This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day to all ye community managers out there! You guys 'n gals are on the front lines engaging with customers every day, putting out fires, making your customers smile, fostering conversation. Community is important and you guys are making it happen. Stay awesome! :) To celebrate, bitly is organizing a breakfast this Friday and later this month is the Community Manager UNconference.

My buddy Eyal and the good folks at WIN are organizing a must-attend conference later this month on February 21: Funding the Best in Global Innovation. There'll be a rockstar lineup of speakers including David Pakman (Venrock), Brian Cohen (NY Angels), Kirill Sheynkman (RTP Ventures), John Frankel (ff Ventures), David Kidder (Clickable), Esther Dyson (angel investor) and more. GarysGuide readers get a special 30 percent off, using the code "ecosystem." WIN, for the record, is on a mission to create a top-notch global ecosystem connecting the New York venture community with leading international tech startups.

The Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, the CUNY Institute for Virtual Enterprise (IVE) and IBM are hosting the inaugural SmartPitch Challenge to celebrate New York City as a center for innovation and new business development. Nice! The challenge kicks-off this Friday on February 1, and it's open to current students at New York colleges and universities.

Don't forget, the much-anticipated Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party is this Wednesday. The attendee list is shaping up to be pretty amazing, and of course I'll be there rocking the red carpet in my red tie ;-) Hope to see y'all there. (FYI, the boat will be docked. So, tempting as it sounds to take her out to sea and head for the Caribbean, it's prolly not gonna happen.)

Random Nugget: "Innovation is hard because 'solving problems people didn't know they had' and 'building something no one needs' look identical at first." - Aaron Levie (founder and CEO, Box).

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

MIT Clean Energy Prize NYC Kickoff
The world's premier student competition for early-stage clean tech ventures, with over $300K in prizes.
Monday (Jan. 28), 6 p.m. @ Morrison & Foerster, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

Data Privacy & Protection Day Town Hall & Breakfast
With Deborah Marrone (FTC), Milan Patel (Special Agent, FBI), Clark Russell (Asst. Attorney General, Internet Bureau, New York), Craig Spiezle (Exec. Director, Online Trust Alliance) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8 a.m. @ Baruch College - William and Anita Newman Conference Center, 151 E. 25th Street, 7th Fl.

Mobile Payments Roundtable
With Jay Bhattacharya (Zipmark), Alex Taub (Dwolla), Yitz Mendlowitz (Paay), Jeff McGregor (Dash), Micah Bergdale (Bytemark), David Olk (ShopKeep), Neil Platt (Fiserv), Jim Schinella (Manilla) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8:30 a.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit, 488 Madison Avenue

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Victoria Brown (CEO, BigThink), GetGlue and Behance.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Feil Hall at Brooklyn Law School, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

Fashion+TechNY Meetup with AngelHack & Hearst Media
With Liza Kindred (Third Wave Fashion), David Goldberg (FreshNeck), Jill Sherman (Modalyst), Melissa Fudor (inSparq), Michael Rosom (Eye On Response), Sabine Seymour (Moondial) and Vale Kerbage (Leechee NY).
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Hearst Interactive Media, 300 West 57th Street

Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series!
A night of dancing, mixing & mingling. On a yacht. With a chance to audition for an entrepreneurship TV series!
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 6 p.m. @ Hornblower Inifinity, 353 West Street, Pier 40

Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry
With Chris Gallant (GM and cofounder, Bronx Brewery), Justin Philips (owner and operator, Beer Table) and Jordan Elpern-Waxman (founder, Craft Beer Co).
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ Professor Thoms, 219 2nd Avenue

DreamIt Health Road Show (NYC)
Meet the managing directors of DreamIt Health, network with other healthtech entrepreneurs and get your questions answered about their inaugural accelerator program.
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly West, 10 E. 21st Street

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 1: Getting Into the Game
With Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment), Mo Koyfman (Spark Capital), Clifford Schorer (EIR, Columbia Business School), David Rose (Gust), Rob Fassino (XO Group) and moderated by Bianca Bosker (senior tech editor, Huffington Post).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Digital Dumbo dd:SOCIAL 4 Year Anniversary
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6:30 p.m. @ The DUMBO Loft, 155 Water Street, Brooklyn

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 2: Tales from the Alley
With Ben McKean (founder and CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder and CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly), Hursh Agrawal (cofounder, Branch) and moderated by Caroline McCarthy (business marketing manager, Google).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 7:30 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Decoded Fashion Hackathon
Saturday (Feb. 2), 10 a.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour
Is your Valentine this year your startup team members? That might be good for your startup, but not for your social life.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6 p.m. @ Tom & Jerry, 288 Elizabeth Street

More events on the horizon...
February 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Feb. 5 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 6 @ Pier 60
Critical New UX Design Optimization Research on Feb. 6 @ Anchin
Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour on Feb. 6 @ Tom & Jerry
Advanced LinkedIn Marketing: Beyond the Request to Connect on Feb. 7 @ Infor
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst
Tech@NYU DemoDays on Feb. 9 @ eBay NYC
February 2013 NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Feb. 12 @ Cooley
Investor Feedback Forum on Feb. 14 @ Microsoft
Columbia Business School PE/VC Conference on Feb. 15 @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University
HackInteractive on Feb. 16 @ General Assembly
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)