High Fives to Geekdom-based companies, CallGrader, ZippyKid and SnappTours who swept the Innotech San Antonio Beta Summit placing out as 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners respectively. 

You gotta come see us at the 11th Floor of the Weston Centre, certainly the swankiest building in all the land.  It's an awesome place, with friendly and really smart people.

The Beta summit is a competition for new media, software, securities and related technology companies to showcase the latest technologies to a qualified audience of decision makers.

Critical Mass and Success at Geekdom: The New Normal

While it’s certainly great to see these wins, there are other amazing things taking place here that tell a story in a much greater context.

Thursday night:  a group of high profile investors were here to gain insights from Paul Singh, Partner and Master of the Hustle, of 500 Startups, in advance of next week’s Demo Day for the graduating TechStars Cloud class.   While money was certainly discussed, it turned out to be a lesson in the realities of angel investing in what’s become an environment where the founders are on equal (or even greater) with the investors to be.  Companies that make it into and graduate out of TechStars process raises the bar even more.

Wednesday night: a group of creative filmmakers and digital media producers were in the community room holding a meeting, bringing together what’s traditionally been a disparate group of individuals needing a place that they can now call home.

Tuesday night: I sat in a group meeting of something like 50 developers who were looking for ways to meet and connect with each other. 

I heard multiple stories from people who home-school their children, code from home, and looking for a way to not only get out of the house for a few hours and meet like-minded people. 

There were also rumblings of others in the group who had day jobs at San Antonio companies, looking for way to ditch the 9 to 5 (or longer) routine.

My sense was that they were here to see if their instincts were right that maybe it was time to leave, take the leap to self-employment, or at the very least, consider connecting with other programmers

The kingdom of Geekdom is the best place to grow and monetize your brain.  And it's tons of fun too!  Come join the community and see what blooms.

Yesterday morning, I was having breakfast one of the winners of the Innotech Beta Summit, ZippyKid’s founder, Vid Luther.  

It was a conversation not about technology, but his long term of vision of what ZippyKid could become.  Seeing he, and his co-winners at Innotech today speaks volumes about something very special that’s incubating on the 11^th floor at the Weston Centre in San Antonio.  

With the Geekdom community approaching 250 members (and growing) the real winner here is not one individual company, but the collective energy that is beginning to spawn new intellectual and capital wealth.

See related coverage @ Silicon Hills News and San Antonio Express-News.

I'm now residing #Geekdom the new collaborative workspace in the Weston Centre / San Antonio.  (When I am in Israel, I do the same over at TechLoft in Tel Aviv.)

My new place at Geekdom - Located on the 11th floor of the Weston Center / San Antonio

A few companies have moved in and I'm  thrilled to be neighbors with Suizo Serves' Frederick "Suizo" Mendler and ZippyKid's Vid Luther and Wes Wilson.  

A special thank you to Nick Longo who's the head ringleader and making this place way cool and feeling us very welcomed.

In early January, the first TechStars Cloud group will convene here and start creating some awesome new companies. 

If you are coming to San Antonio and want to meet some really nice and very smart people, come on down.  

I'll buy you lunch on the Riverwalk.

Last night I had the opportunity to take part in watching a series of new company pitches based on a method known as 3DayStartup.  As its name implies, participants spend an intense three days with the end game of trying to start a technology company in three days.

Most of the students were from Trinity University, and mirrors the initiatives that local entrepreneurs and investors Pat Condon and Dirk Elmendorf have taken with the recent creation of a new entrepreneurial program at Trinity University.  Recently, Trinity announced the hiring of Luz Cristal Sanchez Glangchai as Associate Director of the program.

The video here are interviews from four people I spoke to, three of which -  Pat Condon, Matt Reedy, John Engates are local entrepreneurs / investors, and the final interview is with Cam Houser, who is a Director with 3 Day Start Up.  I also have a CinchCast interview with Dirk Elmendorf who elaborates about the Trinity Center for Entrepreneurship.

Special thanks to  Ryan Kelly and Vid Luther, who invited me to the event. Ryan and Vid collaborate on running locally based, Pear Analytics.