The new new schmooze continued

by Michelle Chihara

Of course, it wouldn't be dot-com if it didn't inspire a business plan.

CyberBrew is run by a nonprofit trade association, but for-profit ventures are getting in on the schmooze action. One of these is Silicon Spot, a Boston company that Mousumi Shaw is creating as an extension of her company HireEngine.com. She plans to make money through corporate sponsorship of events and with -- ahem -- "multiple revenue streams from advertising, recruiting, partnerships, affiliate programs, and possible funding success fees." Silicon Spot's first event last May was a gathering at the Top Kat Lounge downtown, sponsored by two local companies; the first 100 comers were handed two free drink tickets. Attendance hit about 250, and this was before Silicon Spot even had its Web site up.

"I definitely see room in the Boston market," says Shaw. Pretty, sleek, and twentysomething, she gushes enthusiasm with her every buzzword. "There's a need, definitely. We have some clients here, some candidates for partnerships with universities, so we have a lot of viral marketing, we have some really good networks built in."

Shaw and her counterparts have also instituted a few new upgrades to the casual after-work beer. Silicon Spot, along with others such as Boston start-up party company S-1, uses a nametag system to make the meeting process easier. At Spot events, all attendees are asked to decorate their nametags with little star-shaped stickers: a gold star means you're an investor, a blue one means job seeker, a red one means entrepreneur. It gives the sly chestward glance new meaning.

But if "Red, meet Gold" were the only draw, people wouldn't flock to these events in such numbers. Internet outfits also show up to strut their stuff -- in fact, strutting your stuff has become a full-fledged business strategy for companies that are perpetually hiring and are eager to project a hipper, cooler image than the next shop.

At huge events like CyberBrew, the strutting is particularly evident. "Once a month, the tech companies come out and, in the MTV sense of the word, represent," says iXL's Earnst, who describes his company's culture as a kind of upwardly mobile urban tribe. "I try to get 15 to 20 people to come out to show the company colors. I think that at iXL we changed the way the event was viewed when I started bringing people out in numbers, showing our culture, our people."

And indeed, iXL makes a good showing at CyberBrew, with a posse of coifed, witty twentysomethings buying each other drinks around a table at the edge of the sunken dance floor. "This event is definitely important -- we're trying to grow the market, create a vibe," says marketing coordinator Courtney Eshelby. "The rain is a problem."

Although genuine business needs are fueling these events, people are here, in part, to preen. They complain if the headhunters are too obvious ("We're swimming with the sharks here," one iXL employee says) or the hard sells too hard.

It's like a good singles joint: it's no fun if the need hangs too heavy in the air. People are here to have fun -- "fun" having now achieved buzzword status and become a requisite adjective for any corporate cyberculture worth its salt. A good schmooze hides the poaching and the sales pitches under a pleasant veneer of self-congratulation.

When someone shows up who doesn't quite fit the hipster mold, who's a little too polite and who wears his need a little bit too obviously, he stands out. "I'm still recovering from my last start-up," one man tells me. "That didn't make money. It wasn't profitable."

A "finance guy," this man looks slightly older than most of the twentysomething crowd. He found CyberBrew online, he says, after he moved to Boston recently without knowing anyone. He's carrying a heavy leather briefcase that's hanging open, and when he reaches down to zip it closed, he grins sheepishly -- "Résumés."

He is here alone, and he isn't drinking.

"I had this epiphany at a talk at MIT the other day," he says. "I think I'm just so close to the point where . . . " he trails off. "I just want to work at a start-up and learn everything I possibly can about starting and growing a company."

After we finish talking, he scans the room, takes a deep breath, and moves toward another clump of people.

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next

Michelle Chihara can be reached at mchihara[a]phx.com.