Triangle Tweetup

You know I went to the #TriangleTweetup last week at @Bronto, an Email Service Provider in Durham, NC, with an inflatable brontosaurus as its mascot:

Apart from searching Twitter for TriangleTweetup, you could also follow @triangletweetup for updates. At one point during the event, the hashtag was 'trending' but I don't know how high it got.

There were about 250 people there, mostly programers, web developers and PR folks. Reminds me of the old bloggercons. Will tweetups also evolve over the years to attract more people who are using it and less people who are designing it? A first Science Tweetup a few years after the first Science Blogging Conference? Who knows?

I tried to talk to as many people as physically possible, but 2 hours are not enough to even shake hands with 250 people, so I relaxed and tried to find people I knew from before, either offline or online. Unlike at blogger meetups where I know so many people already, here I knew (in the sense of "met in real life") only about a dozen people from before, including @abelpharmboy, @DPAC (which is Rachel Gragg), @GinnySkal, @eronel, @waynesutton, @dgtlpapercuts, @LisaSullivan, @steveburnett, @jreesnc and @jacksonfox, as far as I can remember through the fogs of memory. But, through them, I also met new people, including among others, @beetweets, @fullsteam (of the Fullsteam Brewery serving beer from an interesting contraption, see below), @damondnollan, @mrender, @marynations, @AshleySue and @lruettimann.

I completely missed the panel (it was techie talk anyway, so not really my reason for being there - I am a user and observer) and used my time more wisely to schmooze and meet people and see who does what and tell them what I do, etc.

Some people blogged about the event afterwards, including my SciBling Abel Pharmboy, Ginny Skalski, Brian McDonald and Caroline Smith (of Bronto).

[@beetweets, @abelpharmboy, @DPAC and @airieldown]

@cnmoody wrote about Three Ways to Make the Next #TriangleTweetup THAT Much Better. To that, I would add: a bigger venue (perhaps DPAC, unless Tweetups are supposed to rotate among the Triangle towns) and the inclusion of Twitter names at registration. I would have so much liked to check people out on Twitter in advance - that way I would have made a special effort to meet some people I discovered only after the event was over due to their post-event tweeting, people I have similar interests with or perhaps potential professional interests. Now I have to wait until the next time. But that is a minor suggestion - the event was great fun. I am looking forward to the next one.