Bits & Bytes literally ~ by Ankur Shah

Monday took me to the Grill Room in the World Financial Center for the holiday Bits, Bytes, and Bar event hosted by the Downtown Alliance and sponsored by the good people at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. Surprising myself, I veered away from the path to the food and plunged into the crowd. As I made my way through the masses, I bumped into Mr. Robert Haddock, President and CEO of New Media Associates. Mr. Haddock's specialty is in dealing with online ventures. He has played a major role in the startups of five online ventures, including Aerospace online. Right now his interest is in getting startups online. He's also been in the industry from the beginning, making the first personal computer purchase at ZiffDavis and owns 20 domain names.

After my conversation with Mr. Haddock, I decided to try and find Ms. Lisa Novitt, the director for the Information Technology District with the Alliance for Downtown New York. As I looked out, I did not know how I was going to find the proverbial "needle in a haystack." But, as luck would have it, I ended up walking right past her. A very happy person, she was so excited at the amount of people that were present. One reason for the excitement was that the crowd meant that Bits & Bytes was getting bigger and the frequency was becoming more regular. Along with Ms. Novitt I spent a few moments speaking to Mr. Jim DeCarlo of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who was also pleased with the turnout.

As people kept milling around I quickly ran into another member of the Stroock law firm, Mr. Chuck Cantine, who works mainly in the area of intellectual property. He says the business is a two-way street in that at times he is working for a company to get a patent and then again he could be working against a company that has committed an infringement of some sort.
As the party was winding down at that point, I took my leave and went out into the beautiful December night.