Where do the fun geek business owners live? (Middle age edition)

October 18, 2009 9:17 AM

You're an entrepreneur who likes technology. You love the internet, you love to talk business, and you hang out with other people who are like you. Maybe your area even has an "official" group of tech business owners of many ages who get together to joke about clients, share advice, and try out new toys. Where do you live?

I'm 48 and own an online business. I love it. I like to talk business with similar people, only there aren't many where I live. The few geek business types are in their 20s, still connected to the local university. Most people in my town are students or employees at the university, and most tech businesses are funded by the university.

I'd like to check out some places where my my social life can include people of many ages who are doing daring and fun things with their own businesses. What's your favorite sociable, entrepreneurial town or city that has a wide range of ages? Somewhere in the US, Australia, Canada...? Expats somewhere?

posted by PatoPata to travel & transportation (17 comments total)

Austin, TX.
posted by dfriedman at 9:20 AM on October 18

There are a few of us in town in Chicago. The thing is, there are three very separate and distinct groups I'm a part of that, no matter how much I try, I can never get them to talk to one another.
posted by sachinag at 9:22 AM on October 18

Austin, TX
San Francisco/Bay Area/Silicon Valley, CA
Boston, Mass.
There are many others, but those are my tops by far.
posted by Xoebe at 9:23 AM on October 18 [1 favorite]

San Francisco Bay area or Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond area.
posted by matildaben at 9:24 AM on October 18

Boston. There is a huge culture of this in Boston.
posted by olinerd at 9:30 AM on October 18 [1 favorite]

Why not start your own organization like Washington Technology Industries Assocation?

I used to work for a successful technology association. It started out 20 years ago with 5 people like you, and it has grown into a major regional association today.

You need a vision, some goals, and a desire to network.

Memail me if you like.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:36 AM on October 18 [1 favorite]

Sunnyvale.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:50 AM on October 18

Boulder, Colorado.
posted by mynameisluka at 9:55 AM on October 18

NYC!
posted by firei at 9:56 AM on October 18

Thanks for the suggestions so far! Keep them coming.

I should have mentioned in the original post that there have been three attempts to start a tech organization here. Two of the organizations are dead. I like to think the second one died because it ignored my ideas. The third group is a handful of young men who are gamers, which isn't something I'm into.

I've thought of starting my own group but I'd have to be in town to give it continuity, and I travel too much for that (gone for months at a time). So I'm looking for a place that I can plug into when I'm there, which could be for just a few months.
posted by PatoPata at 10:03 AM on October 18

Cambridge sounds like a really good fit for you. I work in Kendall Square and there are hundreds (even thousands?) of startups that dot the area. It's pretty much the east coast's internet geek heaven.
posted by pwally at 10:27 AM on October 18 [1 favorite]

Toronto. The DemoCamp "scene" has been pretty huge lately.
posted by GuyZero at 11:11 AM on October 18

New York City. Check out New York Tech Meetup, NextNY, NYC Resistor, Brooklyn Future Meetup to name a few organizations. You can find more on Garysguide.org. If you wanted to, you could probably find an event or meetup group in NY every night of the week.
posted by lsemel at 12:02 PM on October 18 [1 favorite]

Okay, now that I'm posting from a computer instead of my iPhone, I want to elaborate on the Boston/Cambridge thing.

The Mass Technology Leadership Council has Tech Tuesday, among other regular events. I run a robotics engineer monthly meetup called Autonomous Anonymous. Friends of mine are active within Green Drinks (which actually has lots of meetups all over). A coworker belongs to a group called Nerd Fun. Someone runs Mobile Monday, a networking event for people working on mobile apps (this is also more than just Boston-based). With Microsoft and Google research local, not to mention MIT/Sloan, Harvard, and quite a few other engineering and entrepreneurship programs, there's a lot of push to support these events and occasionally have contests to work on for friendly competition. I follow @masshightech and @xconomy on Twitter, and they're very good about live tweeting events in the Internet, mobile app, renewable energy, and other spaces, if you want to see the other kind of stuff that's going on.
posted by olinerd at 1:05 PM on October 18 [1 favorite]

I'm with GuyZero. Toronto.
posted by purephase at 3:44 PM on October 18

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions, and especially for the links to specific groups. You've helped me focus my research and travel plans.
posted by PatoPata at 5:01 PM on October 18

Victoria, BC
posted by KokuRyu at 12:51 PM on October 20