Launch Party Vancouver

Oh, what a night. I am still spinning from all the fun and wonderful people I met. There was mingling, music, appies, demos and even some late night dancing for the die hards. Twiistup was in full force, packing a camera man, some hot pink Van Halen tees, and buying Twiistups at the bar for those of us, who were clever enough to answer their questions on camera. It was just a sneak peak of what happens at the SoCal Twiistup Tech parties. Want more? Join us at Twiistup 3 on January 16, 2008.

Shira Lazar, flew back to her mother land from LA, to interview the 5 featured companies and various people in the crowd. Come back and visit us soon, Miss Lazar. Big Thanks to Warwick Patterson of Formula photo for shadowing Shira and capturing the event on video. Footage will be live soon.

The room filled up fast, with about 200 people in attendance over the course of the evening. It was a little cramped for a bit and I will keep that in mind for the next one. But overall, I think it was good times all around. Hop on over to Miss 604, Phillip Jeffrey, Boris Mann or Duane Storey's blogs to see some event photos and read their takes on the night.

Sitemasher was the winner of the Fasken Martineau box seats to the Vancouver Giant's Game! Congrats.

Thanks again to Sun, Peer1, GrowthWorks, Fasken Martineau, Strutta, TechVibes and Layer 7 for supporting this event and helping bring our community together.

We hope to do another LPV in early 2008. If you are on Facebook, join our group to get the details on upcoming events and local announcements or you can always check back here.

DemoCamp04, organized by Boris Mann , Meg Cole and Kris Krug was loads of fun last night.

The event started with the ever popular battledecks, which is a series of random powerpoint slides created by someone other then the presenter. Volunteers are chosen to make sense out of the nonsensical slides and present their business model to the audience. You have to think fast on your feet to make a 7 figure income business out of bananas and chaotic flowcharts but that is exactly what Linda Bustos did. Strutta's, Jordan Behan was up next and he did his part to convince the crowd that we all are responsible for "making it happen," to remember to shop local and keep your cash crop out of the mouth of babes. You really had to be there. In the end, Linda took home the prize.

Getting Down to Demo'in

• James Sherrett from AdHack was the first to demo their DIY advertising product, currently in Alpha. James believes that "people can make damn fine ads" and the new iPhone Touch commercial created by Apple fan, Nick Haley is just one of the many examples of how the adscape is shifting from the traditional agency owned model to more user generated creative.
• 
  

• Tom Kingston from Vancouver Expert Financial Models discussed the importance of creating a financial model first before setting out to raise money and how his company can help entrepreneurs through the process.
• 
  

• NetHooks pitched their free networking site for young, entry-level professionals. Currently in private beta, they plan to make their professional networking site more social by offering personal pages and include more features not found on sites like LinkedIn, such as: additional privacy settings and the ability to share and display samples of one's work.
• 
  

• Amy Walker, publisher of Momentum Planet talked about her magazine for self-propelled people, which encourages bike culture, fashion and an all-around healthier lifestyle. They are always looking for advertisers and donations to help them grow and support their cause.
  

After Party

After the demos, many people wandered over to the Flux Bistro on Water Street in Gastown to enjoy Demo beers, eats and good old fashioned f2f networking, made possible by their sponsors - Peer1 and TechVibes.