The Wordpress Bible book was released last month, authored by DC local Aaron Brazell, who also runs the popular Technosailor blog. Aaron blogged about the process of writing the book, along with tweets on Twitter as he completed various chapters.

While taking a spontaneous walk near sunset in Great Falls Park, there were several people setting up for some sort of movie. A giant inflatable screen was already set up, and being positioned.

Turns out it was one of a series of previews for an upcoming Oliver Stone documentary on the United State's National Parks. And the walk I was one happened to end just as they were serving free s'mores. Actually, we had to cook the marshmellows ourselves, and then recycle the sticks in the fire.

Having an older mobile phone with a camera that really can't see in the dusk, the photo (in this post) doesn't do justice to the atmosphere of the gathering. It was a nice September night, with most of the bugs gone.

And trying to tweet about this resulted in one lost tweet ("Ken Burns doc preview @ outdoor movie theatre @ Great Falls Park, MD side. Giant inflatable sceen & lantern lamps on path. Also smores!") that my phone said it sent to Twitter, and one tweet that made it. Had I wanted to upload a photo in real time (forget about streaming the small marshmellow fire I caused), it would have had to wait until I was farther uphill. But many people use their phones in the park, so it may be a network coverage issue.

The movie-theatre-in-a-field was a nice treat. The film is worth watching, based on the 45-minute preview. And it also gave the lesson the boy scouts know "Be Prepared" - as I didn't take a better camera, and missed the chance for memorable pics.

You can read more about the documentary here on PBS' website, which also has a social media page for the film, including links to the Twitter & Facebook pages.

Below is a short clip - and below that the 26-minute preview - of the movie:

Extended Preview:

The 5th incarnation of Startup Rockstars last week was on a rainy stormy night with hailstones in the area, but that didn't stop the 70+ people (and the 68 watching the live stream online) from seeing five demos from local entrepreneurs, as hosted by Latham & Watkins LLP in DC.

Photos and video clips will be added to this post shortly.

The list of presenters was:

1. Contribune (www.contribune.org)
2. ThinkTalk Networks (www.thinktalk.com)
3. Legal River (www.legalriver.com)
4. Revamped Media (www.revamp.com)
5. Genius Rocket (www.geniusrocket.com)

Who will be the tech rock stars of tomorrow...? This video below is a commercial from Intel that pokes fun at what one might call geeky rockstars -

The crowd at tonight's TechCocktail DC #4 was filled with DC area's tech scene luminaries, leaders, and others in the tech & social & new media crowd. Speaking with TechCocktail's Frank Gruber (SomewhatFrank.com) at the event, he was very pleased with the crowd & turnout for the event.

An unofficial DC Piazza estimate of over 200 people mingled, networked, and saw demos of the sponsors and supporting companies at the event, which was held in DC at LeftBank (Adams Morgan area).

Quick post about an event next week - the Washington DC Twestival is part of an international event taking place in over 175 cities. As it has grown in the past few weeks from volunteers hosting in dozens of cities, the attention has grown as well in blogs such as Social Times, and event partner Mashable has reported that Live Earth will be a global broadcast partner.

From a few tweets on Twitter, saw that Wordpress.tv has launched. Then found their WordpressTV Twitter page, and there were only 9 followers. So in a personal account, became the 10th follower and caught the moment in a screengrab (below).

The other related accounts are Wordpressdotcom (For hosted Wordpress blogs, approx 1300 followers) and WordPress (for Wordpress.org, approx 18,000 followers).

And, upcoming in Baltimore is the Wordcamp MidAtlantic, May 16, 2009.

A few nights ago there was an event in Rockville featuring two speakers - Frank Warren & Rohit Bhargava. The event - If you build it, Will they come? - was attended by over 75 people interested in hearing about social media & community.

Both speakers gave informative talks on social media, community, and more. Rohit is the author of "Personality Not Included", and also writes the Influential Marketing blog. He provided tips on how he writes blog posts, and what has worked for him in his blogging & social media efforts. Frank's "PostSecret" website and related books showcase people's secrets, as written on postcards, and as revealed at his events (facebook page).

The DC Piazza video episode above contains some scenes from the event, and also an interview conducted there with Frank Warren where he discusses getting over 300,000 postcards, and about his upcoming PostSecret event at Lisner Auditorium (Tickets here, or at the Lisner Box Office).

The videos Frank showed at this week's event almost brought people to tears, with their emotional hit of real stories & real emotions. There also is a PostSecret 2009 event trailer, posted below:

And since Valentine's Day is next month, some of you may want to watch the 2008 PostSecret Valentine video:

Here are some events as sent in emails to meetup group members, and also some articles.

Events:

• Today - Monday - 6pm - Battle of the Start-Ups: The Mobile Peer Award Nomination Contest at The Science Club in DC.
• Jan 13 - Media Future Now (mid-day event)
• Jan 13 - Capital Cabal - networking event
• Wed - Jan 14 - If You Build It, Will They Come? An exploration of social networks, including what’s working now and how to build and nurture a community. This event features Frank Warren of PostSecret.com and author Rohit Bhargava.
  Rohit is also hosting earlier at 3pm the same day, a free PRSA Webinar Don't Be Faceless - Learn 7 Essential Social Media Techniques for PR Success
• Jan 20 - Selling Drupal to the Government
• Jan 21 The Washington Blogger January Meetup
• Jan 22 - Twin Tech III - over 1,000 tech community people will gather to network & see interesting local companies & ideas. Sponsoring is also an option, at various levels.
• Jan 23 - Frank Warren's PostSecret event at Lisner Auditorium (Tickets here, or at the Lisner Box Office). There is also an event facebook page. (see our interview with Frank Warren.
• Jan 27 Capital Cabal - 4th Tuesday gathering in Bethesda.
• Jan 27 - Baltimore Washington Tech Meetup
• Jan 29 Social Rockstar Happy Hour
• Feb 5 - Ignite Baltimore (very cool event format)
• Mar 4-7 - DrupalCon
• May 16 - WordCamp Mid-Atlantic 2009
• Jun 12 - BlogPotomac
• DCTechEvents.com has more events & is constantly updated.

There were several events this month that "sold out" their no-cost tickets in just a few days (Jan 14 Social Media Club and NetSquared DC). This may be the trend for 2009 as the DC tech & social media community is larger & more-connected. Best advice is to RSVP early for events you want to attend.

Locally-blogged:

Here's to hoping your 2009 leads to growth, recovery, and the usual fun & invigorating times that make life enjoyable.

Here's a video by Somewhat Frank's Frank Gruber of 2008 in review.

SOMEWHAT FRANK 2008 In Review from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

It's been a busy month, and there have been several tech events of note already. Last night was the first-in-DC JobMatchbox / SocialMatchbox event, at American University.

Among many presenters was the just-launched AwayFind.com (now available to sign up for free) and Sharememe (see video below).

The second SocialDevCamp East is this weekend, on Nov. 1 in Baltimore. The event's wiki page here has the full scoop on socialdevcampeast. The event is expected to have over 100 participants, in an unconference format focusing on social media & technology.

We've found some videos related to the first event and embedded it below:

From now until Nov. 12, there is an innovation contest going on with $20,000 in cash prizes - Apps For Democracy (open in new window). The interview below was done at BarcampDC2 in October 2008, and in it Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs discusses the contest.

Last Thursday the 2nd "Twin Tech" event was held at Avenue in DC, and it was judged a success by all writeups seen so far. It was well-organized, thanks to the efforts of iStrategyLabs' Peter Corbett and others, filling three levels with hundreds and hundreds of DC tech & media & other types.

What was different from Twin Tech I was that this time there was more room to socialize and talk. The music was an enjoyable mix, but at a volume that didn't really affect the conversation. And with this crowd it is sometimes all about the conversation. Lots of networking, meeting new people and catching up with others.

The scandal of the event? (Oh, you mean the linkbait headline of this post?) Well, wish there was one, because then Twin Tech III would be larger due to the extra attention. Perhaps it's scandalous that an event can be pulled off so successfully in a town often accused of not being able to accomplish much!

Some video taken last week will be posted later, and while the video was a little dark it captures the positive energy of the crowd. It was a fun night.

The best place to find the recap of Twin Tech II is here on iStrategyLabs' writeup.

You can revisit Twin Tech I on the DC Piazza post-event page. On that page we created a widget to display Twitter tweets, and it still works well for Twin Tech II tweets, and probably will for Twin Tech III, which is possibly set for November.

This post is a recap of a post on the DC New Media Technology meetup group for local tech items of the week.

Locally-blogged articles & video:

• SomewhatFrank - lots of videos recently, including local news aggregator Mixx.com video visit and a video on SMS business-card replacement MyDropCard.
• TechnoTheory - From Getting to Done to Getting to Happy (GTD applied to GTH)
• The Letter Two - The Two Faces of Facebook
• TechPost - Nine Tips for Building a Brand Online

Local tech in the news (members of this meetup):

• Mapufacture (local) acquired by Arlington-based FortiusOne - Search Geo-Data With Finder. Sneak Peak At GeoCommons (Map) Maker. (TechCrunch)
• diditz Shows Off Your Life Stories in Style (The Startup Review) - 500 Invites- Mashable

Found the CMS Wire Social Media Minute, which this week talks about Twitter maintaining 99.9% uptime (and hey, three nines is better than nine threes!)

Jonny Goldstein's show, Jonny's Par-tay, streamed its FInale episode on August 27, 2008, hosted by Viget Labs . Jonny had about a dozen guests, including Aaron Brazell (creator of Technosailor.com, who did a little guitar-playing on the show). We've put a little of the par-tay fun in this week's episode.

Also in the clip below is a dual interview of Shana Glickman and Qui Diaz by Jimmy Gardner. Shana, who is The D.C. Concierge, discusses her site facelift done this month, and her upcoming relaunch party on September 11, 2008. Qui discusses Alexandra Rampy's upcoming 1st Changemakers/Changebloggers Meetup event on October 15, during which Alex Steed from NetSquared will listen to how D.C.'s changemakers are making this world a better place, and how they are doing it.

Jimmy blogs on East Coast Blogging, and his company 2Plus11 Technology just launched MyDropBin.

How To Do The Dance Of DC Event Organizing

As an event organizer, and also as attendee, I've seen over the last year a coalescing of calendars for events in the tech & new media community. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

For those not familiar with the scene (which we attempt to have a sort of "Entertainment Tonight" show in our DC Piazza video episodes), it consists of a few thousand people who are actively involved in socializing, sharing, teaching, networking, and otherwise doing activities together.

The scene at the "Twin Tech" event in July 2008

The hot weather in the month of August in DC has not slowed down the pace of local tech events. Last week there were several events, and we've profiled two of them in this week's edition of DC Piazza.

The two events are Social Matchbox (by the folks at Job Matchbox), and 1Piazza folks who created DC Piazza). Over 100 people participated, and the networking was consistent throughout. The free pizzas & drinks helped keep the energy high.

This episode features an overview of the Launchbox Digital 2008 demo day, and a piece on the old-fashioned county fairs are getting a little more social online right now.

Those for whom video isn't viewable, the video is about 3 minutes long, and has the following captions:

We were invited to attend the Launchbox08 portfolio companies' demo day today, and will feature it in an upcoming DC Piazza video episode. Launchbox Digital is a DC-based early stage investment firm, and today's event lived up to their claim to being "a place for cutting-edge ideas and cutting-edge talent.".