Pam O’Hara and Sean Ransom spoke about BatchBlue to an well-fed and enthusiastic crowd at the May 2007 geek dinner. Attendees got to hear about BatchBlue’s innovative take on contact management systems, and anyone who parted with a business card went home with the BatchBlue roast of coffee beans. I interviewed Pam after the talk, and the video is available on https://florafox.com/au/brisbane-11589.

Big thanks to Pam, Sean, and all the Providence geeks who turned out for yet another great geek dinner!

Photo Credit: Bret A. Ancowitz, M.D. of Garris Photography

Kipp Bradford and I will be helping out with the MAKE challenge, and a few Providence Geeks have already submitted talks, so let’s see if we can get some major Providence Geeks representation going!

RSVP info here

The first Ignite Boston will be on Thursday, May 31, from 6 to 10pm at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. From 6-7pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. Join a MAKE challenge team and participate in building bridges (how much weight can your bridge–made from less than 1K popsicle sticks–support?) After that, you’ll get a special keynote address from author Scott Berkun (The Myths of Innovation; The Art of Project Management) kicking off the Ignite night. Then, onto guest speakers who’ll catch you up on the cool, new, innovative stuff going on in technology today. Don’t blink or you’ll miss their lightning-fast, five-minute presentations. During intermissions, get a cold beer and chat with speakers, sponsors, and O’Reilly’s own editors. Be there Thursday, May 31, for a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, making, collaborating (and drinking!).

Check out the events and activities of the Ignite events on the West Coast.

Presentation Guidelines

Ignite is a user-generated event. If you’re interested in speaking, then
submit a proposal for consideration.

Presentations must:

• 
  
• Be between 5 and 10 minutes
  
• Be on an innovative topic (no sales pitches, please!)
  
• Be viewable on a PC [a MacBook Pro with Powerpoint and Keynote, and PDF] with standard AV equipment
  

For anyone that’s never been to Ignite, you may find it useful to see a talk or two. Here’s a link to a few good examples from the Seattle ignite talks.

Photo Credit: Bret A. Ancowitz, M.D. of Garris Photography

Wednesday, May 23, 2007, 5:30pm – 9pm+
AS220
115 Empire Street, Providence, RI

At next week’s Geek Dinner, find out how a local entrepreneur assembled a team of 4 ex-Amazonians in the “Biggest Little” to launch a new Ruby on Rails customizable contact organizer for micro-businesses (you know, the tech startup, the freelance consultant, the local florist or bakery…).

Pamela O’Hara, President of Barrington-based BatchBlue Software, and Sean Ransom, VP of Technology and former Amazonian, will talk about how the team got together and used their well-honed usability intelligence to create a database for the masses called BatchBook.

Get a sneak peek of the app as they prepare to go to beta. They’ll
be taking questions and answers after the presentation.

Please RSVP in the comments section of this post so that we can give the good folks at AS220 an estimated headcount. And while you’re at it, subscribe to Providence Geeks’ RSS feed (see sidebar) and/or join our very-low-volume email announcement list (for the announcement list, send an email to Jack Templin, jtemplin over at Gmail with your name and affiliation).

As always, for first-timers here are the details on the Geek Dinners:

• 
  
• It’s totally casual. Wear whatever, bring whoever, arrive and vamoose whenever… And don’t worry about eating or not – come famished or full – eating is optional, and frankly, the least of the festivities (that’s not say the food isn’t good—it’s actually great).
• 
  
• Topics of conversation will vary as they will at any gathering of geeks, but many of us will be talking about AJAX, mash-ups, start-ups, new devices, innovative business models, interaction design, social computing, digital art, web services, etc. etc. etc.
• 
  
• Food and beverages are for sale at the adjoining Taqueria Pacifica and bar.
• 
  
• There is WiFi so bring your connected device of choice.
• Update Brian will give a brief report from his visit to last weekend’s Maker Faire.
  

The Steel Yard is holding its annual fundraiser on May 19th, 2007, and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. True, it’s not a digital innovation event, but the Steel Yard has a very geeky streak that I’m convinced will bring some interesting innovations in the personal fabrication space to Providence; for example, the Steel Yard blog was the first place I read about the recent New York Times piece on the future of 3d printing.

Steel Yard’s 3rd annual spring fundraiser!

Saturday May 19th, 2007
7 to 11 pm

@ the Steel Yard…27 Sims Avenue, Providence RI
(party entrance is on the corner of Kinsley Ave+Sims Ave)

enjoy MUSIC by MicahJackson and FOOD from our favorite neighborhood restaurants

bring a memento for the TIME CAPSULE to be opened in 2027

take home our limited edition PRINTS created by Providence artists

join us in honoring an individual’s contribution with the first Steel Yard SPARK AWARD

place your silent auction bid on a youth-built MONSTER BIKE

listed in rapt attention as we announce EXCITING NEWS about our future at 9 pm

dress for 2027

Tickets are $50 ($35 of each ticket is tax-deductible)
Pay by credit card online at www.thesteelyard.org