this week was a very busy one for the web industry in the greater Boston and southern New Hampshire area. the last event in the series that i attended was the North Shore Web Geeks meetup in Newburyport, MA.

this meetup is usually very casual, a small-to-medium sized group of people. definitely my kind of gathering; something as big as Web Innovators Group earlier in the week can be intimidating.

one of the organizers, Joshua Porter, gave a presentation on designing for signup: how to get your users over the hurdles of adopting your application. i’m currently enjoying josh’s book about social design so it was really valuable to see some of those concepts explained in more detail, in a format that could include more examples and interaction.

i met a lot of interesting people from the area and am looking forward to the next event!

tonight i attended the July 2008 meeting of WebNOB, a group of web professionals North of Boston.

the guest speaker tonight was Jesse Devitte, Managing Director and Co-founder of Borealis Ventures, and also formerly of Softdesk (acquired by Autodesk). Jesse talked about the changing landscape for venture capital, both in the businesses seeking funding, and the businesses getting funded. he also gave us a lot of background on the ‘exit’ options of startups: becoming a public company (IPO), being acquired by an established company, or remaining private (although rare).

the crowd was quite appreciative of the presentation, and we spent the preceding/remaining time socializing and networking with our peers and colleagues. i snapped a few photos:

continue reading: WebNOB July 2008 meeting

An Event Apart Boston Day 2 - it was rough getting out of bed that early again, but thinking about the lineup of excellent speakers got me motivated to get on the road and down to Boston.

continue reading: An Event Apart Boston 2008 Day 2 + reflections