what other registered MarksGuide members are planning to attend each event. You can also use the site’s built-in tools to forward an event listing to someone else; download a listing to your Yahoo, Google, iCal, or Outlook calendar; leave feedback about an event; or suggest an event that should be included.
“There’s an unbelievable number of events going on in Boston every day,” says Doerschlag. “It’s one of the most exciting things about the town. We cover 200 organizations right now, but there are probably another 200 to 300 still to add.”
But MarksGuide isn’t an indiscriminate jumble (nor does the site take any money in return for listings). Doerschlag personally reviews every event submitted, often checking the feedback users have left about related events in the past before including them on the site. “It’s not an exact science, because what might be a good networking event for me might be bad for someone else,” he says. “But I do try to apply a filter and keep out the spam.”
Above all, Doerschlag says he wants to make sure that the events he lists will be a good use of his readers’ time. But with so many events underway every week just in Boston, that’s a difficult task. So he’s working with independent software developer Christopher Muro on another redesign of the site, to be launched by February. The new version will be more “democratic,” Doerschlag says, including more social-media features such as rating and voting that enable users to help each other find the best events.
But while those sound like quintessential “Web 2.0” features, Doerschlag clearly doesn’t see MarksGuide as a typical get-rich-quick scheme built on a bit of Web-based software and a bunch of user-generated content. When I asked him to describe his ideal exit strategy for the business, he winced visibly. “Philosophically, that’s not how I approach it—which, admittedly, makes me the odd man out at a lot of the events I go to,” he says. “I see this as a high-touch, personal thing. My goal is definitely not to be the next poster child for Web 2.0 companies. In fact, I don’t want any part of that. If we can just ensure that people get more out of the events they go to, that is the best compliment.”
Doerschlag is the real deal—a guy who believes that a good part of Boston’s future rides on the quality of the high-tech companies created here and of the people who will build them, and who wants to do what he can to bring those people together, whether or not he benefits directly or immediately. “Imagine what Boston would be like if we had 50 Joi Itos,” he says. “Think how much easier everything would become if everyone adopted the attitude that we’re out to grow this area together. Investing in proactive networking is something that always comes back to you. Maybe not right away, but 10 years from today.”
Sounds to me like karma. And why shouldn’t the Web be one of the places where we spread it around?
