By Nitasha Tiku 8/11/11 1:03pm

Anti-Social Networking

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No Wonder NYTM’s Jessica Lawrence Is So Into Twitter, It Got Her a Boyfriend

New social networks try to sell potential members in different ways. More privacy than Facebook! More intimacy than Twitter! Less self-promoter-y than LinkedIn! But what they should be selling you on are what they can do for your offline life.

Take for example, New York Tech Meetup managing director Jessica Lawrence. Although privy to every local wantrepreneur trying to solve social networking needs you didn’t even know you cared about (and possibly don’t), Ms. Lawrence focuses her time on just one: Twitter. That’s because within six months, Twitter helped her find a job, a boyfriend, and an apartment to move into with her new love. (Hrrm, maybe we’ve been tweeting wrong?) Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 4/13/11 11:56am

The Third Degree

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Getting Some Answers from NYTM’s New Director

New York Tech Meetup has gotten way, way too big for its small, part-time, all-volunteer staff. The group has a hyperactive listserve, thousands of active members and the potential energy of a strung-out Slinky. And yet the organization still doesn’t have the capacity to do much beyond keeping control of the wildly popular monthly event. Is that about to change now that the organization has hired its first full-time employee? Managing director Jessica Lawrence is less than two weeks into the job, but we grilled her anyway. Read More

By Tony Bacigalupo 4/08/11 4:41pm

NYTM

Tony Bacigalupo

Op-Ed: There’s a Lady in Charge! New New York Tech Meetup Gonna Be Big

At Wednesday night’s New York Tech Meetup, Jessica Lawrence took the stage for the first time as the organization’s first employee.

This is a big deal. There will be much talk of the significance of her hire, in particular the fact that, yes, she’s a woman running an organization dominated by men. But it goes deeper than that. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 4/07/11 1:21am

NYTM

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New Dawn: What You Missed at New York Tech Meetup

Wednesday night’s New York Tech Meetup came in three minutes under the two hour limit, which was amazing considering there were 11 demos, a hack of the month, several announcements and a speech by new managing director Jessica Lawrence on the agenda, interspersed with midi-rendered Weezer songs that the 800 or so audience members mumbled along to under their breaths in the red seats of NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.  Read More