MarcAmos.com

Yesterday, July 8^th, the Build Guild had its inaugural event at the Salem Beer Works in downtown Salem, Massachusetts. The turn-out was amazing—we collected 36 business cards for the raffle—and everybody seemed to have a great time. Many of the conversations I had revolved around the surprise most people felt discovering there were so many local people in the web industry. I made my best effort to greet each person who came, learn where they were from, and how they heard of the Build Guild. I was honored to chat with so many great local women and men who are passionate about the things I’m passionate about. I believe I witnessed at least three separate occasions where one person connected with another person they had previously not known and promised to chat further about a side-project or a new job.

That is the Build Guild’s biggest goal; bring people together and create an opportunity for them to connect with each other.

Angelo and I gave away two prizes part-way through the night; the first prize was a programmable LED name badge and the other, donated by Adobe, was Adobe CS3 Web Premium in an Adobe-branded backpack. Many many thanks to Jan Booy and his wife for making that possible for us.

In hindsight, the Salem Beer Works was a bit tight and, at no fault of theirs directly, their air-conditioning wasn’t quite up to the challenge of the 93 degree weather it had been facing all day. Many of us were feeling the warmth in-doors, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable and in the end nobody fainted or died, so that’s good. I wish I could remember our waiter’s name, because he was amazing. He was kind, polite, thorough, and definitely brought his A-game to our little group. Our next event may be elsewhere, though, due to the quantity of people who came and the limited space the Salem Beer Works can provide. We are considering a couple other locations in Salem that can offer more space for us, and in some cases, private space. Private space will be great if Angelo and I ever structure the Build Guild to have short presentations or anything of that nature. Keep checking the Build Guild website for updated information as time passes.

I want to personally and genuinely thank everybody who came to our first and most important event. Angelo and I were blown away by the crowd and we’re so very grateful that everybody took a few hours of their life and spent them with us.

Here are some related links:

• Angelo’s blog post
• Build Guild dot org
• Build Guild on Twitter
• Build Guild Flickr pool
• Build Guild on Facebook

If you attended the event and want to link to any of your photos or blog entries you’ve written, Angelo and I would love to see them. Please leave a comment with a link below.

Lets do it again in four weeks!