The first IT Martini event of 2009 broke through the Columbus IT Community on a beautiful Thursday evening in April, thanks to YOU and a crowd of over 650 IT Pro attendees at BOMA! A couple of other ‘firsts’ took place as well, including the first IT Martini Hour panel discussion - and rock band Version 100. Focus on charities TECH CORPS Ohio and the King Arts Complex raised over $2000!

The evening kicked off with a panel discussion moderated by none other than Senator Ray Miller, from Ohio’s 15th district. Senator Miller brought ‘diversity’ themed questions to panelists Janis Mitchell, CEO of Precise Resource; RC Wheeless, CEO of InsightETE; Sehul Patel, IT Director at Buckeye Ranch; and Will Burrus, IT Leader and Entrepreneur. It was a thoughtful, engaging discussion that included audience participation! Thanks to Motiondrift Films for capturing it on video.

On BOMA’s main floor, six Columbus-based demos were in full effect: PerformanceWorks Portal, a web-based portfolio & project management platform; Toobla, which converged several live video streams from the event into a single on-screen widget; YourLiveTrainers a live, online, interactive personal fitness training company; TRN360, an online service that assists high school athletes in marketing themselves to colleges; Recess, a simple text message paging system for the iPhone; and dPop, which gives people an ‘ultra-interactive’ experience by connecting them directly to each others devices.

By the end of the evening, YOUR votes were tabulated and PerformanceWorks Portal was elected winner of the 2nd IT Martini Community Choice Award! Congratulations to Dave Weaver and CareWorks Technologies for putting together such a solid product demo.

Please thank our sponsors for IT Martini Hour 4 however you can: Quick Solutions, Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow, MindLeaders, and CBTS. They helped make it a success!

And please take a moment to check out our IT Martini Community Partners: Unicon International, Manpower, PROTEUS OCM, HolmesMobile, Salon Lofts, Tony’s Italian Ristorante, BOMA, Platform Lab, TechColumbus, TechLife Columbus, and Motiondrift Films. A very special thanks to Cardinal Solutions for providing valet parking through Avipark.

It’s been a blast seeing the Columbus IT Community grow since IT Martini was conceived just 12 months ago. Stay tuned for some major announcements about how IT Martini plans to connect IT Pros in other cities and with different events. We’re looking forward to another awesome year growing the Columbus IT Community with YOU.