Our Mission

door64 is community of thousands of Central Texas high-tech professionals. The goal of this community is to promote peer network growth in Texas technology professionals, enable both start-ups and established companies to amplify their local presence, and help all members to plug in and strengthen our local high-tech scene.

We are a community, with high-tech underpinnings and geography in common. Network both online and in person, get answers to your questions, discover relevant events in our area, publicize your expertise, and find local tech employment opportunities. But most of all, come reap the benefits of helping others while helping yourself.

• To the professional technologist, door64 provides an outlet for 24/7 online conversation and Q&A, and a means to manage your career. Our face to face networking events expose you to your local peers in a fun and casual setting. Our events are not full of insurance agents and Realtors vying for your business. My goal is that you will keep all the business cards you receive at door64 events.
• To the technology entrepreneur, door64 is a gateway to thousands of area tech professionals for online consulting, or possible employment. If you're pinching pennies in start-up mode, you'll be happy to know door64 has free job postings.
• To the staffing person or technical recruiter, door64 provides you with a geographically concentrated population of tech professionals, many of whom are actively looking for local employment opportunities. Help our economic development and local tech retention by going here first. Keep Austin Weird, and Keep Austin Here.
• To the city, door64 is addressing retention of your high-tech talent, promoting fluidity in our job market, and seeding innovation by assembling your best technical talent under one virtual roof.

Most job transitions are made through leads obtained via your peer network. The time to build a professional network is before you need one to rely upon. door64 is here to help you build that network, and make you successful in Central Texas.

See our 2009 door64 Community Year-in-Review Guide

The Manifesto

If you can spare three minutes of your time, read The door64 Manifesto. This will answer the question, "So...what are you trying to do with door64?".

The Goods

Here's a run down of what we're all about:

• Discussion Forums: Chat with other members about Central Texas, our tech industry, what's happening on and off the job, or ask a technical question (there is an expert for almost any topic).
• Event Calendar: Learn about ALL technology and professional conferences, clubs, organizations, networking events, user groups, etc. Members post local events as they are discovered.
• Jobs: We bring together local job seekers and area staffing & recruiting personnel. Why go national to find local tech jobs?
• Skill sets: Individuals may post their skill sets for possible full-time, part-time, or contract/consulting employment. Help employers, entrepreneurs, and recruiters find you!
• Links: As we speak (well, type), I am aggregating a list of all the Central Texas area clubs and organizations. There's a ton.
• Face-to-Face Networking: We're having periodic face-to-face networking events to connect "the old fashioned way". I don't care if it's Web 2.0 - you can't replace the in-person element with a keyboard.
• Serving Local Clubs: For any Central Texas business / technology club or organization, we want to help you (yes, for free). Contact me and we'll chat.
• LinkedIn Group: We're also an affiliated LinkedIn group Austin High-Tech. If you're a member of LinkedIn, click here to join the group. As a group member, you can contact any other member directly without a connection. Finally, make sure your group preferences enable others to connect with you, and that you display your group logo proudly! And click here to view all the members.
• Twitter: Whenever a new post is created on door64, the information is also sent to Twitter. So if you follow our door64_Texas account, you can receive updates on your computer, mobile phone, or whatever else receives tweets!
• Flickr: Many photos are categorized by event and posted on our door64 Flickr account. We also have a door64 group on Flickr where event attendees can share their favorite shots with everyone!

Does this community really work?

Read some testimonials from our members and judge for yourself.

Aren't you just another tech club?

Nope. We're not trying to replace existing user groups, networking groups, professionals organizations, clubs, etc. In fact, I want to see more specialty groups, and I'm willing to help whoever who wants to start one.

The problem was that there wasn't a single place to learn about all these organizations and networking opportunities in Central Texas. We fixed that with our event calendar and links section. And while we're at it, we're enabling everyone to communicate online in our forums, and post/search for high-tech jobs.

In other words, think of us as a high-tech hub for Central Texas.

So what's with these happy hours?

Honestly, I did not anticipate the popularity of our door64 networking events. But as members wanted more, we had more! Here's a recap of all door64 networking events.

Interested in marketing opportunities with door64.com?

Visit our marketing opportunities page.

Who founded door64?

Why, me of course. If you're logged into door64, I'm also here.

Where did this site come from?

I had the idea back in 2005 while talking with some fellow UT MSEE students outside of Schlotzsky's on Guadalupe. The restaurant had just closed, and we were hanging out in the parking lot on a summer evening chatting about our day jobs. We each worked full-time at various local high-tech companies, from unknown start-ups to the big guys. Standing under the street light, we discussed our experiences, day jobs, interests, ideas, techo-pipe-dreams, and the like. At one point, it occurred to me that I would not be having this conversation if it wasn't for my degree program at UT; we probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.

So then it hit me: How many other great high-tech folks in Austin (and even Central Texas) am I missing out on because I simply haven't run into them yet? Since Schlotzsky's parking lot is only so big, perhaps meeting online would be a good alternative.

Well, that’s what I’m trying to do, out of my own pocket, on my own time. Foremost, this site is a humble attempt to communitize the high-tech folks in Central Texas. We all probably know each other by three or less degrees of separation, as empirically demonstrated by LinkedIn. This site means to provide you the opportunity to reduce that to one degree. Who can't benefit from a stronger network?

I’m excited to see what happens when we all start communicating. New professional organizations? New ideas? New start-ups? Quite possibly.

I see so many possibilities, but I won’t rattle on any longer. Will it happen? I hope so. Join up and let’s give it a shot.

Why the name door64?

A reasonable person might guess:

• It's the door...the gateway to the Central Texas high-tech community.
• It was my 64th attempt at pulling us all together.
• It was the last domain name left unregistered.

Frankly, all of those are partially correct. But foremost, the name is in homage to my second computer: the Commodore 64, which is the computer I used for many years in my childhood. My first was a VIC-20; that little 8-bit micro was my 3rd grade birthday gift. After typing in the examples from the included owner's guide (manuals were still on paper back then - no PDF's on CDROM!), I was hooked. With wide-eyed wonder I was in awe how I could harness the power of a something running at 1 million cycles per second. My fascination with computers and electronics started there, and never ended.

So I was trying to come up with a name for this site, and I couldn't think of one that wasn't already taken. I began reminiscing back to my early days on the Commodore 64, and thinking there are so many people who grew up like me...starting out on home computers and now working in technology today. So I named the site "door64" in homage to the Commodore 64, and for all the geeks who are now all grown up, working along side me in high-tech.

There go you.

Acknowledgments

To Rich, Mike, Matt, Ray, JL, and others from my UT MSEE program for helping with some early feedback and ideas.

To Dave, thanks for the encouragement, ideas, and hosting. And the coke to drink.

To my once college roommate Ethan at Fonthead for donating fonts for the logo. Daaah dap! "Hey man, check out my fonts."

To Maria for being my first site reviewer, and for providing some awesome feedback.

To Marilyn for her feedback and sincere interest in making this site be truly successful.

To Geoff for his introductions to many local prominent individuals who can help this community coalesce Central Texas, not just Austin.

To Roger for his wonderful ideas to benefit our local recruiting community.

To Kevin Koym for his constant support, stream of ideas, and nudging in the direction I need to go. And of course for the hosting.