Afterthoughts from the geek cocktails at m:cafe

Thanks to the heads up from MIgs as well as an invite from Clair Ching, I was able to attend a geek social at the m:cafe last night. Sponsoring the evening was Exist Software Engineering Chairman Winston Damarillo with friends from the software industry. Aside from meeting great people, I validated my theory on the geek hierarchy. Being among the “geek elite” where most of them were programmers software engineers, I was able to touch base with some of the more prominent names in the software and technology industry.

I was able to strike conversations with Sacha Chua, and we talked about corporate social networking software as well as her advocacy to turn social networking into a productivity tool (we also briefly discussed the value propositions offered by Plaxo versus LinkedIn over a 2006 South African wine). I also met Jonas Lim of Exist, touched base with fellow Southridge alumnus Paco Sandejas who works with Narra, chatted a bit with Jerome, Philip Dodds, chief technology officer of DevZuz, Amadea Unisa of UP Diliman faculty, and Winston himself.

I have to agree with Winston that the concept of geek socials isn’t a very sell-able idea for the general public. Either participants are too busy staring at code or are asleep. And I must admit that this is a stereotype way of looking at it. Rare are the times when meet ups like this can happen in the technology industry, outside the confines of a press conference. Winston is an advocate of such socials as well as other organizations in the Philippines such as Geek Chorus, that want to spell a good name for the term “geek” in the mainstream.