Mashing and Shaking

Stopping by last night’s MashMeet DC Remix was not originally on my plate of things to do this month, but after receiving a comment/invitation from Ann Bernard, President & CEO of WhyGoSolo.com, I figured that why not. This event I thought would be good to try and hob-nob with some of the best and the brightest in the industry and hear what other folks are doing. So I took Ann up on her offer and in doing so, I made my first “handshake”.

MashMeet DC Remix was incredibly popular. Held at the Ogilvy PR office on 19th St., NW in downtown Washington, DC, there were several companies that gave demonstrations or at least talked about what their company and product does to interested folks and even some potential investors. It was even graced by the presence of Mashable guru Pete Cashmore and suffice it to say that I was a little chagrined to see someone of his stature at the same event as me…go figure.

But going back to my “handshake”…the act of committing the handshake is not a new thing as there are similar implementations that exist, like how you’re contractually obligated to pay for products you’ve successfully bought on eBay, but the only difference is that money is not really exchanged – you just get bad reviews from your “handshake” if you don’t show up at all. But the entire operation was pretty smooth execution without any problems. The day of the event, Ann and I exchanged contact information and arranged for a place to meet prior to the start of the event and that was it.

Obviously if you wanted to make it more complex for users and avoid them doing any thinking, some enhancements could be to include options when committing a handshake on things like dress code, exact spot to meet at, specific time to meet at, how you’re getting there, allowing for background checks, etc. These are probably way overkill and at some point the folks who enter into these relationships need to use common sense when communicating their intents.

So bottom line, the handshake process on WhyGoSolo is an outstanding feature. I met a great person today at an awesome event.

Now time to find the next handshake.

Update (3/9/2008): The Washington Post’s Technology blog has posted an entry late last week about MashMeet DC Remix. Apparently it’s been getting some heat for it’s review. Check it out here.