IT Martini Hour 11: Summer IT Pro-mance rocked Cleveland on Thursday, June 24th – making Cleveland’s first, ever, IT Martini Hour a success! Almost 300 IT Pros came out in support of the Cleveland IT Community, including several dozen from Columbus hitching a ride on the Kelley-Price-Line!

PSI Group brought a Panel Discussion, kicking off the event on the 3rd floor of the Velvet Dog. Ken Sesko, VP of PSI Group, moderated the discussion on the value of relationships and their influence on professional development, with top-notch panelists Gregory J. Owen, Vice President of Information Technologies at the Western Reserve Group, George DuFour, CIO at CBIZ, Ann Marie Bergman, Sr. Online User Experience Strategist at Antares Management Solutions, and Sam Nasr, Software Engineer at Nasr Information Systems, LLC. The topics ranged from Anne Marie discussing about her unique position within Antares Management Solutions, to Greg touching on the importance of mentors in his professional career.

DEMOs lined the patio outside, showcasing their features and functions – while competing for YOUR vote. The three DEMOs featured at IT Martini Hour 11 included Ataboy, a lead management tool to help maintain and track leads in your company, Integral Merchants Group, a single-source solution for payment and ATM needs, and iMobileSupport, providing Text, Voice, and Video support to enable a mobile workforce.

At the end of the night, it was time to tally the DEMO votes and raffle off swag prizes. Congratulations to iMobileSupport – for nabbing the most votes and taking home the IT Community Choice Award!

Also by the end of the evening – nearly $1500 was raised for the St. Malachi Center! Prizes raffled off included Cleveland Indians tickets (thanks S&P Solutions), Cleveland Browns tickets (thanks Elite Technologies), a Wii console and Guitar Hero game (thanks Cynergies), and $100 in gift cards (thanks Cisco). A huge thanks goes out to YOU, for your successful efforts raising money for a very worthwhile cause.

And where would we be without our Top Shelf Sponsors? One more gracious THANK YOU to Cynergies, Compellent, and Onix Networking for helping make Cleveland’s first IT Martini Event a success!

Finally – and most importantly – thanks to YOU for taking the initiative to make this IT Community YOURS. We had a blast at this first IT Martini event in Cleveland, and look forward to many more going forward.