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Wednesday, 17 August 2005

London Geek Girl Dinner






Last night I went to the first London Girl Geek Dinner at the Texas Embassy (there have apparently been two other geek dinners, but they weren't mainly aimed at girl geeks). Token men were allowed last night, but only if accompanied by a responsible female...

About 40 or 50 people turned up - not just those working in IT but also mere bloggers like me, though I didn't get to talk to any "non-IT industry" bloggers. I met some very interesting and fun people (and it's not just my soft spot for geeks talking!):
  • Nina, the non-Swedish scuba diving SQL consultant
  • "Mystery Bloke with(out) Alison" John, the MBA Marketing Man
  • Teresa, cordon bleu chef turned IT manager and future grey hatter
  • Sherry and crew (sorry we didn't get the chance to chat more before you left)
  • Surprisingly silent about her SAP skills Emma, the table dancing strategist
  • Maria, Emma's pal
  • Last but certainly not least, the lovely Sarah, hostess with the mostest and organiser extraordinaire of the whole event (who even produced sticky name tags with URLs for everyone - well some of us, anyway - to plaster prominently on themselves).
There was an after dinner speech by Hugh, hoster of the wiki page about the dinner (the previous geek dinners I am told featured speeches by Robert Scoble and Seth Godin respectively). There will also be a podcast at some point, courtesy of Lloyd, including interviews of random attendees. But if I were you I'd hit fast forward when it gets to my bit (though hopefully he'll have sensibly cut it) - I was there as a blogger, he didn't want to know about my blog, I didn't want to talk about anything but my blog, so that sure made for an exciting and fun-filled few nanoseconds. As I said, best to just skip that bit...

The £20 included seemingly unlimited wine at the sit down buffet dinner, the food was good (the starters excellent), the staff were friendly (especially the nice barman, mwah!), and the venue was comfortable and spacious (dedicated floor for the event). Couldn't ask for anything more, really.

If you're in London do look out for next month's geek dinner, which I gather will probably be a mixed one, and will feature another speaker, identity TBA. Thanks again to Sarah and Hugh for everything.


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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A room full of English Geek Girls, ummmmmm....drool. I should have been allowed in as a Token Texas Redneck to give the Texas Embassy some real authentic flavor ;-) sadly I wasn't invited. :-(

Sounds like y'all had fun. See, I say y'all. Authentic I tell ya.

ChickyBabe said...

Sounds to me like Improbulus was in her element ;).

Lloyd said...

I'm sorry you felt I wasn't interested in your blog - I am - great pictures of the copyfighters btw.

If I ever interview you again, just talk over the top of me about what interests you - don't let me dominate, I'll natter on for hours!

Improbulus said...

RR, I'd have invited you if you'd actually agree to leave Texas! You want to come next time, and actually decide to make it over here, lemme know and I'll invite you. :)

CB - yep, it was fun. You'd have enjoyed it too I'm sure, if you'd been here.

Lloyd - glad you liked the pics. Well you kept asking about what I did outside my blog, I did think I hinted very heavily I'd rather not talk about that, but OK, you want me to dominate another time, sure I will! :-D

Lloyd said...

Aaah, y'see hinting doesn't work with me, I need to be told clearly and unambiguously to shut up and let you talk about what you want to talk about. Looking forward to our next encounter - sounds like it's going to be fun.