry Blossom Festival and as you can see, the blooms were out and beautiful.

 

1. Blossoms, 2. Bronze, 3. Blossoms & A Distant Memorial, 4. Blossoms, 5. Fallen Friends, 6. Pink Blossoms, 7. Wall of Stars, 8. Fly, 9. Tulips, 10. Crooked, 11. Honor, 12. Spirit of St. Louis, 13. Start Your Engines, 14. Heroes, 15. Shimmering Stars, 16. WWII Memorial, 17. Thanks You For Your Service, 18. Reflection, 19. Hat, 20. Blossom Sky, 21. Star Wall, 22. Focus, 23. Jefferson Memorial, 24. Propeller, 25. Silver & Orange, 26. Cherry Blossoms In Bloom, 27. Jefferson Memorial, 28. Jefferson Memorial

Local Focus: Loladex

Today was the launch of DC startup Loladex, a Facebook application to leverage your Fabebook network for local reviews.

Trying to find the perfect spot for a first date? Need a good mechanic to check out that noisy rattle? When you're searching for a local business, what you really want is a thumbs up from someone you trust – Loladex helps you get recommendations from people you know and sources you trust.

I got a chance to sit down with the founders Dan Goodman and Laurence Hooper out near their headquarters in Leesburg, VA the other day to chat about their creation over a nice cup of coffee.

Both guys were great explaining their vision and what Loladex is all about now, and where they see it going in the future.  Nick O'Neill of Social Times and Eric Schonfeld of Techcrunch had the first reviews on the street of the product.  In a nutshell, you install the Loladex Facebook application into your FB profile.  Then search away to find that local … well whatever.  It could be a doctor, sports shop, basically anything.  And best yet, it tells you who your Facebook friends have recommended.  I like this idea in that on sites like Yelp, you are at the mercy of the crowds recommendation.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, but with Loladex you are getting a review from most likely a trusted friend.  They also have featured third party input from sources like The Washingtonian Magazine as well. 

Laurence told me that initially they looked at building it as a web application, but when Facebook launched it API and platform, they decided to take advantage of that.  However, in the future they would look to branching out from the Facebook application to a web presence. 

Like Erick said on his review, building the user base is going to be critical for them.  I think leveraging people's friends for the reviews brings a little more of a personal touch, but I think it may be hard to get people to review things in some cases.  But I hope they do for Loladex.

I did find a point Nick made very interesting, that I had not noticed, but they have limited their reviews to 140 characters … sound familiar ?  Exactly the number Twitter allows… Hmmm…  Maybe we can look for the review to be shot over to Twitter as well here soon reaching a much wider audience and pulling them back in to the application to check it out.  

Obviously being a DC startup I am totally rooting for the guys to do well.  Another success story will garner the area some well deserved good press.

Anyone Up For A Cherry Blossom Photowalk ?

I must admit, it kind of snuck up on me this year, but this coming weekend is the start of Cherry Blossom season.  And how better to celebrate than to get out and take some pics ?

So I want to put the feelers out there to see who may join me for a Cherry Blossom Photowalk.  Anyone interested ?

Here is the link to the Park Service page with all the blossom information.  Forecast is for rain on Saturday, but Sunday is supposed to be nicer with a high around 60 or so.

So what do you say, you in ?  Stop by and give me a handshake over at WhyGoSolo

Event: DC New Media Technology

It seems like every week there is a good thing to do, and this week is no exception.  I know its a bit late notice, but tomorrow night the DC New Media Technology is having their monthly Happy Hour to schmooze with the other locals on Web 2.0 and Video 2.0 stuff. 
I am going to make that long and harsh journey to the land of DC to join in on the fun and would love to see some of you there.
Here are the details for those interested.

When
  Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 6:30 PM

Where

Lotus Lounge (DC)
1420 K St NW
Washington , DC 20005
(202) 289-4222

The event page can be found HERE.

Meet and greet others interested in new media, social networking/web 2.0/video 2.0. Besides talking about our current interests & projects, suggested topics:

* Financing Web 2.0/social media efforts
* Technical developments
* Startups

Shoot me an email, Twitter DM, or better yet come over to WhyGoSolo to join my Community Listing if you are interested in getting together.

DC Comnunity Reaches Out

On the heels of finishing off my so called mission statement the other night, I came across a post by Chris Brogan titled "Back in the Saddle".  As many of you who follow Chris's twitter updates are/were aware. he had a heck of a time of it while he was down at SXSW.  His blog went teets up and he was forced to post his thoughts over to his tumblr blog.  Not the most idea place to write pretty expressive posts for all to read. 

Timing always fascinates me as an interesting thing.  Just as I had polished off my thoughts on how building a community is all about reaching out and offering your services to others in order to strengthen the bonds, along came Chris's post.  He said that right away when he started to have an issue, friends jumped into help out. 

Around this same time, KEITH Casey from Casey Software and Why Go Solo made a little holding file for all my front end blog files. Thank you so much for that, Keith!

I have come to know Keith a little recently and I totally see this in him.  He has expressed interest in do things to help grow the community here in DC and I was not surprised at all to see he was right there to help.  Then Chris mentions another close friend to all of here in DC, AaronBrazell. 

Thanks to Aaron Brazell of Technosailor for taking apart my website, piece by piece, digging in deep to the SQL, and finding the problem. Without Aaron, I would’ve continued fighting my former hosting provider instead of finding the problem. Aaron also offered my site a home, and I’m grateful for that.

Aaron has been one of the most vocal and active supporters of the local community here.  He has a lot of great thoughts and ideas and it is no surprise to see him put those words into practice. 

One of the most important factors of creating a great group are the people that make that group up.  And we truly have some good ones here in DC.  There are great people, too many to mention by name here.  But two great examples are the gentlemen mentioned above, setting a great example for the type of generosity it will take to push our little city here into the forefront making it the place to be.

Glad you are here with us guys.

DC Tech Community Exchange Forum

I have gotten some great feedback from the mission statement post from yesterday.  One thing that seemed to be a common thread was "Now what ?"

Well I thought a bit and I think a good start would be a simple Community Exchange. A place we can use to exchange ideas, or even ask for a favor.  One of my thoughts had been an exchange of complimentary services and what a better place for one of us to ask for a little help.  At the worst a good gathering place for all our little bits or information.

So stop by, check it out and let me know what you think.  It is simple now but we will be adding stuff if it moves forward.

Local Focus: Ryan Spahn - Sleep.FM

One of the great things about the meetups we have are the new people that continue to join us and hearing about the new things they are working on.

Last week at our CXCC, I met with Ryan Spahn of Sleep.FM.  Ryan is a Baltimore resident who is working on pursuing bringing Sleep.FM to the masses.  Check out the featured video on the Home page here to see a bit about his project. Ryan reminded me a bit of myself, in the fact that we both had an idea and went about desiging it and finding people to help him build it.  We have talked here previously about one person startups and as I continue to meet people, I find that it is not as rare as one may think.

I thought Ryan would be a great addition to our Local Focus feature here at East Coast Blogging.  Here is his take on our questions.

1.  Whats is your name and line of business ?

I hope everyone will stop by and check out sleep.FM and welcome Ryan to our little community here.

Anyone you think the Focus should be on ?  Let us know.

 

Mission Statement: Building a Community

I am no Jerry McGuire, but I have a mission statement in mind.  Not one that a company is based on, rather one to base a community.

Our little community is really starting to gather some momentum here in the DC area.  There has been much talk recently, on this blog and others, as to the state of affairs with regards to the growing tech community.  Even though everyone has somewhat differing opinions, one things is clear, the common thread is that the community here in DC is on the cusp of special things, it may just take a little time.

We are a community in our infancy here in the DC area.  We try to compare ourselves to the likes of Silicon Valley, Boston, and Seattle, but there is really no comparison.  However, that should not make us upset or jealous, we should accept what we have and move to make it grow and mold it into our own special.  The DC area is unique, as are all of you and we should embrace that, embrace our culture and learn to thrive from it.

And as an infant, so to speak, we depend on each other as we did our parents for support and guidance.  There are many among us who are bringing their ideas to fruition and working hard to bring their thoughts to reality.  It is a hard process along a bumpy road and everyone can use a little help.  Our mission right now should be to all pitch in and help.  Help to place more and more stones on the foundation we quickly see forming around us.  We are not competitors, rather complimentors.

Here is my proposition to all of you within reading distance of this statement.  If we hope for this area to one day grow into the community I know we all envision, we have to stick together.  I keep going back in my head to a statement I have read a thousand times over at WashingtonVC:

grows companies through the exchange of complementary technologies and marketing services.

The exchange of complimentary services … We all have talents that we can share and exchange.  Maybe we are not all web designers or php developers or marketing mavens, but we all have something we can offer.  So go out and share them.  Maybe its testing a new feature, maybe its help with a bug someone just cant figure out or a social media/pr question.  We all have something we can offer I am sure.  Offer them. We are the ones who will build it.  Nobody else.  We can't expect VC/angel $$ to just come our way, so let's show them why it should.  If we build it, they will come. 

Now I know there are some out there who may be saying, "Why should I give my time and may not receive anything in return?"  I can only tell you that you will receive satisfaction of helping good people succeed and you will be helping to continue to build the foundation.  I saw this update on twitter from our friend Keith Casey of WhyGoSolo just yesterday, and it fit so well with the thoughts I have been pulling together:

 I love kicking around good ideas with good people.. especially when I can help make the idea better. The success of friends is always good

In the end, it will benefit us all.  It is kind of like that "Pay It Forward" movie I once saw, or the karma in "My Name is Earl".  Kind of cliche, I know, nonetheless most likely true. If you help one person "make it", do you not think that you have ally that may come in handy one day.  Someone you will be able to reach out to and say "Heh I need some help". 

There are those out there doing this already I know, and this is not groundbreaking stuff.  I just wanted to put it in black and white, in simple terms.  Not so long ago our friend Aaron Brazell (Technosailor) took his time and worked to make a group, @dctwits, that the community here could use to get the word out to the community at large.  Now as we all know, there are no groups within Twitter as of yet, but Aaron took his time and made it work.  What did he get out of it ?  He got our thanks and the knowledge that should he need help, we stand ready for him.  It are these types of acts and people that will make us stand apart from the noise and the crowd.

My door is open.  If I can help any of you, please let me know.  Need the word put out, I will write about it.  Need a new facebook app you are working on tested late one Friday night, I will test it.  Need some help with a technical issue, I will work it.  Have an ad, I will place it on the site.  I trust many of you would do the same.  And in doing so we will only work to make the community grow cohesive and stronger and make people from those "other places" take notice.  Soon it no longer will be "Why did you start your business in DC?", it will be "Look at that community there in DC, thats the place to be".

So these are my thoughts and I hope you find something of value here, I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.  In addition, I am also going to make this a wiki page that we can all add our thoughts and ideas to as we move forward.  You can access it here.

CxCC - Another Great DC Meetup

SXSW took over Austin, TX last week and CXCC took over Austin Grill in Bethesda, MD last night ! It was a rousing success. It started out innocent enough. Many of us were quite depressed and jealous we were not down in Austin with everyoe else last week and decided to get together and wallow in our misery together. Originally we tried to shoot for Monday, still while SXSW was going on, but time got away from us and we held the innaugural CXCC (Central by Central Central .. a fun little one given to us by @batterista) last night appropriately at the Austin Grill in Bethesda, MD.

In the beginning it was going to be just a few of us, but by the end it had turned into a full blown meetup with somewhere near 25 of us gatehring. It was a great time and we met some new people and got a chance to catch up with some old ones as well. The list was long, I will add the attendee's list in later, but we got to catch up with @newmediajim fresh off his trip to the Middle East, Afghanistan, and of course SXSW. Some complanied about having to come WAY OUT to the suburbs and tales of their arduous trek from the far away land called …Washington, DC (the DC line cant be more than 1.5 miles from the Austin Grill ..). The will be no names but DC Concierge, I think you know who I mean :).

Anyway, I was happy to meet some new people working on some really cool stuff, look for a Local Focus on that soon. And it was again great to see the foundations of the local community continue to grow and add new people to the mix.

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