The Capital Cabal is the brainchild of Hank Dearden. Hank has been active in Washington, D.C.’s Internet and New Media scene since 1994, and enjoys producing networking events and professional seminars. The focus is typically, but not always, on Internet commerce and communications technology, how it is being used, and its effect on business, government and society at large.
For his day job, Hank is founder and Director of 3D Technologies Ltd., a sales, marketing and Internet advertising consulting firm in the Washington, DC area. We continue our conversation and in part three of this five-part series Hank talks about how he has and you too can create great events in your area.
Hank on Creating Great Events
Steve: Your group has been one of experimenting and surveying for optimal locations and times to have events. What have you uncovered? Why do you think the results came out the way they did?
Hank: I did a survey earlier this year and asked about format, location and event subject preferences and came up with some interesting answers. For seminars the preference seems to be that luncheons are OK in D.C., Virginia or Maryland, as long as the venue provides parking and/or easy Metro access. To that extent we’ll probably keep having the speaker sessions at the City Clubs in downtown D.C., the Tower Club in Tyson’s, and some quality venue in Bethesda (near the Metro) for the foreseeable future.
As for the networking event, there are multiple sides of that coin. With 2nd Tuesday I’ve been at Gua Rapo in Courthouse area of Arlington for over two years, and will probably stay there for the time being. Picking one reasonably central location (look at a D.C. area map, find Courthouse, QED) and sticking with it has the major benefit that it’s one less variable for busy Washingtonians to have to remember and make adjustments around.
We had reasonable response to the four 4th Tuesday events that we produced in Bethesda, Maryland in 2008, and hope to build upon this going forward into 2009.
Steve: As a follow up question, do you think this applies to just the DC metro area or is something that is prevalent in other metro areas?
Hank: Any Metropolitan area is going to have issues of venue access, as well as life-style issues with which to contend. For a lot of professional parents, a good number of whom are single, coming out on a weekday evening is always going to be difficult – especially if the event is in the city. Some of the city-dwellers just don’t have cars, so the only option for them is an event near reliable public transportation. I think that these are universal issues not peculiar to D.C.
To be continued…
In Part 4, we continue our conversation about how to create great networking events and in Part 5 Hank offers some great advice on being a great networker.
Also, if you missed the previous parts of this interview you can find them here:
Part 1- Hank Dearden on Networking in the DC Metro Area
Part 2- Hank Dearden on Entrepreneurship
Brought to you by Network Solutions®
