Hummingbird604.com » Launch Party Vancouver

Launch Party GROW August 2011

Raul — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 02:04:59 +0000

When I bumped into my friend Mike Vardy (who now is the Canada editor of The Next Web) he asked me “what the hell are you doing here at Launch Party GROW?” Logical question, of course. After all, I’m not in the Vancouver tech community per se. As Lorraine once said it, I am a socialite with tech credibility. Well, you’ll see. I’m someone who is grateful for the support he’s had, and who doesn’t forget his beginnings.

And I owe the Vancouver tech/startup community quite a lot in my development as a blogger. In my beginnings as a blogger, I liveblogged some of Vancouver’s most important tech events: Facebook Developers Garage, Launch Party Vancouver, DemoCamp, BarCamp, Northern Voice, etc. So I felt I owed it to the organizers of Launch Party Vancouver (Maura, Danny, Tina, Sonia and their tireless team of hardworking volunteers) to show up to Launch Party GROW a week and a half or so ago.

I didn’t have enough time to browse all the startups that were being launched, but I’m looking forward to checking them out in the weeks to come. In the mean time, here are some photos of the event.

Launch Party Vancouver 9

Raul — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:45:08 +0000

I had a blast at Launch Party Vancouver 9. These parties keep getting better and better every time! This time, Maura and Danny and Sonia hosted LPV9 at The Roundhouse in Yaletown. A few sample photos of the night.

I think I am getting better at the self-photo with my new camera Thanks to Maura and Sonia and Danny for the invite!

Launch Party 9 is on June 17th #lpv9

Raul — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:45:56 +0000

I have attended pretty much every Launch Party Vancouver, and I’ve written reviews or posted after-the-fact commentary almost on every single one since LPV3. In fact, Launch Party 5 was one day before my birthday (in 2008), so I got to hang out with a number of my friends from the online world and celebrate one day early. Wow, how time flies.

We are now in June of 2010 and the 9th edition of Launch Party Vancouver is upon us. LPV9 will take place on June 17th at the Roundhouse Community + Arts Recreation Centre from 6:00pm till late. What is Launch Party Vancouver, you ask? Well, I’ll share some of the details I read on the Eventbrite invite (early bird tickets end today, Friday, so grab your soon!). Tickets are $20 and include a drink and some appetizers.

Launch Party Vancouver is a lively mixer for the city’s brightest entrepreneurs, tech junkies, and bloggers, who are doing it, have done it or want to make their ideas happen here. The goal of the event is to connect BC’s growing community of Internet and new media leaders with investors and other trailblazers across Canada and abroad

I read that TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington will be at LPV9 and from what I understand, he’ll be a guest judge for the LPV9 Startup Competition. Along the same lines, Bootup Entrepreneurial Society will play host at this same event to the first C100 Launch Party in Vancouver. I look forward to seeing many of you there too!

Launch Party 7 (June 2009)

Raul — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:35:03 +0000

Credit: Bootup Labs

Launch Party is an event that is near and dear to my heart. Danny, Maura, Jordan, Boris, (actually pretty much everyone up at Strutta and Bootup Labs) are good friends of mine and I always look forward to an opportunity to hang out with them all. This particular Launch Party (# 7 in the series) was very interesting as people whom I follow on Twitter and other friends of mine were participating (Colleen with the Wantsa referral engine, Nick with the Protagonize site, Let’s Go For Dinner, etc.) For me, given that my primary activity isn’t really tech, attending Launch Party Vancouver is just a chance to see a wonderful showcase of the bustling activity that our community is engaged in. Ever since I became the organizer of the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup and started hanging out with the social media/PR/tech folks, I have enjoyed the opportunity to get to know about the great work our local tech startups are doing. Kudos to Strutta and Bootup Labs for promoting the local tech talent!

Launch Party Vancouver 5 – Semi-live blog

Raul — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:34:40 +0000

We are already at Launch Party Vancouver 5 (LPV5) and while I sincerely doubt we’ll be able to liveblog, I thought I’d at least start a blog post about it. I know, I’m a keener. But hey, I’m here alright! Looking forward to seeing my friends from Vancouver’s tech/PR/social media community. Being away for a few weeks has meant that I haven’t seen all of you, and can’t wait to see y’all!

Rebecca is here editing a podcast of an interview she just did for RadioZoom – she interviewed “Less than Jake” (a ska/punk band) at The Commodore and it went really well. I am not sure how much battery my laptop has, so if you don’t see any further text from me, it means I ran out of power.

Hashtags are #lpv5 and I am assuming Flickr tags too, lpv5 although I’m going to tag mine too as “Launch Party Vancouver 5″

UPDATE – 4.40pm – Tris Hussey, John Biehler, Marco Batilana, Jordan Behan, Maura Rodgers, Danny Robinson are all here Jonathon Narvey just arrived and opened his MacBook, which is kinda neat. All three of us are now blogging.

UPDATE – 4:50pm – I don’t think my laptop’s battery is going to resist, so I might end up not liveblogging. That’s ok, as I got a few photos. I’m going to see what whether I’m going to have my photo taken and also, take some photos… Everyone, see you soon!

I had a chance to see a few of the booths (the launched entrepreneurs!) – hence the name of Launch Party! Thanks to Maura, Dimitri, Danny of Strutta. This looks like it’s going to be a great evening. I am loving Unwine’d already!

UPDATE – 9:10pm – We are still going strong at LPV5 (see my Flickr photos)

Upcoming environmental events in Vancouver – September 2008

Raul — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:00:12 +0000

Two upcoming events are rather relevant to me and both fall on the same day.

Green Drinks Vancouver happens again on the third wednesday of the month (Sep 17th, 2008) at Steamworks.
The Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfasts series continues, and this time, they will focus on the discussions we’ve been having on bottled water. I am SO definitely there!

About the Community Sustainability Breakfast [Metro Vancouver's website]:

Sustainability Community Breakfasts – Nature’s Health Drink – Always on Tap
Wednesday, 17 September, 2008
from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM
British Columbia Institute of Technology
555 Seymour Street, Vancouver

About Green Drinks Vancouver Sep 2008 [Green Drinks Website]

WHEN the next regular Green Drinks is: Every 3rd Wednesday of the month (except in Dec and July) Our next event is on Sept 17th, 2008
WHERE: Steamworks pub at 375 Water Street on the edge of Gastown near Waterfront Station.
Please be aware that due to changing space availability we cannot guarantee we’ll be in the same room each month – if you can’t find us just ask Steamworks staff which room we are in.
TIME:5:45pm-until?

It’s lucky that both of these events fall on the same day, and that I’ll be back in Vancouver by then! And again, I’ve got a full week booked (Brew 2.0, Green Drinks, Launch Party AND a special day!). Can someone please clone me? Thanks.

Launch Party Vancouver 5 at UnWine’d coming up

Raul — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:00:57 +0000

There is a great thing about NOT being on Facebook and having caring and awesome friends who know this and still take the time to invite me to events through normal email: I always get the invites in the end And therefore, even though I’m not the official organizer (Maura Rodgers, Jordan Behan and Danny Robinson of Strutta are), I feel as though I can invite y’all ( yes Matt, I do say “y’all” … it does sound very Texan, doesn’t it? ) to Launch Party Vancouver 5, which will take place on September 18th at UnWine’d (great timing!).

I’ve been really looking forward to attending an event at UnWine’d. Many of my close friends live in the downtown/Yaletown/West End area and therefore I often walk by on my way to take the 98 B-Line at Davie and Howe. I’ve been so remiss with trying new places that I’ve not had a chance to go there, so when Maura invited me to LPV5 I got really really excited, not only because I get to see my tekkie/social media/PR friends, but also because I get to try a totally new place.

This should be a warm-up week for the following week, when lots of things are happening. Gus did a round-up post for events for September, I did one too, and obviously I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of Vancouver Bloggers Meetup (Sep 25th) and BarCamp (Sep 26th).

If you want to register for Launch Party Vancouver 5 you can do so through Eventbrite here.

Launch Party Vancouver 4 was outstanding!

Raul — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:43:33 +0000

Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging since April of 2006, I only got really serious after Rebecca gently nudged me towards participating in Blogathon 2007. Nevertheless, it has only been since January of 2008 that I have seriously started to socialize and mingle with the social media folks (that’s why some of you think that I’ve just appeared out of nowhere – but no, I’ve been here all along!). As someone said, “better late than never“, so now I am trying to show up to these events. Naturally, I had been waiting for Launch Party Vancouver 4 with baited breath.

I had heard rave reviews about these parties, particularly from our local blogging powerhouse Rebecca Bollwitt [and my Blogging Jedi Master] (Miss604) and knew that many of my friends would show up, so I couldn’t miss it. Besides, it is a rare occasion that I get to see many of my blogosphere folks two or three times in a row in the same week (I hope they don’t get tired of me by the time Saturday comes, as I was planning to organize a brunch this weekend!).

So what IS Launch Party Vancouver 4? Well, how about I let the organizers tell you?

Launch Party Vancouver is a lively mixer for the city’s brightest entrepreneurs, tech junkies, and bloggers, who are doing it, have done it or want to make their ideas happen here. The goal of the event is to connect BC’s growing community of Internet and new media leaders with investors and other trailblazers across Canada and abroad.

Founded by local entrepreneurs, LPV is not your typical networking event. There are no presentations or panels to be found. But what you will discover are the individuals responsible for making Vancouver one of the greatest start-up cities in Canada. Every event features local, early stage new media companies strutting their stuff and sharing their ideas with the community.

I had the pleasure of (FINALLY!) meeting Jordan Behan and Maura Rodgers, both with Strutta. Surprisingly, I don’t think I had a chance to chat with Danny Robinson, but there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future, I’m sure.

Last night was also the opportunity to meet other great gurus from the social media scene, people I had heard about a lot. Of course, my friends and usual suspects were also there, including Rastin, Ash, Gus, Rebecca, John, Duane, Karen, Colleen, Arieanna and Ianiv, Monica, Jonathon, Jenn, Nadia, Lisa, Phillip, David, Tod. I missed some of the folks who I am sure would have made it if they had been able to, including (but not limited to) Beth, Tanya, Trevor, Tyler and Jeremy.

I only briefly attended the StartUp Career Fair, sponsored by TechVibes, although by the looks of it (and the large number of demos being shown throughout LPV4), I would say it was great.

Had the pleasure of (FINALLY!) meeting Boris Mann, one of the pillars in the local tech community, and someone I had heard about so many times, but never got around meeting (which is kind of unusual as I have become more acquainted with the tech folks recently). Boris introduced me to a really neat application – basically, the general public can text a specific phone number and their message appears on a screen. Kind of Twitter for those who do not have a Twitter account. I find this application fascinating, as it would allow civilians (that’s how I call non-bloggers) to reach you (the blogger) or a large audience without having to Twitter. Oh, the possibilities are limitless!

Boris showing the demo.

Side note – Now I do know the reason why many people have just started to get to know me (and kudos to Rebecca and Karen, as it was through conversations with both of them that I have finally figured it out): I missed Northern Voice 2008 (because of too much work on the massive project!). Had I gone to NV ’08, my life would have been so much easier as I would’ve met a gazillion local bloggers/tech people in the same place. Totally my fault, nobody else’s.

Had a really awesome conversation with Rob Lewis from TechVibes and Steve Jagger from Reachd, basically ranging from tech startups to how I plan to meld my sustainability and environmental studies training with social media.

I had also been wanting to see Rochelle Grayson (Twemes), whom I hadn’t seen since the last Vancouver Tweetup. Always a pleasure, of course (and a privilege considering that this week I get to chat with these folks three times in a row!). Here is Rochelle with Darren Barefoot.

As I was leaving Republic, I was lucky enough to meet Kris Krug, another local blogosphere star and one of the best photographers I know. Kris (or kk+ as I’ve often seen him referred to) was really nice and most definitely would like to chat more in the near future with him, as I have loved his work for a long while. I had to leave the party relatively early because I was exhausted. It’s been a really long couple of days, and the week isn’t even over. I didn’t even make it to Green Drinks! Oh well, next time. LPV4 was a great experience, and look forward to the next one!

UPDATE – Rebecca has a fabulous photo recap post… and yours truly is in there with the blogging Jedi master!