IT Martini Hour 17: Swing with Agility

Theme: Agile Practices
DEMOs: AppNinjas, Blue Campaign Solutions, Duet Health, Social Raves, HotBarSpot, Ripple Mobile, SpeakerSite, Vacation View, Functional Delights, LLC 
Top Shelf Sponsors: Expedient Communications, Central Ohio Agile Alliance, Quick Solutions
Location: Park Street Cantina
Charities: $1,000 for The Buckeye Ranch

Celebrating its 3rd Anniversary, IT Martini went back to its roots to the same location of the first IT Martini event! Nearly 1,000 IT Pros withstood Mother Nature's brief torrent of rain and clouds to make IT Martini Hour 17: Swing with Agility one of our most successful events in Columbus. The rain stopped fairly quickly and the sun came out to make the evening warm and pleasant for everyone at the Park Street Cantina.

Leadership

IT Martini Hour attendees had a variety of interactive activities including the Path to Agility Conference Retrospective, hosted by the Central Ohio Agile Alliance (COHAA).  Quick Solutions also held an executive icebreaker for executive VIPs attending the event.

In a new twist, Expedient hosted a stellar speed networking session. Participants had several rounds to get to know each other and enthusiastic participation made the activity one of the highlights of the evening.

One participant told IT Martini they had the opportunity to meet several people connected with a project they were interested in during the session. It's those kind of opportunities that continue to make IT Martini grow and thrive!

Entrepreneurship

Guests were also treated to nine early stage DEMOs with Hotbarspot - an app that allows you to search for bars in any area - winning the IT Community Choice Award. Other early stage start up DEMOS included: 

1. AppNinjas provides credit card processing solutions for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android devices. You swipe at the store, the gas station and the bank -- now swipe on your mobile device.


2. Blue Campaign Solutions is a website platform for Democratic political campaigns. Products include Calltime Pro which helps campaigns improve fundraising efficiency. Campaign Pulse allows campaigns to track websites and blogs to see what is being said about the campaign.


3. Duet Health provides mobile software that helps connect doctors and patients. The purpose is to increase doctor/patient communication and ultimately strengthen their relationships with one another. 


4. Social Raves makes it easier consumers to find and discover trusted local businesses using their social network, and for small local businesses to get the referrals and recommendations they need to drive traffic and grow revenues.


5. Ripple Mobile creates apps for businesses and consumers including Phone Tag which lets users track their friends’ locations and talk to them in real time. On Time is a fascinating app which helps users plan a busy day by incorporating their schedules with travel times and even traffic patterns.


6. SpeakerSite is the place to find a speaker for your event - any event. What kind of speaker? Input your topic, budget, location and any other relevant keywords to find the appropriate speaker for the message you want to convey.


7. Vacation View has created an Internet marketplace for vacation rentals – ResortGems.com, which enables consumers to easily rent resort vacation properties at the lowest prices in the market – by far! Resort Gems has aggregated thousands of resort properties from individual timeshare owners who offer their properties for rent at dramatic discounts. 


8. Functional Delights, LLC Last July, they released SeizeTheDay, a reminder-based task management app for the iPhone. SeizeTheDay is free with iAds, and offers an upgrade to remove ads. It has seen over a 250,000 downloads from the App Store. The company is launching “Zero”, an elegantly-designed simple task management app with calendar syncing for the iPhone shortly.

Once again congratulations to Hotbarspot for winning the IT Community Choice Award and thank you to all the DEMOs for getting in front of the IT Community and sharing your ideas and innovations.

Philanthropy

The IT Community in Columbus also raised over $1,000 for Central Ohio youth though IT Martini Hour 17 charity partner The Buckeye Ranch. Thanks to CDI IT Solutions, which provided the biggest draw of the evening - an iPad2.

IT Martini would like to thank Top Shelf Sponsors Expedient Communications, COHAA and Quick Solutions for making this event such a success for YOUR IT Community.

Twitter & Facebook Buzz

David Saleme Amazing event!

@quick_solutions: Had a great turn out for the #pathtoagility and #itmartini! Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Executive Icebreaker!

@agileLUNCHBOX: #pathtoagility & #itmartini another great event!!! Thanks to the organizers for putting this together!

@cohaainfo: Hearing reports morning after 2nd annual #pathtoagility & #itmartini 17 = hangover 2. ;-) #cohaa

@darylkulak: @itmartini rocked the @ParkStCantina last night. Sooooooooooo much fun!! #itmartini

@appninjas: @itmartini thanks for having us demo last night. We had a great time!

@eSolutech: @itmartini Had a great time last night. Thanks for hosting!

@ryanomics: @itmartini had a great time last night, thanks for having me :)

@bradjive: Just got home from @itmartini. I love my profession.

@aaron812: Fun times tonight at @itmartini with @kris1010 @ryanomics @CherylHarrison @johnbish and @premierRyanG. Thanks @tonywhelan!

@CherylHarrison: Great to see old friends and make new at @ITMartini - have a great evening everyone!