What do you get when you throw a bunch of design shops together in a bar, some free wood-fired pizzas and a tall blond man in an orange shirt? DesignShops.com's party during WebNYC on Tuesday, February 1, at the swanky Filli Ponte Ristorante. The Iguana Studios was out in full force, led by CEO Jason Jercinovic and represented also by Emma Prunty, Sonya Laska and Alfonso Rutigliano. Nancy Duran (Iguana) told me she was heading out to Long Beach, CA, for the Youth Marketing Exchange to meet up with people from Alloy, GirlShop and Bolt. Lucas Daniel, the tall blond man in an orange shirt, introduced me to a few people. As associate editor of the designshops.com site, he had a strong interest in meeting up with the cool shops in Silicon Alley. I met Bridget Hart, WebNYC show director, Jared Spool (founding principal of User Interface Engineering) and Matthew Palmer (Service Architect from Austin-based HumanCode). He stood out, too, in his white cowboy hat, and we chatted about the upcoming SXSW conference in March.
Alley-ites Katie Lukas and Adrienne Matt told me of their new consortium for web designers. Freelancers can earn money by either working for the consortium, getting a finders fee, or receiving profit and equity in the organization after 200 hours of work. Sounds like a good idea!
