Internet Tech Boston

Cambridge Open Coffee is a weekly event on Wednesday morning, where Boston entrepreneurs gather to talk shop over coffee at Andala’s coffee shop in Central Square. If you think of events like the MITX Technology awards as a yearly spectacle where the best and brightest come together to celebrate their work and party, Open Coffee stands in direct contrast. This a small group of people who gather once a week to discuss their technology-based business, and the specific obstacles they’re looking to overcome. Think – Halls of Justice meets Sloan School meets group therapy. It started in London, and there are Open Coffee sessions all around the world now.

There were 15 smart people in the room, and me. I was glad to simply listen to what they had to say. But, I didn’t travel all the way up to Cambridge from the South Short just to listen. I wanted to take part in the conversation, but knew there probably wasn’t much of anything new that I could teach these guys.

Chris Williams, founder of Vuuch, explains his product at Open Coffee

So, I fell back on the good advice that you can find in books like Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents. I tried my best to help them out in any way I could – with my limited knowledge, but most importantly – helping make new connections for them.

How? Well, I met Nelson de Witt, who’s a Social Entrepreneur who spends time working with small and family-run business in Panama helping them understand how to take advantage of newer technologies like eBay, Twitter, and Facebook. I don’t know much about doing business in other countries, but I do know Dan Shortell, who had been doing that very same thing in Venezeuala. I made the connection over email and hopefully they’ll be able to share some stories and learn something new.

So, check out Open Coffee in Cambridge some Wednesday morning. You’ll be in an intimate setting of only about dozen or so people, but if you’re into startups, they’ll be the right dozen or so people.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.