Brunch on Sunday was a great time, this was an experiment for me that was an extension of the dinners that I used to do when I lived closer to downtown. Every quarter I would round up a crew from different walks of life for some varied conversation. It started to get a lot more difficult as friends got married, balancing the male/female ratio was a challenge but then having to build a matrix of male/female/single/other got to be a lot of work – sometimes I’d have a group of 4, sometimes 12, not exactly the type of reservation a downtown Boston restaurant is interested in taking.
So when I had heard that Jeremiah was looking for something tech related to do for this long weekend (not long for me though) I posted about brunch and tried to see who I could round up. He’s been doing some interesting writing about the evolution of the web, especially the growth of more organic and conversational sites. These types of knowledgebases will eventually make what we now consider the standard corporate website to be less and less relevant.
I met Les Devanna from EMC for the first time, and Alyssa joined us fresh from The Big Red Podcast’s 50th show. Lisa returned from her Howard Huges-stye exile, and Jenny (of Blogtoberfest) brought the camera bag (although Jeremiah has some serious stealth photography skills, enough for me to consider adding a point and shoot to my bag). C.C. Chapman completed the crowd.
Enough with the link bait – the takeaways: Every Marketeer needs to have social functions as a skill set – here’s some play-by-play. Know the venue – making a reservation at Henrietta’s for noon when they open is a mistake. There’s a mad rush when the doors open. What I remembered as a few pleasant walks around the incredible buffet became the standard cafeteria line shuffle. The back room has bigger tables but less energy than the main room (although we did generate our own conversation, and I did make the right move of limiting to 8 so that everyone could join the conversation easily).
Weather was another issue here, I was dressed for fall weather and ended up sweating like a Yak by the time I got to the museum. My only defense is that New England Weather is impossible to predict.
Seating Plan – this is where I was rusty, I made the mistake of seating a partial group. Always strive for balance here, it wasn’t a big deal with this group because all were extroverts, but this can be a killer if you have guests that are not charming conversationalists.
Aside from those minor points, I had a great time and appreciate everyone coming out! Len has more info, and an upcoming event (that’s full, but you can get on the waiting list).
p.s. – although I’m not taking the 3 day weekend, The M Show is and will be out tomorrow. Check out Marketing Over Coffee (the best marketing podcast) if you haven’t yet. Thanks!
p.p.s. – check out photostreams from brunch and the MIT Museum: Jenny, Jeremiah, Me
Boston Blogtoberfest 2.007