We Are Looking For TECH cocktail Interns
May 8, 2008
Do you know someone looking for a summer internship? TECH cocktail is looking for summer interns.
Aside from hosting our popular mixer events and our upcoming conference, both of which are “cocktails of tech people,” we are working on some other community projects and need a hand. Do you have a son, daughter, friend neighbor, relative or sibling in college that needs to get some experience on the ole’ resume? Let us know - they will learn a lot and get to meet some great people all across the country.
Here is a more formal internship job description:
TECH cocktail (http://www.techcocktail.com), a community building startup, seeks highly motivated, outgoing and enthusiastic interns for Spring and Summer 2008 to assist in producing a conference, monthly TECH cocktail mixers in various cities across the US and other community projects. Ideal candidates are excellent problem solvers, self-starters, go-getters and multi-taskers. Candidates should possess strong organizational skills, be tech savvy and have a knack for keeping up on the latest tech happenings. An eye for design could be helpful. Interpersonal, verbal and written skills, as well as the ability to take a joke, are also required.
TECH cocktail is a community building startup that offers a series of mixer events, community projects & conferences open to bloggers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and other business professionals interested in the technology arena. Our mission is to amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it. We’re a fun and laid back team, but we work hard and are looking for someone who can keep up and even challenge us.
Looking to get started asap! We need 1 intern in Chicago and 1 in Washington, D.C./Northern VA - but would work with interns remotely on projects too.
You will work hard but you will have a blast and meet some of the best people from the tech industry. Come work with us!
Candidates must provide a resume and cover letter. Please send an e-mail (cofounders@techcocktail.com) and put “INTERN” in subject line.
TECH cocktail CONFERENCE is Coming - Badge It Up!
May 2, 2008
TECH cocktail CONFERENCE is just a month away and it is shaping up to be a super event, which brings together expert TECH cocktailers from across the country to help other TECH cocktailers learn from their experiences and take a “no nonsense” approach to running a business, leveraging technology and the Web.
The goal of the conference is to assist attendees by bringing them essential business startup tips, advice and knowledge from a super-cast of successful founders, developers and entrepreneurs.
If you have not purchased a ticket to the event at the early bird low price of $225 you should do so now, as supply is limited. If you want to save a little bit on the ticket simply use the discount code: techcocktailers since we are trying to make this event as easy and low cost as we can, while still covering the costs associated with hosting an event of this nature.
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The conference agenda is as follows:
- Building a business anywhere (not just Silicon Valley)
- Leveraging new technologies and social media to help your business
- Getting your business funded
- Discovering your Inner CEO
- Growing a community around a traditional business
Some of our speakers include the following, with speaker bios here:
MIKE DOMEK - TicketsNow / Ticketmaster
DICK COSTOLO - FeedBurner / Google
JASON FRIED -37signals
HARPER REED - skinnyCorp / Threadless.com
GARY VAYNERCHUK - Wine Library TV
GENEVIEVE THIERS - Sittercity
KEITH SCHACHT - 42 Friends
NICK FERA - Parlano / Microsoft
BLAGICA BOTTIGLIERO - CondoPerks & Gals’ Guide
JEN CONSALVO - AOL
MICAH BALDWIN - Lijit
JARED GORALNICK - AwayFind
DAVID ARMANO - Critical Mass
MIKE MACADAAN - AOL
ALEX BARD - Goowy Media / AOL
ROB SCHULTZ - IllinoisVENTURES
BRUCE N. BARRON - Origin Ventures
DALIAH SAPER - Saper Law Offices, LLC
MATT SHOBE - FeedBurner / Google
EVAN BROWN - Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP
SEAN AMMIRATI - mSpoke / ReadWriteWeb
ANT CREED - Intuit
TROY HENIKOFF - Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center
ALLAN COX - Author of Your Inner CEO
JASON REXILIUS - HostedLABS
DANIELLE WILEY - Edelman
MATT MCCALL - DFJ Portage Ventures
BRIAN SOLIS - FutureWorks
BRIAN WILLIAMS - Viget Labs
GEOFF LIVINGSTON - Livingston Communications
FRASER KELTON - AdaptiveBlue
BRAD FELD - Foundry Group
KIRK WOLFE -MK Capital
GARY BARRON - Frost Ruttenberg & Rothblatt, PC
NICK O’NEILL - Social Times
JOHN ZERASKY - FeedBurner / Google
FRANK GRUBER - TECH cocktail / SOMEWHAT FRANK / AOL
ERIC OLSON - TECH cocktail / DFJ Portage Ventures
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Video: TECH cocktail Accepts CityLIGHTS Award (A Somewhat Frank Take)
April 6, 2008
– Re-syndicated from SOMEWHAT FRANK —
The Illinois I.T. Association CityLIGHTS 2008 Awards Gala took place in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, April 3, 2008. The event was held at Union Station which you might recognize from the epic scene from the movie The Untouchables where Kevin Costner saves a baby carriage while also shooting up the Al Capone gangsters on its marble steps. While we did not save any babies, TECH cocktail was nominated for the CityLIGHTS Award for its positive impact in connecting the Illinois technology community. I am please to report, that TECH cocktail took home the hardware. I was deeply humbled by winning the award as it serves as validation that all the long hours and hard work is truly helping to sculpt a better connected local technology community while helping to amplify that same community to the world.
Eric and I were both unprepared for winning the award as we were up against some stiff competition. But we one of our supporters was able to capture the moment on video and I have used for the episode 19 of the video podcast SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. I have included the video below for your viewing pleasure. Thank you to everyone that has supported TECH cocktail over the past two years. We could not have done what we have without your support - thank you. Also we not done with what we have started as we look to continue to work to help the local technology communities and startups. If you have not already you should be sure to sign up for the TECH cocktail CONFERENCE on May 29th in Chicago as it should be a great event to further help anyone in business with taking a "no nonsense" approach. Use the promo code: techcocktailers to save $25 on your ticket. Sign up today.
Check out the photos from the 2008 CityLIGHTS event as well as the video below as TECH cocktail is awarded the 2008 CityLIGHTS Award.
TECH cocktail Boulder 1 Video
March 8, 2008
TECH cocktail Boulder last Thursday was a lot of fun and I got a chance to capture some of it on video for the latest installment of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. Each demoer at TECH cocktail Boudler got a chance to chat with me about their product. You can watch the TECH cocktail Boulder 1 video below.
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TECH cocktail Boulder 1 Wrap-up & Thank You
March 7, 2008
Our first TECH cocktail Boulder event which was put on in partnership with DEMO turned out to be another great event. The spacious Foundry Billiards Club, with its theater-style marquee, helped spread the word about TECH cocktail from the street as we attracted a couple hundred local technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and social media experts to celebrate the local Boulder technology scene.
We could not have held the event without our sponsors which included Lijit and skinnyCorp | threadless.com. We also partnered with DEMO and they helped make the night run smoothly.
We want to congratulate Alan Kaplan from Fast Ideas for winning the DEMO drawing held at the event. Alan won a free pass to DEMOfall 08 coming up this September 7-9 in San Diego. DEMO also wanted us to mention that they have set up a special Tech Cocktail Boulder discount rate for all TECH cocktailers to attend DEMOfall 08 at a substantially reduced rate. Use this link http://www.demo.com/F8TCB to register and save $800 off the regular rate.
Keeping to our mission a number of startups were showcased at the event while a number of others arrived to show their support. Startups that demo’ed at TECH cocktail Boulder 1 included:
Filtrbox - A business grade content monitoring and filtering for professionals and small businesses .
Newsgator - A consumer and enterprise feed reading and collaboration software.
SocialThing! - A digital life manager which enables users to get all of your social updates in one place.
SurveyGizmo - A consumer and enterprise grade survey and form creation tool.
Colorado-based Ronald Lewis, streamed the event live on Justin.TV, the StickerGiant.com, John Fischer, David Cohen from TechStars and folks from Villij and EventVue made appearances. Additionally, thanks to long time TECH cocktailers Evan Brown and Kris Smith for flying in from Chicago to show their support.
Special thanks to Vivika Brasil for taking some super photos that captured the positive vibe from the evening. Vivika is Denver wedding photographer that is worth a look if you are looking for someone to creatively capture your wedding moments.
Be sure to check out the TECH cocktail Boulder 1 photos.
Thank you to everyone that made it out to the event. Eric and I had a super time and we look forward to coming back to Boulder again sometime soon. 
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Upcoming: We are hosting a one day TECH conference May 29th. If you are interested in attending please SIGN UP NOW. The event has a limited amount of tickets available and are going fast. Cheers!
TECH cocktail Boulder Preview
March 6, 2008
We are in Boulder, Colorado ready to host our first TECH cocktail Boulder in partnership with DEMO and wanted to give you a quick preview. Staying true to our mission six local startups will be showing off their stuff to the crowd of over 250 RSVP’ed attendees. The demos will be done expo-style so that attendees can easily chat with the various companies involved in a more intimate setting.
TECH cocktail Boulder demo’ers include:
Filtrbox
Intense Debate
Lijit
Newsgator
SocialThing!
SurveyGizmo
The event would not be possible without the support of our sponsors which include DEMO, Lijit and skinnyCorp / threadless.com. Here are more details on our sponsors.
If you have not signed up for TECH cocktail Boulder - SIGN UP NOW!
TECH cocktail Boulder Sponsors
February 27, 2008
Just wanted to give some props to the companies who have decided to sponsor the first ever TECH cocktail Boulder since they are some very cool companies (and, no, I am not just saying that because they are sponsors or because it happens to be cold in Colorado this time of year).
DEMO: As you have all read the DEMO conference is the presenting sponsor for the Boulder event. I am sure I don’t need to say too much about them since most of you are no doubt very familiar with what they do. For those that aren’t familiar, suffice it to say that they put on the conference to launch startups.
lijit: Local Boulder, CO company lijit has stepped up to the plate to help us out, If you don’t know lijit yet, you will. These guys have one of most useful widgets around. Among other things the lijit widget provides you with top notch search functionality for your site. I use it over on Olson’s Observations and Frank uses on SOMEWHAT FRANK (see search box the right hand side of our pages) and we love it. Want to make your site stickier? Add the lijit widget.
skinnyCorp/Threadless: skinnyCorp, best known for the site Threadless, have been helping out TECH cocktail since the beginning. They are helping out again with the Boulder event and Frank and I couldn’t be happier. Their flagship site Threadless.com is the best t-shirt site around. Artists and designers submit shirt designs to the site, users vote and the winners get some cash and their t-shirt produced and sold on the site. If you are in the market for some great shirts check them out. You won’t be disappointed. They also run some other fun sites like ExtraTasty and IParkLikeAnIdiot.com. Frank and I took a tour of the skinnyCorp office last week and you can watch it here.
Check these guys out and patronize them but don’t just patronize them because they are helping out a community building event do it because their products rock (and they do - no question). See you in a week!
Side note: If you are interested in sponsoring TECH cocktail Boulder please drop us a line at cofounders [at] techcocktail [dot] com
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Check out the TECH cocktail CONFERENCE. We have some great speakers lined up already and the list gets better every day. Snag a ticket now before our early bird pricing ends.
TECH cocktail Gets a Facelift
February 21, 2008
Yes, that’s right folks. We figured announcing our conference today (register now! we have some great speakers already lined up) and putting on TECH cocktail Chicago 7 tonight wasn’t enough. That said, this is the official announcement of our new site design.
This not a simple redesign mind you. We totally revamped the site over the past month. In fact, it no longer looks like a blog. We have a number of pages you can check out like videos, photos, jobs, past demos, etc. which makes for a much better user experience.
The blog updates will continue to come so if you are subscribed you will continue to get new items as if nothing changed. If you are not subscribed please head to our new site and click on the e-mail or feed icon at the top right.
We hope you enjoy the site and we would love to hear any feedback you have so please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Introducing the TECH cocktail CONFERENCE
February 21, 2008
The first TECH cocktail CONFERENCE will unfold on Thursday, May 29, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. After hosting TECH cocktail mixer events for nearly two years, a full day CONFERENCE seemed like the next step.
The conference will entail a full day of TECH events and TECH talks and will run from 9 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. at Loyola University’s Kasbeer Hall (Water Tower Place campus). After the conference the customary and popular TECH cocktail mixer will take place from 6:30 p.m. till 9:00 p.m. at John Barleycorn-Wrigleyville.
A stellar cast of speakers for the event are on tap as we look to facilitate a place for people to learn all the various aspects of starting and running a web business. The usual “no nonsense” approach will be alive at the CONFERENCE along with our signature relaxed atmosphere so attendees will learn a lot while having fun.
If you are interested in attending the conference please REGISTER NOW since space is very limited. We look forward to seeing you at our first conference and we thank you for your support over the last couple of years. Without it TECH cocktail wouldn’t be where it is today.
Current confirmed speakers include:
MIKE DOMEK - TicketsNow / Ticketmaster - From the Northwest suburb of Woodstock, Illinois, Mike Domek founded The VIP Tour Company in 1992 with $100 and an abundance of ambition. Armed with a strong work ethic, keen sales acumen, and a flair for finding and selling event tickets, Mike quickly transformed The VIP Tour Company into a professional, full-service ticketing agency. Mike Domek created TicketsNow, the world’s largest independent online marketplace for premium event tickets, and serves as Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors. In his role, Mike works closely with TicketsNow President and CEO and the company’s executive team in managing the overall business operation, while creating and implementing corporate strategies that yield future growth. Ticketmaster was acquired by IAC’s Ticketmaster in January 2008. More on Mike Domek.
DICK COSTOLO - FeedBurner / Google - Dick is the Co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner, a Chicago-based feed management company which was acquired by Google in June 2007. Previously, he cofounded and was CEO of Spyonit.com. Spyonit was sold to 724 Solutions in September 2000. Prior to Spyonit, Dick cofounded Burning Door Networked Media, a web design and development consulting company. Burning Door was acquired by Digital Knowledge Assets in October 1996. Prior to Burning Door, Dick was at Andersen Consulting for 8 years, where his roles included Senior Manager, Strategy, Application Products Group and Senior Manager, Application Infrastructure, Eagle Advanced Technology Group. More on Dick Costolo.
JASON FRIED -37signals - Founder of Chicago-based 37signals, Jason Fried is an innovative thinker, designer, developer and entreprenuer. His work at 37signals includes creating Basecamp, a hosted project management tool that is extremely popular among its thousands of users, as well as a number of others. Jason often shares his experiences about what works and what doesn’t in web development and how the unconventional methodologies followed by 37signals give it an edge. From the advantages of working as a team with members in different continents to getting the word about your product out effectively, Jason covers it all and preaches “less is less” in design, work and life. Jason has also authored a book called Getting Real, about how to start a successful web-based business. Jason also contributes to the popular Signal vs. Noise blog.
GARY VAYNERCHUK - Wine Library TV - The star of Wine Library TV and the Director of Operations at Wine Library in Springfield, NJ, Gary’s career took a new turn with the advent of Wine Library TV. Broadcast daily between 4 and 6 pm EST, over a five year period from from 1998 to 2003, Wine Library grew from a $4 million dollar business to a $45 million business. With his wealth of knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit, Gary is a wine 2.0 expert who has reinvented the concept of wine tasting for a new generation. In addition to encouraging straightforward wine tasting, Gary educates viewers about the effects of regional factors (soil, sun, wind) on wine flavors, and how to buy wine. Debunking myths (red vs. white, big name brands vs. independent growers, the pitfalls of wine ratings, etc.) is another ongoing theme of the show. Former TECH cocktail demoer and sponsor. More details on Gary.
ADRIAN HOLOVATY - EveryBlock - Adrian Holovaty, founder of EveryBlock, is a journalist and Web developer. He has developed award-winning Web applications for washingtonpost.com, Lawrence.com and LJWorld.com and started EveryBlock after being awarded a two-year grant from the Knight Foundation. His 2005 project chicagocrime.org, developed with co-EveryBlocker Wilson, was one of the original Google Maps “mashups” — and eventually helped influence Google to open its mapping infrastructure for all to use. Adrian co-created Django, a free, open-source development framework that makes it fast and easy for programmers to build Web sites. He co-wrote the Django Book in 2007. More on Adrian Holovaty.
More speakers and an agenda are coming soon! Register now.
TECH cocktail Boulder 1
February 7, 2008
Rockies here we come! It feels great to announce TECH cocktail Boulder 1 today (RSVP here). This event has been in the works for a while. We know a lot of great people and great startups in the Boulder, Colorado area which is why we began to think of Boulder as a logical city to expand to.
TECH cocktail Boulder 1 is another big step forward for TECH cocktail for another reason besides the obvious one of expanding to a new area. TECH cocktail Boulder 1 will be the first event we are putting on in partnership with the DEMO conference. Yes, as in the DEMO that just happened last week near Palm Springs.
Aside from a little help from friends, family and the community, operating TECH cocktail to this point has been for the most part a two man show (Frank and I) in our free time (usually instead of sleeping). With demand rising for new TECH cocktail events around the country and with increased demand for our home event in Chicago, we were at odds as to how we could continue to carry out our TECH cocktail mission.
In comes DEMO. These guys and gals are professional event organizers who will be stepping in to help us with event logistics and sponsorship sales allowing us to further expand.
We are excited about this partnership and about debuting it for the first time in Boulder. The event details are as follows, please RSVP asap as this event may fill up quickly.
Oh, and if you can help us pay the bills via a sponsorship please e-mail me at eric [at] techcocktail [dot] com. The event will provide great exposure for your company and you’ll be able to help the Boulder technology community. What could be better than that?
Side note: Make sure to subscribe to the Boulder only TECH cocktail feed to keep up to date on what we’re doing in Boulder.
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Date: Thursday, March 6 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 9pm
Venue: The Foundry: 1109 Walnut St.; Boulder, CO
Cost: $0 - It’s free!
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Current Press for TECH cocktail Boulder:
ColoradoStartups.com: TECH cocktail Boulder
Learn to Duck: The Story of the Rocky Robot Roosters or the Boulder TECH cocktail
Andrew Hyde: TECH cocktail Boulder or Andrew’s Birthday Bash
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TECH cocktail Chicago 8 Sponsors
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Preferred Services Providers
Preferred Creative Service Provider: Jess3 
Preferred Accounting Services Provider: Frost, Ruttenberg & Rothblatt, P.C. 
Preferred Legal Services Provider:
Hinshaw & Culbertson
Preferred Charity:
Teaming for Technology
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Find or Post A Sweet Gig
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Media & Community Partners
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LinkedIn Group
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Follow on Twitter
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Facebook Group
