Lunch 2.0

(In between pegging each other with nerf microdarts.)

Me: Hey Mark!

Mark: What?

Me: You know some people think that we do Lunch 2.0 for a living?

Mark: That’s a scary thought.

Me: Maybe we should do something about that.

Mark: Like host a Lunch 2.0?

Me: I don’t know how to do one, do you?

Mark: Me neither. But I suppose we can just ask Greg and Johann. By the way, you have a couple darts stuck to the back of your sweater.

Me: Thanks.

Hosts: Tagged and NetVibes
Address: 840 Battery 2nd Floor, San Francisco
Date: Friday October 12, 12PM - 2PM
RSVP on upcoming, the comments below, or on Facebook.

There are so many reasons to go to this one:

Mark and I have been around the Bay Area for the last two years eating your lunch, don’t you think it’s about time to eat ours?

TGIF! Another excuse to leave work early.

It’s right before Oktoberfest. Let’s kick it off in style.

Two companies at the same time! Read about Tagged (and our office-buddies Netvibes) in TechCrunch.

I’ve heard a lot of whining that there haven’t been any Lunch 2.0’s in Silicon Valley for a while. If you SV’ers come up to visit us SF’ers for this one, I promise I’ll get off my butt and schedule a bunch of South Bay ones for you.

We’ve just torn down the cubicles to make room for you all.

It’s Mark Jen’s birthday!

(Oh yeah, in case you were wondering what we do for a living: it’s Mark’s job to re-org the office layout so we get line-of-sight to targets coworkers and it’s my job to make sure everyone in the company is armed with appropriate nerf weaponry.)

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Tuesday, October 9- H2.0 ZendCon, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- Widemille, Seattle
• Friday, October 12- YellowBot, Burbank, Los Angeles
• Friday, October 12- THIS EVENT!
• Tuesday, October 16- The Ladders, New York City
• Wednesday, October 17- Lunch 2.0 D.C., Washington, D.C.
• Friday, October 19- TBA, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Friday, November 2 - TBA, Los Angeles
• Friday, November 9 TBA, Kirkland, Seattle
• December TBA, Waterfront, Seattle
• Wednesday, December 12 TBA, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley
• Friday, January 18 TBA, Seattle

Lunch 2.0 Alumnus CNET is hosting an open house on PHP/MySQL scalability this Tuesday. Then I noticed something about free Mexican grub and cupcakes and I thought it deserved mention here.

Hosts: CNET Networks HQ
Address: 235 2nd Street, San Francisco
Date: Tuesday October 2, 6PM-7:30PM
RSVP on talentecology

GameSpot, TV.com, MP3.com and FilmSpot.com will be having a panel discussion on using PHP/MySQL framework to share code between multiple sites that support 49 million unique visitors and over 1 billion page views each month? Attendees will be registered to win a Nintendo Wii!

RSVP link once more.

Host: YellowBot

When: Friday, October 12, 12:05 - 2:00 PM

Where: 150 E. Olive Ave, Suite 212, Burbank, CA 91502

RSVP: Here

Thanks to everyone on this blog, Lunch 2.0 is starting to gain momentum in Los Angeles. If you’re in the LA area, come to our next Lunch 2.0. If you can’t make it, please help us spread the word by inviting others.

If you want to help with Lunch 2.0 in LA, email me: mail[at]awarner.com. Oh, and here are pictures from the previous LA event.

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Tuesday, October 9- H2.0 ZendCon, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- Widemille, Seattle
• Friday, October 12- YellowBot, Burbank, Los Angeles
• Tuesday, October 16- The Ladders, New York City
• Wednesday, October 17- Lunch 2.0 D.C., Washington, D.C.
• Friday, October 19- TBA, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Friday, November 2 - TBA, Los Angeles
• Friday, November 9 TBA, Kirkland, Seattle
• December TBA, Waterfront, Seattle
• Wednesday, December 12 TBA, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley
• Friday, January 18 TBA, Seattle

We’ve been having some great Lunch 2.0’s here in the Bay Area recently. It’s gotten to the point where some have been wondering how we make money. The answer is, we don’t and as the V.C. of Lunch 2.0 (a.k.a. person who plunked down $5 for the domain name), I don’t want you giving any of the other founders any ideas. As far as they’re concerned, they’d consider it a roaring success if they’d just got a free meal out of it, and I’d like to keep it that way. (I’ve studied venture capitalism and as near as I can figure, the key to success is to keep your companies running at a loss until they sell out.)

Sometimes, living in the Valley, you forget that there is a world outside our little bubble. So since we’ve been hearing some rumblings about Lunch 2.0’s spreading organically around the country, we decided to take a look. (I hope in the future they’d stop stealthing these kick-a— events and keep us up-to-date about these things by cross-posting on this blog.)

New York City

First, Brett Petersel of Lunch 2.0 NYC has managed to score the first Lunch 2.0 in the Big Apple at the Ladders on October 16th. Nice complement to our hit in The Wall Street Journal. I’m going to invite everyone I know in NYC and you should too.

D.C.

I also see that Lunch 2.0 is starting up in our nation’s capitol going so far as to schedule an event on Facebook for October 17.

Oh yeah, FamilyOven is going off to that area. After the clever success of their Lunch 2.0 this week, I’m really bummed. Just when I thought the food at L2.0’s was getting better. (Note to self: a little Piazza Pellegrini risotto and a chefs hat can’t absorb the effects of a few ice cold Moretti beers on a hot roof.)

Los Angeles

If it isn’t obvious by now, Nicole Jordan reminds us that Silicon Valley is not the only place with geeks. She describes the Lunch 2.0 Los Angeles debut where over 200 people showed up! They’ve already scheduled their next Lunch 2.0 at Yellowbot.com in Burbank on October 12th.

Boston

Well, there is no Lunch 2.0 yet in Boston, despite hoping it’ll come true. But they have their own version: tastybytes!

Now, I’m not a big fan of their logo (it’s what, the 70’s?), but I’m a big fan of their idea (free lunch in Beantown). Go, tastybytes! Hope to be seeing another event in October!

Hmm…

I see we haven’t gotten better at dating ourselves in the last thirty years. (Thanks Web2.0V2 Logo Creatr.)

Seattle

Well, maybe we have.

Seattle Lunch 2.0 really has their stuff together, right down to a new logo.

All we can manage in SV is sneaking watermelons into places. Ouch!

As if that isn’t enough, he points out they will have their next Lunch 2.0 at Widemile and looking at their Upcoming events schedule, I see they’re booked up until 2008! Double ouch!

I wonder who that special east side host is in November? These guys? Are you sh—ing’ me? Do you know how long Mark and I have been working at an official invite from them…like ever since he got fired. Triple ouch!

That, as they say, is a Lunch 2.0 T.K.O.

Back in the Bay

If you’d like to host a Lunch 2.0 in the Bay Area, just e-mail Mark, me, Dave or Joseph. We’d love to eat your lunch! (I promise in the future, I’ll try to get some L2.0’s scheduled and not look so bad.) Follow us on Twitter. Hmm, twitter. Those guys really needs to host a Lunch 2.0

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Tuesday, October 9- H2.0 ZendCon, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- Widemille, Seattle
• Friday, October 12- YellowBot, Burbank, Los Angeles
• Tuesday, October 16- The Ladders, New York City
• Wednesday, October 17- Lunch 2.0 D.C., Washington, D.C.
• Friday, October 19- TBA, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Friday, November 9 TBA, Kirkland, Seattle
• December TBA, Waterfront, Seattle
• Wednesday, December 12 TBA, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley
• Friday, January 18 TBA, Seattle

Last week, while listening to the radio, I heard that Chili’s Grill & Bar is raising funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. During the month of September, you can contribute by making a donation, for which you’ll receive a Create-A-Pepper coloring sheet. Completed coloring sheets will be proudly displayed in restaurants for the month of September.

St. Jude is a hospital that treats children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. It’s also a place where all patients accepted for treatment are treated without regard to the family’s ability to pay. So, I thought that it would be great if we can help out.

So, I started thinking, maybe we can get a bunch of people to eat at Chili’s and make donations, before September ends? I talked about this idea with Mark Arevalo last week. Mark suggested that we do a Giving 2.0 dinner at Chili’s. So, I set up an event on Upcoming.org for dinner at Chili’s in Mountain View. Join us for dinner, donating, and getting creative.

Back in early stage of Web 2.0, geeks have already trained to be geeks by day eating FREE food at Lunch20, secret agents by night hacking code. Now TV Show Chuck is putting geeks on TV screen.

It is absolutely a fun mission when any geek attempts to customize wiki in CSS and expects no funny business with browser types and versions. Wikis must overcome the challenges of browers and nature of wikis to achieve user-friendly applications. SVWB is hosting an educational discussion panel to evaluate the beauty & beast of Wikis. Please come by and check out these award-winning wikis.

Note: It is little backward for NBC to support free download for window only. How can geeks like us catch geek shows when we leave bulky PC desktops at home/office and carry lightweight Mac or iPhone around. Another tip is get TV writers to consult smart geeks on Web 2.0. I certainly want to see Chuck the geek to use iPhone Facebook App to find his ex-roommate from Stanford, use Yahoo Mobile to search info, use Google map to look up direction, use Spock to look up suspect, use Twitter to send signal for help, use Adobe CS3 Premiere Pro to edit video and upload to YouTube, and at last, hang out with his friends from SVWB at Lunch20. You will have our permission to use SVWB name and logo in your TV series.

Speakers:
Kevin Flaherty
Co-founder and VP of Marketing at Wetpaint (Seattle)
Ryan Lukehart
Director of Sales and Marketing at BrainKeeper (Virginia)
Aaron Fulkerson
Co-founder and V.P. Product Management at Mindtouch (San Diego)
Raju Vegesna
Zoho Evangelist at Zoho
Joshua Wold
Global Pre-Sales Team Manager at Atlassian Software Systems

Nov 10 & 11 Sat & Sun
User Experience BarCamp

Note: SVWB is seeking geeks to join our team as secret agents by night. We’ll download Martial Art program to train you to move like a hacker warrior. Take the red pill and look for us at “The Matrix”

See you in North Beach SF Tomorrow (Wednesday).

Being a small startup, the geniuses behind FamilyOven are having it on the roof deck of their place and getting food and drink sponsors: Piazza Pelligrini, Birra Moretti, and SKYY Vodka, including some special pairings selected by local wine enthusiasts! (Someone remind me to get more of these food startups to host Lunch 2.0s.)

So good… (Become a part of the FamilyOven community.)

See you there!

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Wednesday, September 26- THIS EVENT!, North Beach, San Francisco
• Thursday, September 27- E-NetConsulting, Hamburg, Germany
• Friday, October 5- TBA, FiDi, San Francisco
• Tuesday, October 9- H2.0 ZendCon, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- TBA, Seattle
• Tuesday, October 16- TBA, New York City
• Wednesday, October 17- Lunch 2.0 D.C., Washington, D.C.
• Friday, October 19- TBA, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley

PHP. The language powers sites from Yahoo, to Facebook, to most of the Web 2.0 companies you know and love.

Zend. Makers of the engine that powers PHP.

ZendCon. The largest PHP convention of the year.

Lunch 2.0. An free, open event with “the lunch as a conversation.”

What happens when you mix all that together? You get Happy Hour 2.0 a.k.a. H₂.O!

Hosts: ZendCon
Address: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, 1333 Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA
Date: Tuesday October 9, 6PM-9PM
RSVP: on Upcoming.org (conference attendee’s don’t have to register).

They’re opening the doors to everyone for one night. That means you can check out the Exhibit Hall (i.e. Adobe, Armorize, Filemaker, IBM, Krugle, Microsoft, PayPal, Pricegrabber, RadView, Selling Source, Solution Corner, SugarCRM, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and Zend), hang out in the community lounge, and check out the other Tuesday evening events: Birds of a Feather sessions, Meet The Teams, etc.

Of course, there will be the regular free food, drink, and some giveaways!

So you better show, because I had to pull some serious strings to get them to open their doors and introduce you to all my PHP friends—these peeps are in ur web development language, writing ur warez!

So sign up and have some “H2.0” with us.

(Note, if you are a conference attendee, you don’t have to RSVP, but check out my talk there)

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Wednesday, September 26- FamilyOven, North Beach, San Francisco
• Thursday, September 27- E-NetConsulting, Hamburg, Germany
• Friday, October 5- TBA, FiDi, San Francisco
• Tuesday, October 9- THIS EVENT!, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- TBA, Seattle
• Tuesday, October 16- TBA, New York City
• Wednesday, October 17- Lunch 2.0 D.C., Washington, D.C.
• Friday, October 19- TBA, Redwood City, Silicon Valley
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley

See you in San Mateo tomorrow (Wednesday).

They’re located on the corner of El Camino and 5th avenue in the white Co America Bank building. There’s all sorts of street parking and a big garage on 2nd and El Camino.

In more important news, tomorrow just so happens to be my favorite holiday of the year: International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so tell yer lubber coworkers that ye be fixin’ ta see what crawled out of th’ bunghole at RockYou! and if your cap’n complains, make th’ scurvy dog walk th’ plank: How to talk like a Pirate.

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Wednesday, September 19- RockYou, San Mateo, Silicon Valley.
• Friday, September 21- Adobe, Seattle
• Monday, September 24- Microsoft’s Halo 3 pre-launch party, Mountain View
• Wednesday, September 26- FamilyOven, North Beach, San Francisco
• Friday, September 5- TBA, FiDi, San Francisco
• Tuesday, October 9- ZendCon H₂.O, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- TBA, Seattle
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley

FamilyOven will host a rooftop lunch to bring new start-ups of 2007 together with some more seasoned veterans of the industry.

Attendees include Jonathan Abrams, founder of Friendster and the new start-up Socializr , Greg Tseng, founder and CEO of Tagged, Mark Kramer, Director of Future Inc’s Web division, Mark Jen and yours truly, founders of this blog, and many others, along with an open invitation to any small start-up launching in 2007 and any others interested in the internet, and technology.

Hosts: FamilyOven
Address: Sean Shadamand’s (founder of FamilyOven) roofdeck, 939 Jackson St., San Francisco, CA
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007, 11:30-1:30pm
RSVP: on Socializr

Upcoming Lunch 2.0s:

• Wednesday, September 19- RockYou, San Mateo, Silicon Valley.
• Friday, September 21- Adobe, Seattle
• Monday, September 24- Microsoft’s Halo 3 pre-launch party, Mountain View
• Wednesday, September 26- FamilyOven, North Beach, San Francisco THIS EVENT!
• Friday, September 5- TBA, FiDi, San Francisco
• Tuesday, October 9- ZendCon H₂.O, Burlingame, San Francisco
• Friday, October 12- TBA, Seattle
• Monday, October 22- Oracle, Redwood City, Silicon Valley