TechCrunch Boston – In Review

  • 1 min read

Michael Arrington introducing the event  More Pictures

Friday night was the first ever TechCrunch Boston event, held at The Estate nightclub. After a long day at work, starting at 5:00am, I finally made it to the event at 7:00pm and was amazed at how many people were there[800]. As soon as I walked in, I noticed that there was an open bar on TechCrunch’s tab, as well as a demo pit for a few startups, such as Moola. Moola is a new startup site, where you challenge your friends to game favorites, such as “rocks, pappers, scissors” and earn money from each win. Each user starts off with 1 penny!

I met a few Harvard students, who were interested in personal branding, but were more concerned about getting drunk and linking up with venture capitalists. Walking down the stairs from level 2, I bumped into Don Dodge of Microsoft, who had helped me with my book a few weeks ago. I also found the usual Boston Social Media Moguls, Scott Monty, Chris Brogan and Jeff Glasson [Perkett PR sponsored the event].

My endless search for Michael Arrington concluded, when I saw him in a corner getting bombarded by a few entrepreneurs, which happened basically all night. When he saw me the first thing he said was “thanks for breaking Mozy to us.” He knew I worked at EMC, who had acquired Mozy and TechCrunch announced the purchase on their blog. I also plugged a lot of my personal branding work and he decided to do a short podcast to remember who I was. He seemed more interested in the after party than anything.

Personal Brand of the Event

The highlight of my evening was my talk with Heather Harde (CEO of TechCrunch), who I feel was the personal brand of the event. This woman was approachable, energetic and ensured the event was a success. David Aronoff, a partner at IDG Ventures was listening in as well. Our conversation started off with Heather and David saying “EMC is clueless when it comes to social media” and “what is personal branding.” By the end of the conversation, they both understood personal branding, and were excited about what EMC was doing in that area. Also, it seemed Heather wanted to hire me and David wanted to invest in me, which I thought was funny. Either way, it was a great conversation and I truly commended them for pulling the event off in Boston.

Picture of Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future (Kaplan Publishing), which combined have been translated into 15 languages.

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

Fold a single dollar bill in half fifty-one times, not fifty, and the stack would be thick enough to pass the Sun — exponential growth breaks intuition long before it breaks arithmetic

Fold a single dollar bill in half fifty-one times, not fifty, and the stack would be thick enough to pass the Sun — exponential growth breaks intuition long before it breaks arithmetic

The Blog Herald
Sleep science says the pilot who nodded off for 28 minutes at cruising altitude wasn’t being careless — he was legally “rested” by every rule on the books, and fell asleep anyway, because duty-time regulations count hours off, not hours actually spent recovering

Sleep science says the pilot who nodded off for 28 minutes at cruising altitude wasn’t being careless — he was legally “rested” by every rule on the books, and fell asleep anyway, because duty-time regulations count hours off, not hours actually spent recovering

The Blog Herald
Fewer than 2 percent of conversations in a lab ended at the moment both people were ready to stop, and neither had much idea when the other wanted to go

Fewer than 2 percent of conversations in a lab ended at the moment both people were ready to stop, and neither had much idea when the other wanted to go

The Vessel
In the original precrastination experiments, people picked up whichever bucket was closer and carried it the rest of the way — even when it meant carrying more total weight for longer — just to stop holding the choice open

In the original precrastination experiments, people picked up whichever bucket was closer and carried it the rest of the way — even when it meant carrying more total weight for longer — just to stop holding the choice open

Global English Editing
Couples kept a nightly diary through a bar exam, and the days the one taking it noticed being comforted tended to be followed by more anxiety, not less

Couples kept a nightly diary through a bar exam, and the days the one taking it noticed being comforted tended to be followed by more anxiety, not less

The Vessel
Cornell researcher Vanessa Bohns has spent years studying why people agree to requests they’d rather decline, and her research consistently finds that people dramatically overestimate the social cost of saying no, which means most of the exhaustion of over-committing gets paid for a consequence that was never really on the table

Cornell researcher Vanessa Bohns has spent years studying why people agree to requests they’d rather decline, and her research consistently finds that people dramatically overestimate the social cost of saying no, which means most of the exhaustion of over-committing gets paid for a consequence that was never really on the table

Global English Editing
Load more
CATEGORIES
Explore