OK, that’s a bit of a misnomer since a few of us live here, but Peter Semmelhack (CEO) and Ken Gilmer (head of software) came out to SF this week for our BUG+SF event. From 6-9pm on Thursday we had a big turnout of people interested in seeing hands-on demos of the BUGbase and a few modules. We had a great time, and thanks to everyone who could come (here are some pix on Flickr).
Friday morning Peter, myself and the rest of the Stage Two team, and some of my officemates (and colleagues and friends) from Echo Marketing went to the San Francisco Food Bank to volunteer for a few hours . With each BUG+ event we like to follow it up with spending some time directly giving back to the local community (I missed the one in Boston, but here’s Matt’s excellent writeup). Prior to joining Sling I was doing a lot of regular volunteering, but due to insane traveling those two years I really hadn’t done much since. It felt really good to get involved again, and it’s something we plan to do a lot more regularly. For those of you who need any incentive (beyond the fact that volunteering makes you feel really really good):
ONE in FIVE (aka 1/5, one-fifth, or 20%) of FAMILIES in San Francisco (the city, not the Bay Area) earn under $25,000 per YEAR. That’s 150,000 people. They need our help. Click here to read more and get involved.
Our group of 7 people was paired up with another larger group of 30. In under three hours we boxed and sorted 5 tons of food. The SF Food Bank has less than 60 people on staff, so it’s pretty easy to feel the impact that small groups like ours can have on helping getting things done. You can see more pictures here.
We went back to my office to get some more work done, and my friend Robert Scoble came by for a chat. And for those of you who know Robert, when we told him we had a working BUG to show, out came the video camera cell phone, and he got a bunch of fun, casual footage of Peter and I doing demos.
Overall, great trip at so many levels. Especially playing a little Rock Band before Peter caught his flight back to NYC.
Sounds like a very interesting product that all gadget lovers/builders in geekdom will love! neat stuff.