DISQUS

Steve Fisher · 1 year ago

You hit the nail on the head Jimmy. I was involved with the NVTC for years as a startup and all I got from the networking events were finding tons of lawyers, accountants and insurance guys wanting to sell me their service. I never once found a client through that side of the Washington DC tech community "parallel universe". I will call this "BeltwayVerse". I contributed alot of free time to run the entrepreneur committee but all we saw were little companies trying to suck off the larger government contractors who dominate the NVTC community. Sure you get a few successful startups that are recognized as "hot" after they have been around for 3-4 years and are making tons of money.

I for one am glad that there is another "parallel universe" revealing itself that I thought was lost during the heady days of the dot-com boom. I call this universe "InnoVerse" because this is where the innovation is really happening. It is happening quietly and is growing in speed to where I believe that within 24-36 months it will be established as the go to group of thought leaders that all other companies will be looking to for advice and leadership to help them break the chains of the government contracting cycle and diversify beyond the beltway.

We are in the middle of the vortex and man is it going to be a fun ride....

Justin Thorp · 1 year ago

One thing that I find interesting is that, while the NVTC has a formal organization with membership, the dc tech/social media scene is just this ad hoc group of folks that is able to perform a lot of the same functions and fill a lot of the same needs.

In Washington DC, we have associations coming out of our ears. I wonder what they'll look like 10... 20 years from now.

Peter Corbett · 1 year ago

@justin as you know I USED TO talk about the need for a more formal organization for our "InnoVerse" here in the greater dc area that would help solidify our voice, program events, and manage the communications about our efforts........it was a nice thought, but looking at how this 'scene' has evolved over the past couple years, it's not necessary. We have an un-organization which is very vivacious. There is a place for more formal groups like the NVTC, which i'll be joining, but i don't think we need to create another one.

We have a wide diversity of events, and perhaps have one of the richest tech cultures in the country. Which other cities can say they've hosted all of the above?: StartupWeekend, Facebook Developers Garage, Refresh, a BarCamp (and a 2nd coming soon), WidgetDevCamp, a chapter of Social Media Club, MobileMonday meetups, Lunch 2.0, Internet Advocacy Roundtable, and sooooo many more - oh and those were all within the last year basically. I'd venture to guess that San Fran, Austin, and New York are the only cities that have this kind of diversity in their technoculture.

Viva La DC!