Fun at DCWeek with the Capital’s Web Community

Yesterday we reluctantly (ha) pulled ourselves away from our cubes and spent the whole day at DCWeek, a grassroots event spanning 9 days and attracting DC’s digital market. DC’s sometimes-reputation of being a sleepy place for web innovation was certainly in conflict with the scene, as hundreds of smart techies came together to ask “why not?”.

Hanging out. That's me with the computer (lame).

Our best idea of the day was to check out our colleague’s session on data available from social media… conveniently held at James Hoban’s Irish bar in Dupont, and immediately before World Cup games were on (coincidence, we swear!). Humana was especially impressive with new products to track conversations over time in Twitter (see Diabatron and MyTPSReport.com). THEN we got to what DCWeek is all about – grabbing some drinks and really meeting each other.

Afterward we hitched a ride with 2 of the guys we met (hey, it’s DCWeek! Time to be spontaneous!) to 900 Mass Ave. to see Charlene Li, author of best-selling Groundswell and new book Open Leadership. Chris introduced Charlene while we stole his iPad and realized how much easier it is to carry around than our cutting-edge Dell laptops. Also, it looks a little cooler.

Charlene’s keynote focused on transparency – how “open” should a leader be? Does it make sense for every executive to be tweeting about operations of his/her company? She advocated a plan for communication – and that executives need to understand that a “facebook strategy” is nothing without deeply valuing relationships with people.

Thus far, the event has been well worth the piled-up emails back at the office. We’ll be at other events for the next few days – at least, all events held at bars. Kidding! Come meet us and check back for updates. See you there!