Ideas On Tap, or “Speed Dating for Entrepreneurs”

At the suggestion of my friend Scott McWhirter, I decided to go to Ideas On Tap and keep an eye on the pulse of the Vancouver technology community. And after spending an evening drinking beer and talking with various people from companies around Vancouver, I began to feel like the only married guy in the middle of a speed dating session.

I have a stable and intellectually stimulating day job that I have no plans of leaving anytime soon, but it was still a nice ego boost to be flirted with by so many companies looking for bright talent. In Vancouver, at least, it seems like if you’re smart and you are a creative developer, there’s work out there to be had. In fact they can’t seem to get enough. But unfortunately for them, a lot of developers here are in the same situation I’m in – happy with their current jobs, challenged but not over-worked, and not too interested in changing anytime soon.

I had an opportunity to meet John Chow with his camcorder, trying to get footage of women kissing one another, but the whole evening was basically one giant sausage-fest, as this tweet from him can attest.  I managed to meet one of the guys behind Mobify.me which seems to be quite an interesting product.  In fact, part way through the conversation he mentioned a great project called “PhoneGap” that they were recommending to people looking for more from their mobile platforms.  We both got a kick out of the irony that I’m one of the main developers of its iPhone branch, but nevertheless it was good to hear that other companies see the value in PhoneGap that we do.

The amazing thing was that the entire night was almost exclusively focused around mobile development and the mobile web.  It makes me confident that I’ve decided to play in the right area.  Not only is mobile development a blast, but it seems to be where the biggest focus is of entrepreneurs are these days.