Toes Curled With Happiness

I went to a New Tech Seattle Meetup with Dave & L. last night.  It was my second time.  I've enjoyed both times because the focus is on Seattle startups from inception to full maturity.  In fact, there was an interesting presentation by Nordstrom's VP of Personalization, Analytics, and Mobile Apps, Scott Jones.

However, not all moments were good.  There were some uncomfortable moments talking to a senior guy at GoDxxxx about how they build out their data centers.  Dave was standing behind and noticed the guy's tension because, of course, me being me, I started prying and challenging and questioning and being my usual obnoxious self.  I wanted more info that I was going to be given.  Rats.  That said, I signed up for the email thingy even though I was wearing a "white label" name tag which meant I was neither a job seeker, nor recruiting, and got an ORANGE (yes, shouty capitals are required b/c of my excitement) t-shirt.  The interesting thing I did learn was they are very focused on a specific traffic profile / user "type" for their data centers... and that's the kind of thing I want to learn about at these meetups.  And with the companies at New Tech Seattle, I can ask a lot of questions.

That said, this morning's extrovert hangover meant I felt like a fool.  Who the hell do I think I am, thinking I can jump tracks, jump careers, jump all over the "natural progression" of responsible adulthood?  But then, I got a lovely email response from someone I'd met at yet another meetup (Startup and Growth Company Group) whom I'd emailed last evening after New Tech.  I'd emailed him b/c he's trying to launch a small business coaching executives in speech writing and presentations and since there were two tragic presentations out of the five or six at New Tech, I thought he might be interested in the two companies as well as what he might bring to the table at the New Tech meetup.  I have an actual lunch date and might make a new friend.  That is so cool.  I've been collecting business cards and following up with people who interest me, but that's because I'm rabidly friendly.  I am also still experiencing Tech Talk withdrawl.  It ain't pretty, but at least at the hackathons, the coding meetups, and the other tech related get-togethers, I can be with people who speak my language.

It's just that it's so much more simple than mobility.  Google's +50K queries per second which took 1K "computers" to answer a query (I keep hearing, "there's a million computers at Google") and I just kind of shrug.  I'm not even sure I'm interested.  That said, listening to Scott Jones' discuss the work Nordstroms has been doing to capture and classify color and users' color purchasing habits and my toes curl I get so happy.  That company does have some interesting marketing drives.  I wish they'd given him longer to speak.