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Ann Arbor TECH cocktail 1

Mar 27
Fri 6:00 PM
Location
Live at PJ's

102 S 1st St
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
(734) 752-5740

How to find us
"We have reserved the entire venue for the event"

Estimated attendance
 250  people attended.
4.50 4.5044

Who organized?
a2geeks

For this month's meetup, we're hosting a fun event in partnership with Eric Olson and Frank Gruber from the Chicago-based, but nationally-scoped TECH cocktail. Timed to coincide with Entreprelliance (hosted by UM's M-Powered) and Detroit Startup Weekend, our inaugural TECH cocktail event will be a full house, even in our expanded venue - please RSVP early to join us!

Join us for an evening of fun mingling with other technology enthusiasts, investors, marketers, bloggers and entrepreneurs!

TECH cocktail looks to help the Ann Arbor area and other technology communities like Chicago, Boston, Boulder, Champaign and DC to amplify the technology signal while having fun doing it.

TECH cocktail will offer a handful of startups an opportunity to showoff in an expo-style to the rest of the community.

We'll cover a first round for everyone who's RSVP'd online, and also offer $2 draft / $4 cocktail specials - have a great time! Our platinum sponsor, GLEQ, will also have drink tickets for folks who show up, RSVP'd or not.

Showcase companies:


  • CADCorporation - Customizable 3D virtual worlds
  • GiftZip - Instant gift cards from the web's top retailers
  • Hab.la - Chat with visitors to your website for free
  • HiperLogic - Virtualization and High Performance Computing
  • Myine - Commercial-Free FM Radio, WiFi Internet Radio
  • Peekok - Digital music distribution and sales
  • VeoProject - Online project management

Photos of this Meetup

See all photos

Talk about this Meetup

  • Greg Gage
    Posted Apr 6, 2009 1:58 PM
    Greg Gage
    Great event. We received great feedback and made some important contacts.
  • Linh Song
    Posted Mar 31, 2009 10:45 AM
    Linh Song
    I enjoyed the event and look forward to volunteering again! I hope folks will remember that an event, heck a community, is what you make of it so maybe we can all consider scouting for locations and contributing ice breaker ideas the next time around. The social worker+geek in me would suggest community service projects but I'd happily volunteer homemade artichoke dip for the next gathering.:)
  • Greg Grossmeier
    Posted Mar 28, 2009 4:19 PM
    Greg Grossmeier
    Overall a really great event. Thanks for putting this on.
  • a2geeks
    Posted Mar 27, 2009 10:14 PM
    a2geeks
    Organizer
    Feel free to post photos or tweet with a2tc as a tag! Our sincere apologies for the missing nametags - we exported them via the Meetup API (http://api.meetup.com/rsvps...), which silently truncates at 200 entries!@#$% We'll hack around this next time. Thanks to Roger Rayle and Dros Adamson for audio setup (Roger provided great feedback on our February event), to Linh Song (NEW.org) & Mariah Cherem (Yelp.com) for registration, and to Super Jackie Yang for event coordination!

Who attended?

  • 250 attendees
    • “ I really enjoyed Tech Cocktail. Of particular note was getting the chance to meet GLEQ to find even more entrepreneurship activities here in Michigan. ”
    • “ well organized, great atmosphere. ”
    • “ This month's meetup adopted TECH cocktail's very informal format - no presentations, just demos + drinks. This can be tough on presenters, as they repeat themselves throughout the night. For our next meetup, we'll go back to the traditional New Tech agenda - lightning talk demos and open networking, likely in an even bigger venue on campus (join us for the "Building Entrepreneurial Communities" talk next Wed at Blau Auditorium). ”
    • “ I think next time, we choose a more friendly venue. The space was nice (although a little hot) but the bar itself was understaffed and not very friendly. The A2Geeks table and greeting was the perfect example of friendly. Even with missing name tags, they provided smiles, greetings, and a great welcome. The Live staff though looked pissed to be there and deal with us. I left feeling great towards A2Geeks but negative towards the venue. ”
    • “ Lots of good conversations... need some easy way to capture essence of them for sharing/follow-up. Also, need some munchies to go with the drinks. ”
    • “ Great event. Good networking, good contacts, good company. Would have been nice if it wasn't at the same time as Detroit Startup Weekend started. ”
    • “ Great event! Many Congrats to the planning team. With such a plethora of talent in the room, my only concern is that we haven't engaged this community in other social events. The business and nonprofit sectors at large need to tap this think tank of talent in more meaningful ways. I'm committed to helping in anyway deemed appropriate. Warm regards and again, Great Job! Yodit Mesfin Johnson NEW ”
    • “ The Tech Cocktail was FANTASTIC !!!! ”
    • “ 1. I registered ahead of time, but they didn't have my registration, so I had to have a hand-written name tag. Not a big deal but came off as unorganized. 2. The companies presenting were interesting, but the event didn't really distinguish itself from Arbcamp and some of the other Ann Arbor events. 3. It was cool to get a free drink but I don't think it was really necessary, and getting served out of plastic cups was not that great. I prefer glass. ”
    • “ Thought it was very well done. I liked the format better than the one at google, allowed for more indepth talk with each presenting company. Very cool, do more like this one. ”
    • “ So many interesting ideas flowing in one space...had fun and made some great connections! Thanks for making this happen, Dug! ”
    • “ A great networking opportunity. I will be following up on contacts that I made. There should be more of these cocktail meetings. ”
    • “ If future events could break up the technologies by specialty or what they cater to then that would allow for people to get a layout of the room and move around better. ”
    • “ There were more individuals than people representing businesses. I had my name and the name of my business on my name tag and people thought I was an exhibitor. But I liked the event. ”
    • “ Drink service was slow. The line (was there a line?) just seemed to get longer. For the rush in the beginning, I would have poured a number of sodas and beers ahead of time and had someone just take tickets and cash in an express line. I found the pizza in the back (was there supposed to be food?). But, my diet does not permit it. Maybe some small stuff like cheese and cracker trays would be better. I liked having the setups to visit. I ran out of them very early, but I got a few useful business cards. I met some people I know randomly and there were the usual random conversations. It would have been nice to have an open microphone. I will be looking for resources at some point and I would have liked the opportunity to find them. Also, people might have wished to broadcast their availability, experience and skills. Maybe a theme or question for the evening might bring some order to the chaos. ”
    • “ Very good ... need a bit more/better defined room for the displaying companies, better sound system. Otherwise, great! DJB ”
    • “ It was a larger group than I anticipated but the energy was good. ”
    • “ Overall great event. ”
    • “ This was my first time at a meetup, and I could only stay for half an hour because I had another engagement. I plan to come to another, but I do not feel that I was there long enough to make any reasonable assessment. Thanks for planning it. Thanks for letting me attend. ”
    • “ The location was a bit loud, and there could have been more mixers - preset ways of meeting other people. It was a great turnout though. Some sort of icebreaker questions or some such would have helped a bunch. ”
    • “ The vendors were terrific and got three new contacts. ”