The comments of this post would be a [...]]]> Hopefully everyone that is going to SXSW has confirmed places to stay, picked panels and parties and broken in those comfortable shoes (can’t over emphasize that enough) and those that are staying here have unfollowed their Austin-bound friends and blocked the hashtag #SXSW for the next week.

The comments of this post would be a great place for any one from Houston to leave your name and twitter handle as well as recommend anything interesting from panels, to food, to non-badge events. I’ll start:

Marc Nathan @marc1919

Google Spreadsheet of almost all parties and events

http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife/?p=1508 15 Can’t Miss Parties and Meetups

Texas Coworking Meetup
Sat, March 13, 6pm – 8pm
Where: 200 E. 6th Street, 3rd Floor

Live Taping of This Week in Startups (TWiST)
Jason Calacanis is interviewing Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos.com
Sat Mar 13 4pm – Sat Mar 13 7pm
Where: Six Lounge 117 W Fourth St Austin, TX 78701

and of course, the Houston@SXSW party on Monday March 15:

Monday, March 15 from 7:00 pm to 2:00 am
Where: Hudson’s 301 W 5TH., Austin TX 78701

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010 Time: 6:00pm – 9:30pm Location: Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline Houston, Texas 77004 RSVP on Facebook

Since that starts at 6, you can then go to the monthly NetSquared meetup – generously sponsored [...]]]> Even if you’re not planning on coming to Austin for SXSW, you should plan on coming to the Houston@SXSW Pre-party at Caroline Collective

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 9:30pm
Location: Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline Houston, Texas 77004
RSVP on Facebook

Since that starts at 6, you can then go to the monthly NetSquared meetup – generously sponsored by Schipul, The Web Marketing Company where I’m giving a talk on why Non-profits need to foster a vibrant Tech Startup Community and vice versa.

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Stag’s Head Pub 2128 Portsmouth St. Houston, TX 77098
RSVP on Meetup

On Wednesday, you can show up to the Social Media Shin-Dig hosted by new marketing firm, The Black Sheep Agency but only if you’re one of the lucky first 100 to RSVP:

Date: Wednesday March 10, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Beaver’s 2310 Decatur Street Houston, TX 77007-7519
RSVP on Pingg

Oh, and that bonus

fourth

event this week: There is an intimate little gathering of 25,000 in Austin starting on Friday that you might not have heard of called South by Southwest. Don’t forget to register for the Houston@SXSW party on Monday night starting at 7pm

Anthony Broussard gave a great interview about his company Quantum Potato to the BusinessMakers radio show. You can hear the entire interview here http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/episodes/shows/2010/january-2010/episode-240/anthony-broussard.html

He talks about how his [...]]]> In light of the article written in the Houston Chronicle by Purva Patel last week: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/6808624.html# some other news has come out about the Houston mobile development scene.

Anthony Broussard gave a great interview about his company Quantum Potato to the BusinessMakers radio show. You can hear the entire interview here http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/episodes/shows/2010/january-2010/episode-240/anthony-broussard.html

He talks about how his very first game called Enlightenment Vision: http://linktoapp.com/enlightenment_vision was approved in four days by the App Store.

There is still time to register to attend the iPhone Dev Camp Houston

What is iPhoneDevCamp Houston?

iPhoneDevCamp Houston is a participant-driven gathering of like-minded individuals – also known as an unconference – with the goal of bringing together current and future iPhone developers and business owners to network, share ideas, and explore opportunities.

Dates:  Jan 30 – 31, 2010
Location:  CoffeeGroundz at 2503 Bagby Street
Registration: http://iphonedevcamphouston.eventbrite.com/?ref=ecount
Web Site:  iPhoneDevCampHouston.com
Facebook Fan Page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/iPhoneDevCamp-Houston/207773391733
Twitter Page:  http://twitter.com/ipdchouston
Twitter Hash Tag:  #ipdchouston

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, and recognized leader of the Wordpress revolution is coming back home to Houston for the holidays. He’s going to be giving the RefreshHouston talk tonight at Poplab’s new Westchase Technology Center. Around this time last year, Matt spoke at HTC to a huge crowd and gave them [...]]]>

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, and recognized leader of the Wordpress revolution is coming back home to Houston for the holidays. He’s going to be giving the RefreshHouston talk tonight at Poplab’s new Westchase Technology Center. Around this time last year, Matt spoke at HTC to a huge crowd and gave them one of the best unscripted, from the heart and powerful talks you could ever get from technology entrepreneur. Expectations are high for this evening, but we’re absolutely certain that they will be exceeded.
Topic: Matt Mullenweg Presentation & Q&A Forum
Who: Matt Mullenweg
What: Matt will be presenting on the state-of-the Web, status of Wordpress and other Automattic endeavors
When: Tuesday, Decemeber 22, 2009 / 6:30pm
Where: Westchase Technology Center
Address: 7850 Parkwood Circle Dr. Ste. B3 (upstairs)

Sorry for the last minute post, but I wanted to get this out there in the hopes that you (the community of Houston startups/techs/entrepreneurs/investors) will be able to provide some input.

I, along with several others, very recently received an invitation to attend a meeting with members of the Houston City Council, to talk about how [...]]]>

Sorry for the last minute post, but I wanted to get this out there in the hopes that you (the community of Houston startups/techs/entrepreneurs/investors) will be able to provide some input.

I, along with several others, very recently received an invitation to attend a meeting with members of the Houston City Council, to talk about how they can best support Innovation amongst Houston’s Startups and Entrepreneurs. Now, I have my own ideas about what the City should be doing to help grow and foster Innovation in Houston (hint: it starts and ends with $$$), but I would really like to get thoughts from the entire community. After all, this discussion is meant to help grow the community (ie. you), therefore shouldn’t the ideas come from you as well?

The meeting is at 8:30 tomorrow morning (Tuesday), so please comment quickly!

Here is the invitation I received, so you can get the full gist of the meeting:

By most counts, Houston is the nation’s leader in innovation. But how do we make Houston itself an innovative city? Council Member Jarvis Johnson and the Houston Innovation Initiative would like to hear your thoughts on how our innovative industries can better our city, and how our city can spur economic growth for our industries. We’d like to hear your ideas on how to implement plans for collaboration, creative financing, education, and other programs.

—————————————————————————————————————

Update:  I wanted to go ahead and list what my ideas so that it could start the discussion.  I will also make sure to mention each and every one of your comments at the meeting, in addition to my own.

Here are my thoughts on what the City of Houston should consider doing to help foster Innovation in Houston

• Look to Replicate what other successful Startup Cities have done:  $$$
  I was pointed to a couple of great articles by Paul Graham (thanks to Brian Armstrong) on what ingredients are necessary to create an innovative city culture that leads to successful startups.
  • How to be silicon valley:  http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
  • Can you buy silicon valley:  http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html
  • Most of my following comments stem from some of the points that Paul makes in his articles/posts.
• Promote a Geographical Area for Innovators and Startups to Concentrate/Congregate:  $
  Companies get started when there are a lot of like minded people in close proximity.  Houston is very spread out and so efforts must be made to define a small Geographic Area within the city for like-minded technology professionals to get together and discuss tech, and hopefully, starting new companies.  I took a stab at this a while back with my concept for the Houston Startup Corridor.
• More Industry Speakers:  $$
  Nothing helps to inspire innovation more than hearing from those who have gone out and achieved success.  Houston needs to bring in additional thought leaders and speakers from outside of Houston to come in and talk about how they became successful and, more specifically, how that success might be replicated in Houston.  This speaker could be mixed in with some other speakers from Houston.
• Establish a Home-Base for Tech Meetups: $$
  Some meet at different restaurants or pubs around town, but I have yet to see a place with the perfect setup.  I have seen one that has come close.  Maybe the City could partner with CoffeeGroundz to absorb some of the cost of leasing the space next door to them, which is perfect for events and has plenty of  coffee, food, and other beverages that can be purchased to help offset the cost.
• Establish a Seed-Fund for Houston Tech Startups:  $$$
  Organizations such as Y-Combinator and TechStars have proven that it does not take a lot of money to fund successful startups (relatively speaking).  The question is more one of focus.  If Houston wants to see more successful tech startups, then it needs to put its money where its mouth is (and I’m not just talking about the City, I’m talking about all organizations/investors with investment capital looking for a good home) and start a seed fund.  Oh, the things we could do with just $500k – $1m.
• Plug in the Colleges: $
  Get students and professors from the Computer Science schools at all of the Houston Universities to come together for a single event such as BarCamp and also help to attract major Tech speakers to come to the events (see above).
• Focus your Vision and then Throw Everything You’ve Got at it: $$$
  Whether its trying be the next iPhone App Startup Leader, the Cloud-Based Computing Startup Leader, or the Web 3.0 Startup Leader (whatever that is), Houston needs to set a focused and audacious goal of becoming the world leader at some new emerging IT/Web/Mobile technology and then throw every resource it has at accomplishing that goal. It is only this kind of focused, all-out, goal setting that will get us ahead of the curve and give us enough time to become established and noteworthy in that area before other cities have a shot at it.
• Leverage what is Cool and Unique about Houston: $$$
  Houston has a lot of things about it that are cool and innovative. I especially love Houston’s art scene. If Austin is known for their Tech and Live Music, then why can’t Houston be known for Tech and Art. Both Tech and Art involve innovation and creativity { just ask any programmer } and I would like to see more events sponsored that combine these things together into a street festival. (Think EOTribe/Information Superhighway/BarCamp Houston + Westheimer Block Party/Art Car Light Parade/ArtCrawl Houston)

Thursday, December 3, 2009 6:00pm – 8:00pm Avant Garden 411 Westheimer Houston, TX 77006 Facebook RSVP here

ChaiONE is a team of seasoned professionals that offer clients reliable and communication-oriented strategic advice and tactical implementation involving technology, design and user experience solutions, specializing in [...]]]> The company welcomes the Houston Digital Community to a happy hour in honor of the growing ChaiONE team:

Thursday, December 3, 2009
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Avant Garden
411 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77006
Facebook RSVP here

ChaiONE is a team of seasoned professionals that offer clients reliable and communication-oriented strategic advice and tactical implementation involving technology, design and user experience solutions, specializing in commercial web and iPhone applications. For more information please email ingrid@chaione.com.

The link to the Facebook event page – http://bit.ly/2o1jrv

Culture Pilot, Caroline Collective, CoLab, AYN Brand, Marc Nathan and ROFLCON proudly present… INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY

…the “THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL” edition – it’s going to be bigger, stronger and more personal!

December 5th, 2009 7:00PM – 11:00PM at Caroline Collective 4820 [...]]]> The latest release information is here, http://insuhi.com/index.php/detail/information_superhighway_seven/

The link to the Facebook event page – http://bit.ly/2o1jrv

Culture Pilot, Caroline Collective, CoLab, AYN Brand, Marc Nathan and ROFLCON proudly present… INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY

…the “THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL” edition – it’s going to be bigger, stronger and more personal!

December 5th, 2009 7:00PM – 11:00PM at Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004

RSVP at the Facebook event page >

This time: Come out and meet more makers and shakers in the Houston community… Learn some DIY Brewing tips from Houston home brewers, take part in live silk screening, learn about upcoming Sustainable Projects, witness live graffiti, participate in live video and interactive demos, and watch for more surprises to come.

As always there will be plenty of refreshments provided by our wonderful sponsors and our local hackerspace will be on the scene.

Guests & Organizations

Start(up) your Thursday morning off on the right foot with this month’s OpenCoffee Club Houston.

OpenCoffee Club is a monthly meet-up that encourages informal discussion and [...]]]> There sure is a lot going on in Houston this week!   Its a great week to be a tech/geek/startup!   Check out this list of exciting things going on:

Start(up) your Thursday morning off on the right foot with this month’s OpenCoffee Club Houston.

OpenCoffee Club is a monthly meet-up that encourages informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors to help grow start-up companies in the Houston area.

Every 3^rd Thursday of the month at 8am
CoffeeGroundz www.thecoffeegroundz.com
2503 Bagby Houston, Texas 77006

From there, you can attend the very first EOTribe.

Billed as “The largest entrepreneurial street festival ever held,”  EO TRIBE 09 (http://www.eotribe09.com/) is being held in honor of Entrepreneur Week all over Mid Town, including in the Houston Technology Center and CoffeeGroundz.

From their website:

Over 100 member companies along with dozens of entrepreneurial partner organizations, two major Universities, various sponsor organizations, thought leaders, aspiring entrepreneurs and even students will join in celebrating the vital role entrepreneurs play in innovation, job creation and economic recovery at this first ever festival of entrepreneurship

That night, you can still attend the Paul Frison Celebrity Roast at Minute Maid Park from 6pm – 9pm. For those of you who don’t know, Paul is synonymous with entrepreneurship in Houston as he is the founding CEO of the Houston Technology Center and CEO of three separate technology-based public companies. Paul is also winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2004. The Fast Tech 50 even has named an award after him for youngest company to make the fastest growth. Individual Tickets