Wednesday, July 13, 2011
By Kim Kohatsu
Last April I wrote about Marketing your Business, and Yourself, through Events. This week is a shining example of how the CallFire team is doing just that. 
Last night, CallFire hosted a networking mixer called Wine++ at a wine bar down the street called Pourtal. The genesis of the Wine++ idea occurred by happenstance; Dinesh, Chathri, and Natalia were having a drink after work at another bar. Pourtal, taking advantage of social media, tweeted at one of them to come down. So they did. Once there, they met the great staff, got to talking, loved the Enomatic wine tasting machines, and thought, techies like us (or winos like us, you pick) would love this. So we started planning. We enlisted Code for America as our charity of choice, so that 15% of tasting proceeds would go to help technologists working in the public sector. We outreached to our friends (at another networking event, no less) at upStartLA, who generously sponsored tasting cards for the first guests to arrive. And then we spread the word and waited to see what would happen. Well, the Wine++ mixer went swimmingly. People from the tech community gathered, ate, drank, and had a great time. We heard people say it was nice to see new faces, try out a new place, and that the networking was valuable. They got to learn more about CallFire, and put faces to names if they were already somewhat familiar with us through Twitter, Facebook, or Namesake. 
But the week isn't over yet. Tomorrow night, we're headed to Caltech in support of Spotlight:LA Tech put on by our friends at TechZulu. New tech startups will demo their products in front of local businesspeople and students. Dinesh is sitting on the judge's panel, and will present the winner two tickets to our upcoming conference, Biz2Beach. Then, on Friday, we're sponsoring Philanthro's Connect 2011, an event at the intersection of technology and non-profits. We'll be showing how CallFire has helped hundreds of non-profits with phone banking, volunteer organization, get-out-the-vote efforts, and fundraising. Attendees will have the opportunity to text to donate to Doctors without Borders, and hear a bit about how CallFire has powered campaigns for MoveOn.org, No on Prop 8, and many more. Events are certainly keeping us busy at CallFire, but it's the best kind of busy. Meeting, connecting, learning, and sharing is a proud part of our company culture, and our calendars are a testament to that.
Last night, CallFire hosted a networking mixer called Wine++ at a wine bar down the street called Pourtal. The genesis of the Wine++ idea occurred by happenstance; Dinesh, Chathri, and Natalia were having a drink after work at another bar. Pourtal, taking advantage of social media, tweeted at one of them to come down. So they did. Once there, they met the great staff, got to talking, loved the Enomatic wine tasting machines, and thought, techies like us (or winos like us, you pick) would love this. So we started planning. We enlisted Code for America as our charity of choice, so that 15% of tasting proceeds would go to help technologists working in the public sector. We outreached to our friends (at another networking event, no less) at upStartLA, who generously sponsored tasting cards for the first guests to arrive. And then we spread the word and waited to see what would happen. Well, the Wine++ mixer went swimmingly. People from the tech community gathered, ate, drank, and had a great time. We heard people say it was nice to see new faces, try out a new place, and that the networking was valuable. They got to learn more about CallFire, and put faces to names if they were already somewhat familiar with us through Twitter, Facebook, or Namesake. But the week isn't over yet. Tomorrow night, we're headed to Caltech in support of Spotlight:LA Tech put on by our friends at TechZulu. New tech startups will demo their products in front of local businesspeople and students. Dinesh is sitting on the judge's panel, and will present the winner two tickets to our upcoming conference, Biz2Beach. Then, on Friday, we're sponsoring Philanthro's Connect 2011, an event at the intersection of technology and non-profits. We'll be showing how CallFire has helped hundreds of non-profits with phone banking, volunteer organization, get-out-the-vote efforts, and fundraising. Attendees will have the opportunity to text to donate to Doctors without Borders, and hear a bit about how CallFire has powered campaigns for MoveOn.org, No on Prop 8, and many more. Events are certainly keeping us busy at CallFire, but it's the best kind of busy. Meeting, connecting, learning, and sharing is a proud part of our company culture, and our calendars are a testament to that.