Either DC is the Technology Promised Land, or there are a bunch of alcoholic IT professionals up there.  I met up with Laz (of Baltimore) at the sold-out TwinTech happy hour (read all the press).   Happy Hour as in free booze (good booze, too, except, for, maybe, the strawberry champagne).  Damn, this was an impressive event featuring a cast of a thousand tech folk (all disciplines, all industries) packed in a three floor nightclub.  I really suck at “networking,” but even I could start a conversation at TwinTech/exchange business cards….Speaking of business cards, a quick shout-out to Innsbrook Kinko’s (you guys rock for getting us cards at the last minute!) .  

Richmond (I’m talking to you Tech Council), we need to do something like this!  If you can believe it, DC/NOVA already has two more technology-based happy hours scheduled in the next couple of weeks: September 23, 2008 NEW MEDIA SALON & “Dot Com” NETWORKING PARTY | October 2, 2008 TECH cocktail DC 3.  Like I said, alcoholic IT professionals.

In part, this DC meetup with Laz was also to celebrate ButtonALL’s latest milestone, our first meeting with Venture Capitalists (celebratory post-dinner at my favorite “old-school” Chinese restaurant Tony Chen’s upstairs).  We were chosen as one of ten companies to present at the upcoming Tie-DC Pitch Dinner co-sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council.  This closed private event (no audience) is designed to be an intimate one-on-one session between companies and VC.  We have eight slides, five minutes to make an impression.  Not a lot of time, so we’re thinking about hammering three themes: the demo, our market, monetization, monetization, and monetization.  Stay tuned!