That Red Hot Chili Peppers song, "Give it Away," says "why everybody wanna keep it like a Kaiser? Give it away, give it away, give it away now." He's sure not talking about business strategy, but it's good advice nonetheless. Consider Breaking New Grounds, my favorite coffee shop lo these many years. I'm sitting here using our free eCoast wi-fi and sipping Kona Extra Fancy coffee. For those of you without a personal barista on staff, Kona hails from the fertile ashen slopes of Hawaii, is as smooth as it is complex, and oh yah, costs you a tidy $29.95 per pound. Now, they almost never brew Kona for individual sale -- it's a once in a blue moon thing, maybe twice a year. I was trying to decide between french roast and house blend when I noticed Kona on today's fresh-brews menu. "Hold the phone! It's a Kona Day!" Here's the genius bit -- they don't charge anything extra for the cup o' Kona. I have my own mug, so they charged me the regular medium price of $1.60. So this Rolls-Royce of coffees instantly becomes available to the common man! Now, I've already told another Kona-crazy friend about this red-letter day, she'll probably tell somebody else, and of course I'll be reminded to buy a pound as a Christmas present (and one for myself!). BNG (as we regulars like to call it) gets a little buzz of people talking, gives a little something back to its customers by offering a special product at regular price, but more importantly, it solidifies its reputation as the place to go for the best coffee in town. That's good marketing. [Slurrrrrp!] And damn good coffee.

Portsmouth Wi-Fi Planning Meeting

We met on Tuesday at City Hall. Here are some random notes/musings from the meeting.

This year's usership numbers are looking exceptionally strong. I'll report on them once we've had a chance to de-dupe and verify the numbers, but we're looking at another year of serious if not exponential growth, which certainly seems to validate our efforts.

We've now got a plan for how and where to install a mesh network with a handful of access points that would cover the key downtown areas. We're looking at phased implementation in that we need to install the "head" of the network first; that's the most difficult and expensive part of the process. Then, like hangman, we can add arms and legs to expand the wi-fi reach around town.

So the technical part is fleshing out nicely. As for the funding and "model," it looks like it'll be a hydrid of a few different ones. It appears there will be private sponsorship opportunities, perhaps as modest as $2500 (or the cost of one color print ad in a magazine, for example). These will fund our initial rollout. Our goal is to get the head in place about the same time that the kiosk hotspot shuts down for the winter. More details of course will be released when this becomes more official.

If Boston is "The Hub," then is Portsmouth a spoke in the wheel? Portsmouth certainly seemed at the center of things over the weekend as two significant cultural events converged on downtown, and I was happy to participate in both of them.

Portsmouth Criterium
Speaking of spokes, wheels were turning fast (exclusive video footage!) (warning - big file!) on Saturday. My troupe and I rode our bikes downtown, partly for some much-needed exercise and partly in homage to Criterium that we were going to attend. The event organizers hit a homerun by instituting a kids race -- they had 45 kids last year and anticipated 120 kids this year, but at the predetermined registration closing time, there was still a long line of hopeful youngsters. They ended up running double heats for all three age groups just to accommodate them all! The helmet fitting/adjustment booth and bicycle saftey check, both staffed by volunteers, was a really nice touch. In fact, my old friend Billy from Exeter Cycles filled my tires as well as my daughter's. Thanks Billy! Our 10-12 year olds loved that they could do the same lap that the pros did.

Anyway, the day was a smashing success from a spectator standpoint. As for the business side, I was pleased to see in this Portsmouth Herald article that only a few downtown shop owners were lamenting the closed streets, lack of parking, and distracted crowds. Some businesses may indeed suffer a one-day hit on Market Square Day and other annual events, but I've always thought this is short-sighted, and this year, it's great to see that they were the exception as more businesses reported more cash in their registers than on an average weekend day.

Indeed, after the women's race, we grabbed grub at Gilly's and Popovers and BagelWorks (different strokes for different spokes?), and between the start of the semi-pro mens and the finish of the pro mens race, we ate and drank at the Coat of Arms. This all on a day when we wouldn't have otherwise been downtown. I recall there was resistance to another event that closed downtown when the Crit idea was first floated a few years back; perhaps the naysaying business-owners spoke too soon?

Telluride by the Sea
Then in the evening, we attended the showing of The US vs John Lennon at The Music Hall. It'll be coming to mainstream theaters, but part of the experience was the crowd at the Music Hall. People were hissing (who hisses anymore?!) at G. Gordon Liddy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Richard Nixon and singing along (pretty well, thanks to good acoustics) to "Give Peace a Chance." You might say it was WILD, man.


The documentary itself, from a film-making perspective, was excellent. But I was blown away by the content, i.e., what it was like in the late 60s and early 70s. My first and overarching reaction was -- with the FBI involved in illegal wiretapping; the administration stubbornly remaining embroilled in an unpopular, pointless, and unwinnable war, and the encumbent president winning re-election despite his questionable character and performance in office -- ummm, what year IS this anyway?! The more things change, the more they stay the same, apparently.

Mr. Softy is Comin' to Town

The E-Coast Insider Reports... As I noted in this space a few months ago, a local software firm has indeed been bought out by a large -- OK, *the* large -- software firm, yes, Microsoft itself. The local entity is/was DesktopStandard, a 30-something person outfit up Islington St. The deal is signed (but not finalized, hence no official announcement yet) and a dozen or so programmer/developer types are already relocated to Redmond. According to my source, the remainder of the company will reform into a smaller firm, selling the one product in their suite that Microsoft didn't buy. I note this as the 2nd time in the past few months that a whale-sized tech company has snapped up a tiny fish from our eCoast -- recall Cisco bought Meetinghouse for $30 million a while back. It's a ringing endorsement for the eCoast as a whole when world-class companies put up the cash for enterprising local firms. Redmond's gain is Portsmouth's loss; congratulations to the founders and the employees of DesktopStandard!

Did anybody else notice that today, on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the covers of the three major news magazines? Time and US News & World Report both had 9/11-themed covers, as you might expect. Newsweek, OTOH, chose to cover the story of today's overworked elementary schoolers "Today's First Grade; Too Much, Too Soon" Did anybody else notice this? Does this strike anybody else as weird? I mean, it's a valid and worthy news story, but what makes them put it on the cover on the 5th anniversary of 9/11? I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in Newsweek's editorial offices at that meeting!

One of the unofficial buzzwords lately has to be Ceres, as in the Greek God of Growing Plants, daughter of Saturn, and wife-slash-sister to Jupiter. At the same time that the biggest asteroid in the belt was to be designated an actual full-fledged planet, our favorite local wine purveyor -- Ceres Street Wine Merchants -- was featured in our local paper. So far as we know, there's no truth to the rumor that Mr. Campbell will hold an Interplanetary Wine Sale, with heavenly deals on out-of-this-world wines. But the old man still takes a decent picture, eh?

This is one of my favorite times of the year -- the Little League World Series is here again! And this year, the whole city... state... in fact all of New England... is buzzing about our own Portsmouth Little Leaguers as they take on the world (literally) in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

I love how these kids wear their emotions on their sleeves and on their faces. I love how the games are free of charge. I love how kids slide down the hill beyond center field on homemade cardboard sleds. Most of all, I love how whole communities rally behind their teams.

"Go Portsmouth!" signs are popping up at businesses all over town. Businesses that support local our Little League team at this point may smack of bandwagon-jumping to some, but I think there's significant marketing value in it. Just putting up a sign demonstrates that your business is not only here but paying attention and involved in the community. Our kids' success is also a positive boon to Portsmouth's branding as a destination; in addition to the countless media mentions it generates, the TV broadcast of the last game (the New England championship win over Connecticut) featured a little "intro to the community" complete with footage and demographics. This is the kind of advertising a tourism-based town just can't buy!

People really get into it these days, especially since ESPN. I remember following and being crushed when Saugus, Mass., was eliminated a few years ago. And I vividly remember my own days as a Little Leaguer. Pint-sized as I was, I was relegated to right field and the bottom of the order, but my Babe Ruth team was excellent, and were it not for a pop fly that went into some tree branches overhanging right field (the ball was lost in the leaves for a moment before it landed a few yards in front of me, resulting in the only run of the game), we might have taken the Cape Cod championship and gone to where these kids are now. But I get depressed as I digress.

Sometimes these kids look like big leaguers with the fielding plays they make and the curveballs they snap off. And others they remind us that they're 12 years old and make like the Bad News Bears. They openly cry when they lose and they absolutely lose their little minds when they win. The joy of the game demonstrated by these kids -- and the devotion of their parents, coaches, and communities -- continues to inspire me year after year, even if my hometown kids aren't in the hunt. But since they are, I have 2 words for you: "GO PORTSMOUTH!"

Update: We won today, 6-1 over Oregon, in the first round! Follow the schedule and the results on ESPN or on the Little League's own web site, which is not half-bad.

People are all a-buzz about the old North Church tonight. The original reports were that during tonight's severe, fast-moving thunderstorm, the steeple had toppled into the street toward Breaking New Grounds; these reports were later ammended when out-of-town media realized that the steeple had already been disassmebled a few weeks ago. In fact, it was only the scaffolding that had fallen. No injuries are reported at this time. Still, it's hard to believe your eyes when you see it... With the scaffolding gone, all you see is a big nothing at the top of the clocktower. Well, that, and a wild scene consisting of police and other flashing-lighted vehicles all over... Streets closed to traffic both foot and wheeled... Spotlights shining... Debris scattered in the streets... Unhappy cars with smashed windshields... And TV trucks. (I saw Channel 7 there when I drove by around 9PM.) I expect we'll see a lot more of this action tomorrow. If it had been the steeple itself, it would've been a story just beneath the Old Man of the Mountain collapsing; this church is nearly as iconic as that old stoneface had been! Many people are upset at the very idea that this downtown landmark could have been in jeopardy at all. Apparently it was just the high winds that caused the damage, rather than the lightning that was hitting all over town, so I guess there's no truth to the rumor that a DeLorean was spotted doing 88MPH down Market Street just seconds before. The question now is: Did the kiosk (and our wi-fi base station) survive the crash?! I'll check it out ASAP tomorrow and report back.

Turns out the Portsmouth Herald picked up the Meetinghouse-Cisco deal on Saturday, a day after I was wondering (see last posting, below) where the local story was. Meanwhile, I have it on unimpeachable information that another small local tech firm (yes, this is serious scoopage here, listen up!) will be bought by a multi-billion-dollar multinational. I can't divulge names but my sources say you'll soon see the official announcement from a shall-we-say well-known software company in the Pacific Northwest. Congratulations in advance to those locals who will benefit directly; the only downside is that several talented techies will reportedly be leaving the eCoast as part of the deal.

Speaking of eCoast news, I was disappointed to hear (on account of the fact that I couldn't make it this year) that the eCruise turned out more of an eDock, as thick fog kept the MV Thomas Laighton at its moorings for most of the evening. Looking at the bright side -- at least it didn't hail.

The buzz-about-town today is about the sudden demise of Jack Quigley's Irish Pub. I guess there's an important lesson in this for all you would-be-restaurantuers: Having both a food license and a liquor license is important. With Molly's going to hell in a handbasket under new ownership and Quigley's now gone, Portsmouth's Irish bar situation has gone from abundant to abysmal.

Interestingly, the local buzz is not about Pease-based Meetinghouse Data getting bought by Cisco for over $43 million. The press release definitely went out -- from Cisco, mind you -- because it's been
picked up in the national technical pubs (that's how I saw it), but the closest local news outlet to cover the story is this brief in the Boston Globe. Maybe the local papers will run it as a larger Sunday piece...

In other news, it's the English major in me converging with the tech-geek in me -- Google is now officially a verb, and I'm very excited about it! I note that the brand managers at Google are "OK with it" -- I'd think they'd be ecstatic. Becoming a generic noun (Coke, Kleenex, etc.) can be a pisser, but to become a verb ("FedEx this"... "Google that")? That's the holy grail of branding!

Been meaning to blog about the new local business rag on the streets these days. The new product is Seacoast Ventures, a tabloid-style local business-focussed paper produced by Seacoast Media Group (i.e., The Portsmouth Herald). Editor Michael McCord really took the ball and ran with it... I have to say, I'm impressed. I've long thought that the local dailies could and should do more telling the stories of the many successful local businesses, and I've been disappointed to see the trend of filling our local paper's column inches with generic AP-generated stories. Ventures is chock-full of locals being featured, quoted, and pictured; it's a veritable who's-who of the local business scene! As I told my Dad the Wine Guy as we were reviewing it in his store, the only important locals not in this publication are him and me! (Snort!) Also, I was pleased to see that my friends at Savvy Software were featured; they've got a great story, they're going gangbusters, and they deserve the recognition. They even got a nice color picture.
So a hearty "Bravo!" to all involved in the Seacoast Ventures, um, venture. I'm looking forward to the next issue already! Check it out: Seacoast Ventures. (Note that it's a .net site. Oh well, can't win 'em all.)

Today at the Redhook Brewery in Portsmouth, over two dozen local and nationally renowned musicians will come together for Seacoast Concert for a Cure to support breast cancer research. Last year's event raised over $21,000 in support of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and two local charities. This year's event will also feature a silent auction and raffle, including a Lyle Lovett autographed guitar on eBay! My friend Marisa is the Web Mistress of the site, and my friends at Dynamic Internet are proud to provide free web hosting for this and other great causes. As always, I encourage businesses to support businesses that support non-profits! (Could I say that in a more convoluted way?) I'd be at the show myself, but it's my precious daughter's 10th birthday today. (Happy Birthday Erin! I'm so proud of you!) Anyway, I hope the show is a big success, i.e., makes lots of money. ;-)

It's a beautiful day in downtown Portsmouth -- 75 and sunny with a nice breeze -- what better way to celebrate the coming of summer than by logging onto our free wi-fi hotspot? Miracle of miracles, it was up and running today (we've had some connectivity issues -- signal is strong, but no circuit behind it). But yep, today I'm clipping along at 410kbps.

In other wi-fi news, last night the recommendation of our EDC subcommittee to expand the wi-fi was accepted by the City Council. Here's the official word as recorded in the official council minutes: "Report Back from Economic Development Commission Re: WiFi Referral – Voted to authorize the City Manager to work with the staff and the Chamber of Commerce to implement the plan and to provide a progress report back to the City Council and Economic Development Commission." So now apparently we'll work with City Manager John Bohenko from here... I'm very excited!

Another Rite of Summer -- woo-hoo! The eCruise is back! I'll be on-board... Will you?

I was surprised to read in the Portsmouth Herald this morning that the core wi-fi group -- Dave Gibson of Bay Ring, Steve Singlar of Single Digits, Erik Crago of Port City Web, and I -- had been named Volunteers of the Year by the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce. So we've got that going for us, which is nice. ;-) Now I know why Ginny Griffith of the Chamber was so insistent that we attend their Annual Awards Dinner! Unfortunately I could not attend due to my persistent Bolivian/Bavarian/Brazilian Flu. (Somebody please put me out of my misery!) BTW, I know Ginny's job description covers a lot of territory, but I believe she's gone way above and beyond on the wi-fi project and even though she's not eligible for recognition from her employer, she deserves a slice of that recognition, too. Thanks for everything Ginny!

Addendum: The Foster's also picked up the story on the Chamber Annual Dinner and ran a great picture (see left) of my wi-fi partners in crime, Dave Gibson of BayRing and Steve Singlar of Single Digits.

Foster's Portsmouth Bureau Chief Michael Goot files this story on our wi-fi project following the EDC presentation to the City Council. (Site registration req'd.) Thanks Michael! The most interesting thing in this story is this bit here: "Commission member Everett Eaton wondered if downtown wi-fi areas would compete with companies that provide residential wi-fi services for a fee, creating a potential conflict with paying and non-paying service. Councilor Tom Ferrini, who is also on the commission, said there is nothing wrong with competition." Here, here Mr. Ferrini!

The wind outside is whipping across the e-Coast as we now enter the "blow-dry" phase of the Floods of '06. Absolutely everybody had at least a couple inches of water in their basements, but so far as I know, most eCoast tech businesses survived the week-long washout. From a PR perspective, I believe the local and regional news media became preoccupied with the floods, and rightly so; however, as with any crisis, we all long for a return to normalcy.

With that in mind, here are a few of the local stories I'm still following, albeit with aquatic puns thrown in.

Savvy Software continues its powerful surge. They've got new clients seemingly every day, plus a newly redesigned web site, which looks fabulous, a new iteration of the Savvy CM (3.0), which includes a very cool image manipulator, and even a new blog, authored by ColdFusion Guru Josh Cyr. Perhaps most interesting, however, is how their web content management solution was put to good use by the Town of Exeter during the floods. One of the towns hardest hit by the flooding, Exeter town officials used the Savvy CM to post immediate news about which streets were washed out, updates on the town water supply situation, school closings, and other flood-related news. It's always great to see technology being put to good use and helping people, rather than just being technology for technology's sake. And given the media's misreporting of the "breached" dam in Milton, it speaks to the value of getting your information directly from the source, doesn't it?!

Also making waves are our old friends at Hatchling Studios, who have spoofed the DaVinci Code with "The Rockwell Code." Producer Marc Dole is quoted saying, "We researched real things about Rockwell's paintings that mean nothing and then slanted them." It's all in good fun; see for yourself here. It's a lot shorter than DaVinci Code, and it's a lot cheaper than Hoyts.

Meanwhile, plans to reluanch the free wi-fi hotspot in the downtown kiosk last week were doused due to technical difficulties. I haven't had a chance to get downtown to check it out but rumor has it June 1 will be the new launch date. I'm also looking forward to floating the idea of expanding the wi-fi to the City Council. Stay tuned. And stay dry.

There continues to be a buzz around town about my favorite pet subject, wi-fi. Obviously wi-fi is a huge story nationally as well, with so many towns, cities, and even regions (Silicon Valley and the state of Rhode Island) contemplating or planning large-scale wireless Internet initiatives.

I've noticed that in the face of the overwhelmingly positive enthusiasm for free and available Internet access, stories are now inevitably surfacing about "failed" projects -- Orlando's frequently mentioned, but its failure is also being debunked in other outlets and on wi-fi blogs. Meanwhile, privacy advocates and the ACLU, with whom I agree 95% of the time, are airing their concerns, which is fine with me as long as they do their job of protecting individual's rights without being obstructionist to wi-fi's progress in general. And while ISPs and their lobbyists continue to grumble about "unfair competition" from cities offering wi-fi, I believe their issues are more about protecting the overpriced Big Cable/Baby Bell duopoly and the status quo in general. (But hey, maybe that's just me!)

The question of who should pay for it continues to pop-up, as well; you know "taxpayer associations" are going to be up in arms over even the minimal costs of municipal wi-fi. The charge of the subcommittee I sit on was to determine if an expanded wi-fi program would be beneficial to economic development, and it didn't take long to determine that it has, can, and will be a customer lure for downtown businesses struggling to compete with national chains and malls. We then bandied about ideas for exactly how to expand the wi-fi in a way that would be most beneficial to local business without being a budgetary burden on the city. Based on our discussions, my guess is that we could expand our wi-fi project to reach strategic areas (i.e., a larger swatch of downtown, public parks and recreation areas, tourist centers, etc.) for about 2 bucks a citizen. To me, that's a no-brainer, especially when you consider the 3 years of value the city has already gotten from the donated time, equipment, an services of the Portsmouth/eCoast Wi-Fi Project sponsor companies, and the valuable demographic data we have collected and compiled for them over that time (see below). I understand there is some considerable support and enthusiasm at City Hall and on the City Council for this, so we shall see how it plays out. Clearly it's got all the ingredients for a big story, and I expect the media attention to continue through the summer.

In fact, we'll make a little splash of our own here in Portsmouth on the 18th of May when we relight the wi-fi flame in the Chamber's kiosk (at right) for another season. Let the games begin!

Also, I've been working with a nice young man named Matt at a favorite alternative local rag called "The Wire" on a large piece about wi-fi. He's put a lot of work into it, and I think it came out great. As a bonsu, they also presented my synopsis of the demo data in a sidebar; this may help to make our case to the general public. See it for yourself here. Or even better, pick up a copy almost anywhere downtown. It's the cover story; look for the tabloid-style paper with the green vertical "signal strength bars" on it.

I discovered today that Inc. Magazine has released its annual "Best Cities for Entreprenuers" list, and that our own little Portsmouth has been named as one of the top entreprenuerial cities in the country. In its 2006 Hot (obviously not talking about the weather!) Cities rankings, Portsmouth came in at #68 -- that's ahead of Portland/South Portland/Biddeford (97), Dover-Rochester (101), Manchester (105), and Nashua (135). When filted by "small cities" (employment bases of less than 150,000), Portsmouth is ranked at #44.

In fact, the magazine notes the business surge last year was centered outside of the traditional centers, which continue to "lag" behind smaller cities; they're calling the effect "The Revenge of the Boondocks." Read all about it for yourself here. Of course, I dutifully feed the story to P-Herald business editor Michael McCord, who then ran it as the #2 business story of the week here.

I also note that my mom's still-hurricane-ravaged city of Punta Gorda, Florida, came in at #22. Will New Orleans be a boomtown next year?

I think it's very cool that our local daily is following our efforts toward an expanded downtown wi-fi network so closely. The P-Herald's Adam Leech filed this update on April 10th. In related news (from the same article), I'm pleased that the Portsmouth Economic Development Council has recommended that the City re-up its partnership with the Chamber. The $35,000 is a relative pittance and could easily be doubled, IMO, but at least this is city money I know is being well-spent.

Earlier in the month (April 2nd), an intro to wi-fi piece by the Other Adam (Dolge)... (Or is Leech the Other Adam?!) finally got inked. I get a mention and a quote, which is always cool. As a point of clarification, in my quote, I was referring specifically to a relatively new phenomenon, wherein so many home users are setting up wi-fi that neighbors are getting knocked off theirs by the interference. I found recently that my trusty old graphite AirPort was simply getting muscled out by the half-dozen other networks I'm privy to here at DSC&A World Headquarters. I finally gave up and went out and got a Belkin (on a great online-only deal from Circuit City) and that seemed to fix my up-again, down-again problems here. To be safe, I also changed the default channel from 11 to 7, and upped the power (minimizing the range) of my new router.

Also in this piece is a mention of the "bill passed in the N.H. House of Representatives would allow municipalities, where Internet connections are not available, to bond money for infrastructure related to the connection." Needless to say, I'm all in favor of such legislation; although it won't really help us here in Portsmouth, there still exists a serious Digital Divide in wide swaths of the Granite State.

Also, for the record, there is no business or organization called "eCoast Technology"; the writer meant to reference the eCoast Technology Roundtable, which I helped to establish in 1999.

And a final clarification, in the list of local hotspots, the Portsmouth Public Library was inadvertently left off. The library's connection has been up and running for well over a year now, thanks in no small part to Exeter-based Single Digits, a value-added/managed hotspot solution provider working on wi-fi in such exotic locales as Mount Washington, Nantucket, Bermuda, Dubai, and, of course, the most exotic of all, Portsmouth, NH.

In my next wi-fi related entry, I hope to give an update on progress we make in the EDC/wi-fi subcommitte meetings. (We're only at the information-gathering stage right now, which doesn't make particularly interesting blog reading!) More soon...

"A Night at the e-Brew"

I went into the eBrew last night (upstairs at the Press Room, first Thursday of every month) with my digital camera. The eBrew is basically a high-tech happy hour, for those not in the know. On my name tag, I wrote "Scott Campbell, Blogging the eBrew." I thought it would be fun to show a representative example of what an eBrew is like to the uninitiated, and give my readers a peak into some news and scoopage they might have missed if they didn't attend.


Christopher Smith, advertising sales rep for Mass High Tech, long-time eCoast cheerleader, and all-around great guy, was up again from the North Shore. The eBrew still attracts a handful of folks from this side of Boston, which we think is pretty neat.


There's Jeremy Clough (Hatchling) and Mark Samber (Meetinghouse). After co-inventing the eBrew with yours truly some 7 years ago, Mark's become a staple at the events once again, and we're awful glad to have him back. Jeremy and Hatching founder Marc Dole never miss the opportunity to quaff an ale and mingle with the Portsmouth Digerati. Hatchling may be the shining example of eCoast success these days, with potential deals pending that could make Hatchling the Pixar of the Northeast. (No kidding. Scott Kirsner just name-dropped them in this Boston Globe article.)


eCoast Grand Poohbah George McQuilken (eCoast Angels), professor Jeff Sohl (UNH-WSBE), and Bob Sheesley, whom I didn't get a chance to meet, were also in attendance. Word to the wise: That stool at the end of the bar, just before it turns the corner to the wall? That's George's seat. Don't sit there if you know what's good for you! Seriously, George is a tremendous guy with a keen sense for politics, travel, cars, and fine wine. (Yes, it's OK to have wine at the eBrew, although George prefers a cold pint in this setting.)


And here's Scott Zinkevicz of ZASoftware. Scott came to the eCoast by way of Virginia a couple years ago. Deeply experienced in the financial vertical, his enterprise-level solutions are geared toward not only banks, mutual funds, etc., but also have application to law firms, development shops, and other businesses with billable hours.


Bob Beliveau is another nice guy you'll meet at the eBrew each month. By day he's a member of the GeekSquad -- a Technology Specialist for BestBuy for Business. He's also got a bunch of irons in the fire; he'll be glad to tell you all about them.
His quote of the day, which he made me promise to post here, was... Ummm... Arrogance equals ignorance times... Oh hell, now I've forgotten it. Must be my ignorance showing. Or is it my arrogance for thinking I'd remember? ;-) Anyway, it was real deep, trust me! Maybe he'll comment this and set the record straight on his brilliant quote.

Lastly, here's Robert Dowling, standing with Bob. Bob lives in Portsmouth and works on the 128 Belt for Comverse ("the technology company, not the sneaker company"). He found our little shindig after digging around the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce web site. He's the prototypical example of the reason we did the eBrew in the first place. With an hour+ commute, he wanted to explore the local tech biz scene for options down the road and just hang out with peers a little closer to home. We talked about VOIP, whether or not GOOG is overvalued, the pros and cons of the local post-Cabletron companies, what's happening at Pease... I told him I could make an introduction that might benefit him... By now, he wanted to buy me a beer, but my babysittermeter had expired. Next month Bob!


And speaking of introductions, Ginny Griffith, our eCoast liaison from the Chamber, is the person to see if you're new to the eBrew. She knows everybody (yes, everybody) and will be happy to point you in the right direction. The eBrew is all about networking, after all. (Well, that, and the Bass Ales.)

I hope you've enjoyed this small sip of eBrew. Til next time!