The Blogo’Shawn

Tomorrow (Saturday) I will be headed way down south to San Jose for the BlogHer conference. This day will be primarily geared towards the female persuasion and I think it will be interesting to have the gender equation slew the other way for a new media gathering. In fact, this will constitute the first mostly women event I’ve ever attended in the tech space - that gives me some pause for thought actually. It ought to be interesting and I hope a profound level of bonding takes place between participants. So far it’s looking like a jam-packed day with good conversation in store!

And in other un/conference news…Chicago just hosted it’s first BarCamp some weeks ago, which is wonderful to hear! Now then for those of you who are not tech types in Chicago, let me give a bit of background. Suffice it to say that I am quite perplexed and befuddled as to how the tech startup craze has managed to largely pass by Chicago. Chicago is my home city. It is a big metropolitan setting with tons of people, a good many technically-minded and a good many business-minded due to top-notch MBA programs like Northwestern and the University of Chicago. It has the infrastructure to host a cohesive tech startup community. So it peeves me when I find tech entrepreneurs who don’t know each other and rarely meet, if ever, amongst peers and mentors. That is much of the reason why moving back to Chicago was never quite enticing enough. I know how vital it is to have a supportive community of VCs, businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and tech folk. They have to be in place! How/why I wonder do other major and minor cities and towns surpass Chicago in this respect?! This is not right! Mostly all is splendid about Chicago (ok, well the weather could be better too), except this one niggling absence of collaborative entrepeneurial fire. It is the reason I meet so many Chicago “refugees” in the Bay Area. Anyway you get my drift, I’m sure. I expect a major city like Chicago to have the startup culture it deserves, like other places of similar and lesser size all across the U.S.
That’s why I am so pleased to see the Tech Cocktail emerge along with its adjunct Tech Social. Many kudos to Frank Gruber and Eric Olson for taking the initiative to get this off the ground and injecting some Boom2.0 enthusiasm and flair into the Chicago tech community. This initiative is such a needed step in the right direction. Alrighty I guess that’s my shout out to my home city - “Go team! Bring your people home to the promised land!”  So if you are in Chicagoland and reading this, I assume you are planning to attend these functions, ‘nuf said.