Be Smart

This week Manhattan celebrates “Internet Week.” Seven-days of non-stop festivities best described as a greatly delayed digital debutante ball for the super geek.

Delayed because the New York tech scene has been thriving alongside the Bay Area and Silicon Valley for years without its well-deserved recognition.

Debutante because the aggregation of this week’s diverse activities feel like a competing series of formal and informal coming out parties for the diverse segments of the community (from the youthful flip-flop wearing interns to the more experienced and sometimes sophisticated VCs).

Like the diversity that characterizes the cultural New York landscape, there’s nothing homogeneous or purely central about this quirky celebration. I raised my own eyebrows looking over the (still-growing) list of activities, which include (but are by no means limited to):

* a breakfast meeting titled, Shifting the Paradigm: Young Women with Cool Jobs Making a Difference in Digital Media and beyond,

* an exclusive invite-only Founders Club,

* the cult-classic science-as-art Make Magazine's Maker Faire,

* Techset sunset cocktails, a glam-geek rooftop affair in the Meatpacking District hosted by Stephanie Agresta, InternetGeekGirl, and Brian Solis of bub.blicio.us and PR 2.0,

* a bad-boy Thrillist party at Hiro Ballroom,