A beautiful afternoon greeted hundreds of IT Pros at IT Martini Hour 12: Head in the Clouds last Thursday at Longworth's.  It was another instant classic - with an all star panel discussing 'The Cloud', seven early stage companies doing DEMOs, and the Bootsy Collins Foundation funking everything up.

Pride Technologies hosted a record turnout for 'The Cloud' panel discussion on the upstairs patio under the sun - in spite of the the event theme.  Moderator Chris Philpott, Managing director at Pride Technologies lead a panel that included Branndon Kelley, CIO at American Municipal Power, Ron Orman, Client Solutions Architect at CA Technologies, Mike Meyer, Senior Solutions Engineer at Peak 10, and Richard Nieves, Senior Consultant at Pride Technologies.

The discussion, which was captured on video, touched on many different aspects of cloud computing - including it's enourmous flexibility and cost savings potential.  Stay tuned for the video release!

Compellent hosted a record number of DEMOs downstairs on the main floor, which engaged the IT Community with some really interesting early stage products.  They included:

• Time Hawk, an application developed by Red Hawk Technologies that tracks the amount of time spent on Basecamp projects

• eConnect PEOPLE, a product line of websites and APP/portals that allowing users to make travel/entertainment decisions at the time of booking

• Brainrack, a place where companies pose a problem and then allow participants to post solution plans

• JobStem.com, an application that makes the interviewing process easier for company hiring managers

• WorkFlex Manager, a workforce administrator enabler that fully automates the intraday staffing process

• Budget Sketch, a tool that's fixing the economy 'one budget at a time'

• EditSpot, a site that makes it easy to create, edit, and maintain an appealing, multi-media website

Congratulations to Time Hawk and Red Hawk Technologies for winning the IT Martini Community Choice Award!  And a special thanks to all of the DEMO presenters at IT Martini Hour 12 - it's great to see such an entrepreneurial force factor in the Cincinnati IT Community.

Bootsy and Patti Collins took over the mic to close out the evening, and award one lucky raffle prize winner a signed a guitar.  Prize donations from CBTS, Peak10, Budget Sketch, eConnect PEOPLE, and WorkFlex Manager made it possible for YOUR IT Community to raise over $1000 for the the Bootsy Collins Foundation!

If you have a moment, please thank Top Shelf Sponsors Pride Technologies, CincyTech, PSI Group, and CA Technologies for making this event happen in YOUR Cincinnati IT Community!  And another thanks to Call and Well Sponsors for playing their part: Pride Technologies, CBTS, Peak10, Budget Sketch, eConnect PEOPLE, and WorkFlex Manager.

We were really impressed by the great turnout, and the endless enthusiasm we saw from YOUR IT Commmunity at IT Martini Hour 12!  Thanks to YOU for being there, and we look forward the next one.