Frank Gruber has been kind enough to give readers of Social Times with a $25 discount for the upcoming Tech Cocktail Conference. The event is in Chicago on May 29th. I’m going to be headed out there to speak at the event. Other speakers includes Jason Friend from 37signals, Dick Costolo from FeedBurner, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV and a number of other speakers.

This is the first Tech Cocktail Conference ever. The focus of the conference is taking a “non nonsense” approach to building a business that can flourish by leveraging technology and the web. If you are looking for a great conference to attend where you can actually talk directly with the keynote presenters as well as learn a ton about building your business, this is a great one to attend.

If you’d like to attend and get a discount, use the code: socialtimes when you register via the conference registration form. I hope to see you there!

There are a few upcoming D.C. events that I wanted to draw attention to. The first one is this week’s social media club which is being hosted at Viget Labs in Falls Church, VA. Ann Bernard of WhyGoSolo will be speaking about the creation of her startup and how WhyGoSolo can be used as a social media platform. Social Media Club is a meeting of people for the “purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and for promoting media literacy.” It’s a great event which I’ve attended before and I highly recommend it.

The second event is next Monday. JobMatchbox will be hosting a networking event and panel about starting your own business. The panel includes myself, Robert Nellbauer (JobMatchbox.com), Keith Casey (WhyGoSolo.com) and Victor Prince (MiddleSon.com). The main purpose is to expose American University students to the D.C. startup community and also provide them with the opportunity for internships and possible future jobs. If you are interested in attending the event go register via the event registration form. This is event’s expected attendance is approximately 100 people.

Finally, the weekend of the 18th will be PodcampDC. This event is sure to be popular with already hundreds of people registered. The event is being hosted at the Art Institute of Washington. Podcamp DC is an “unconference” focused on educating participants on how to use, implement and share any/all new media tools including, podcasts, videocasts, blogs, Second Life, Facebook, and YouTube.

It’s an awesome event and great opportunity to learn from other people in the local community. If you are interested in attending, go sign up via the PodcampDC registration form. I hope to see you there! Also, if I missed your event please post it in the comments below!

Looking to do some networking tonight in D.C.? Social Matchbox DC is the event you should attend. The event is an open mic hiring event for local startups. The event is three hours long with two hours of networking and an hour of startup introductions. The event tonight has a whole slew of startups including: TinselVision, ClearSpring, MobilePosse, Razoo, Webs.com, Intridea, FolioFN, ThreeSpot, Hungry Machine, Investors Without Borders, WhyGoSolo, Siteworx, Viget Labs, Zadby, Positive Energy, comScore, Publi.us, Loladex, FamilyOven, 100dimensions, Qloud, nClud, xyoom, BrowserMedia, Ozmosis, Searchles, and more!

This event is sure to be jam packed with web professionals from around the area. This is a reverse take on the Ignite events which have been popularized out west. Companies that are looking to hire are limited to 2-3 minutes for verbal presentations and 3-5 minutes for presentations with audio and visual elements. It’s a great opportunity to find potential job seekers and also a great opportunity to find out more about the numerous local companies that are active in the web industry.

The event is being held at TeqCorner, a community office center for technology companies based out in Tysons corner. I highly recommend the event and am hoping to actually show up later in the evening tonight. If you want to attend go register via the Social Matchbox DC registration form.

There are two upcoming events in D.C. that you should be attending. Unfortunately due to a miscommunication (or lack thereof), there has been a reshuffle of events for April. The first event is Refresh DC. If you don’t know what Refresh DC is, then you are definitely missing out. According to the event’s website, Refresh DC brings “together the best and brightest new media professionals in the DC metro area so that we may learn from one another.”

I’ve been to at least three of the Refresh DCs and they are definitely a great time. The last one filled a room with easily one hundred fifty people if not more. Due to the miscommunication, this month’s Refresh DC will be occurring as a happy hour. If you want to attend (which I highly suggest you do), go add your self to the upcoming event page. If you are looking for numbers though, look no further then Tech Cocktail DC.

The idea of Tech Cocktail is simple: help amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it. I co-hosted the first Tech Cocktail in D.C. last May and we attracted over 200 people to the event. This is the second time Tech Cocktail is taking place in D.C. and it attracts a diverse crowd all looking to network. After speaking with Frank Gruber, this event may attract double the number of attendees. At each of the events there are demos of local technology startups.

Tech Cocktail D.C. 2 is being hosted April 24th at 1223. It is sure to be a good time so go register for the event and I’ll see you there. If there are any other events that I’m missing, please let me know and I’ll be sure to get them on this site. I’ll also be updating our calendar in the events section of our site.