Open Coffee at Loftart

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Yesterday I had an enlightening morning at an Open Coffee meeting at Loftart above Flannels in Leeds. The event is organised by Imran Ali and runs on the first Tuesday of every month.

At first I was quite apprehensive, with a background in marketing, I wasn’t quite sure how well received I’d be by the hardcore geek community… but as I stood there, humbly sipping my drink, I felt no pretence whatsoever, I was surrounded by suits, geeks, coders, bloggers, investors, entrepreneurs, designers and developers, all of whom congregate simply to share ideas, thoughts and demos – it was great. I’ve been to many a ‘networking’ event, and whilst the evening sessions are always quite ‘loose’, with attendees somewhat nicely oiled by open bar tabs, morning or lunch time meetings are often the most painfully dry moments I’ve ever known – time awkwardly spent, which I’ll never get back!

So, thanks to Imran for the invite, not only did I meet some very nice people, I’ve now been educated in ‘mapping’ by Tim Waters and introduced to a whole host of new IT slang… admittedly I’m still getting my head around most of it, but that has to be expected in these early days! To finish off the event, I was invited to GeekUp – same chat – plus beers… happy days… oh and I also had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Senior, and his granddaughter (manager of the restaurant), very nice people – lovely venue, amazing patisseries, and excellent coffee’s, five stars from Seb.