My head is spinning from all the excitement in the DC technology community. Over 90 people at an event on widgets this week? WTF!? nextDC, Refresh DC, Social Media Club, DC Bloggers, NoVA Open Coffee, NetSquared, Tech Tuesday, Lunch 2.0 (fyi, this is a random selection, and probably not accurate or complete)…and those are just the ones that want to meet monthly. The only thing to be sure of from all this: there’s a lot of Type A geeks inside the Beltway. But how will all this evolve into something sustainable, vibrant, more diverse, and larger than the sum of a few energetic parts?

I’ve spent the last five years networking with people who think online communities were invented in the last five months. My clients are primarily MBA & lawyer types, and my friends are mostly save-the-world liberal arts people. But every day I’d go through the geeky & design-y podcasts and RSS feeds, dreaming about the west coast. So I thought of starting a technology group in DC because I knew there would be people with similar passions. I purchased the domain silicondc.com and did what any entrepreneur would do: market research. That’s what led me to the cacophony of DC technology groups above. Needless to say, DC no longer needs me to bring people together to talk tech.

What the latest round of DC technology needs is a vision. (more…)

Filed under: DC Tech Community, Technology
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Some times there’s just the right confluence of factors for a perfect week. That was last week for me–at the twentieth annual Consultants’ Camp in Mt. Crested Butte, Colorado. This was my first year in attendance and it will most certainly not be the last.

Consultants’ Camp is a group of people who gather to share lessons-learned, goals, and challenges in an open setting. Everyone is both a presenter and a participant in this unconference where some of the sharpest management consultants, CMMI appraisers, team facilitators, and entrepreneurs gather.

(Camp Photos) (Crested Butte, CO Photos)

There were specific lessons I learned, such as (more…)

Filed under: Business
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It pains me to see good people getting bad advice when it comes to technology.  Culprits include horrible websites, custom software that shouldn’t be written, and IT vendors treating technology like an out-of-reach and separate world than their clients’.  The influencers who spread outdated, expensive, and erroneous information should get a clue or quit their jobs–because they’re not helping anyone.I’ve worked with companies of all sizes and one of two things is usually the case: the technology that runs their business could use an overhaul and they know it (which is not ideal but at least understandable), or more often than not a business is complacent about their technology and don’t realize all the money and hours that they’re wasting.I’m not saying every business should use the latest-and-greatest or bleeding edge–I’m a firm believer that there’s a tipping point when a time or financial investment in technology becomes worthwhile.  It’s not only the businesses’ fault that they haven’t chosen the right tools–in many cases they have attempted to do so–it’s often that the advice they’re getting could be much improved. (more…)

Filed under: Business, Technology
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