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January 21. $21. 21 spots. The registration page for #BreakfastForSmartPpl went live at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, and within five hours, all 21 spots had been filled.
#BreakfastForSmartPpl is a sunrise breakfast starting at 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 21 at Mosaic Space in downtown Grand Rapids. Over good food and cups of coffee, #Breakfast-goers will explore topics such as technology, social media and their application to business and other fields.
"I was anticipating putting out on Facebook and LinkedIn, but it already sold out just using Twitter," said Nemo Chu, associate at S.L. Robbins and Associates and the organizer for #Breakfast.
aimWest, a professional association focused on technology, put on the Midwest Social Media Confab in November 2009 and invited Chu to present. While at the conference, Chu hatched the idea for #Breakfast.
"I thought, this is really great; this is a community of technology. I did not expect to see a little bit of Silicon Valley in Grand Rapids," said Chu, who is from Hong Kong.
Infected with techie feel-good, Chu bounced the idea off aimWest's Marketing Intern Christina Torri and then pitched it to his boss. S.L. Robbins is a locally-based management consultancy that has worked with PepsiCo, Amway and NASA. The firm has emphasized cyberspace as a part of innovative company culture in its workshops and was a no-brainer as the host for #Breakfast.
"My boss said hey, there needs to be some kind of focus. If it's just a breakfast, it won't provide value," Chu explained. "Perhaps we can provide a place where experts and not-so-experts alike can mingle."
The focus around "21" started out as marketing kitsch, but with such a popular response, Chu is determining whether to stretch the number of attendees for the kick-off #Breakfast and how to balance that with providing value for all attendees.
Chu said whether #Breakfast happens again, how often and where it will take place will depend largely on the GR tech community's response to the first #Breakfast.
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