e$: A CALL FOR FOUNDERS: The Boston Society for Digital Commerce

[rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)]

                     A CALL FOR FOUNDERS
            The Boston Society for Digital Commerce


A few weeks ago, before my San Francisco trip, I had a great
lunch with Peter Cassidy, a contract writer and industrial analyst.
Cassidy writes stuff on digital commerce and other net.things for the
Economist, Wired and a number of other drier trade rags and authors the
occassional market research piece for industrial research firms around
Boston.

As disparate our backgrounds and life experiences may be, our luncheon was
reminiscent of the original AA meeting.  We gibbered at each other for two
hours about strong crytography and the enormous potential of Web-mediated
commerce and the effects of both on life, the universe, and everything.
It was marvelous for two informed parties to share thoughts on the
substance of the revolution at hand, undistracted by hype and hyperbole
that too often haunts these subjects.

I went on to hang out that night with a couple of pals from my school
days at Chicago and they had *no* idea what I was talking about, though
they could tell it had me pretty animated.

Both Peter and I figured we needed to have a regular fix of this, and we both
figured that there are others in Boston who would benefit from the same
experience. People in Boston who have someunderstanding of the financial
markets, the internet, strong cryptography and the consequences of
mixing the three: digital certificates, the potential for absolute
anonymity, and geodesic markets for everything from financial instruments
to software to professional services.

People in Boston who would like to meet once a month or so in a function
room somewhere downtown, have lunch, and listen to a speaker or see a
net.demo, or just hang out and gab on some aspect of digital commerce.

So, to quote Andy Hardy, "I've got a barn!  Let's have a show!".
I've made some calls, and I can get a meeting room for a couple of hours
and a nice lunch for 20 people in downtown Boston for about $25 a head as
a starting point, subject to demand and scalability.

I figure the agenda of the first meeting will be an introduction
of everybody, and organizing some kind of structure for further meetings:
programming and anything else we need to do to get the next meeting(s)
organized, including picking a name.  The imposing name "Boston Society for
Digital Commerce" is just prima facie, subject to change at the first
meeting.

At the moment, I'm looking at a meeting date of Tuesday, October 3rd,
and at a location to be named later for lunch, say from 12:00 to 2.
I'll give you a hint: it's a 30th floor room overlooking the Charles
from downtown , and, yes, you need a coat and tie.  I figure I'll
collect checks payable to the place where we have lunch, with, say, a
registration cutoff of 2 days prior to the event, so I can get the room
paid for in advance, and so we can bootstrap this financially until
we come up with a better method for doing things.

How to Sign Up: Reply to this message if you're interested in helping
this get started, or if you just want have lunch and talk shop with
people who'll actually understand what you're saying, and I'll give you
all the details.

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131
USA (617) 323-7923
"Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell
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