Wednesday, November 5, 2008

SocialDevCampEast #2 recap

SocialDevCampEast #2, held in Baltimore on November 1st, was another great tech event in Baltimore.  The biggest value for me was making and reenforcing weak ties by connecting with people I don't directly work with or socialize with on a daily basis (especially people I only converse with via social media).  For example, I got a chance to meet Adam Boalt and hear him talk about the success of RushMyPassport.com, which is the exact kind of business I'm interested in building in the future (something with online and offline components, and something that is not considered 'sexy' by most of the cognoscenti). 

As far as presentations went, I gave a short version of my SproutCore demo and also led a session about cloud infrastructure (and what's not so great about it).  The best sessions I attended were:
Jimmy Gardner posted some great photos that convey the feeling of the event.  Congratulations to Dave Troy and Ann Bernard for another success!

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Ignite Baltimore Call for Participants

Hey everyone, we're organizing Ignite Baltimore, and we're looking for interesting topics.  Check out the site for more details, or visit these other city Ignite pages for inspiration:
If you're a Twitter person, follow @ignitebaltimore. 

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Startup community in Baltimore

I just found about a very interesting Barcamp called SocialDevCamp East planned in Baltimore on Saturday, just a few miles south of my house. It's very heartening to see enthusiasm building for a tech community here on the east coast and this has gotten me thinking about the Baltimore startup community in general. Below are some notes on startup life in Baltimore.




  • Here are some Baltimore startups I know about:




    I'm sure there are more; send me some and I'll add them to the list.


  • I've talked to many other Baltimore entrepreneurs with ideas in various stages of development, and there are lots of hackers here working remotely (or commuting to DC and Northern Virginia) on startups. We're also the home of advertising.com which employs a lot of smart people and brings a lot of talent to the area.


  • I meet a lot of cool hackers through the local Ruby on Rails meetup.


  • One of my favorite blogs is written by a Baltimorean, Paul Barry. He's a Ruby on Rails expert, but has in no way drunk the Kool Aid. He's got plenty of love for Java and Scala and whatever else gets the job done.


  • I've been dreaming for awhile about organizing a "Baltimore Demo Night" where all of us could gather and show off our wares, get feedback, and so on. Who's down for that?

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