January 8, 2007
D.C. Among Top Tech Towns
Congratulations, everybody: Wired says that we're one of the nation's top ten tech towns, putting us in the company of undeniably geek-friendly cities like San Francisco, Austin and Seattle.
But to be honest, Wired's methodology seems a little bit suspect. Other cities made the list on the basis of a high number of comic book stores per capita, the ubiquity of free wifi, or the popularity of the local Dorkbot chapter. Our qualifications? We're desperately lonely: apparently D.C. has more postings on dating site Geek 2 Geek than any other town. We score high for Circuit City penetration too, but let's get real — as much as we hate to throw DC1974 a bone, there's no competing with Fry's for embodying the geek ethos (although we do love Microcenter).
No, it's pretty clear why we made the list: the federal government and its attendant inefficiencies. D.C. area nerds may not work on the most exciting projects in the world, but if you want to build gigantic robotic spiders for Raytheon or maintain a database written on punchcards for the Bureau of Indian Affairs — and be well-compensated for doing it — there's no better place to be. That's not to say that there aren't exciting dot-coms in the area. But it's clearly federal largesse that drives the industry around these parts.
But it doesn't have to be this way. If you're a like-minded technologist, why not help make this town a little more worthy of Wired's list by attending a 2600 or Dorkbot meeting, the ShmooCon conference, or another geeky get-together?
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You really have to give Northern Virginia some credit for this one, though. That's where the real nuts and bolts of the region's high technology reside.
We have a premiere computer game development company just to the north named Bethesda Softworks.
"But it's clearly federal largesse that drives the industry around these parts."
You might also have noted that the federal gov sponsers a lot of the basic theoretical research that goes on in this country, including at the University level. It's not all robospiders and punchcards. It's research grants.
Is that eCities place still around or did it pop in the dot-com bubble?
All good points. Mark, I interpreted the list as being about geeks in more of the IT sense than the basic sciences sense, but of course you're right that there's a lot of federal research money in the area at places like the NIH.
Um, thanks for the bone?!
(And hey, I like Microcenter too. It's geeky without the weird Fry's kitsch factor -- like the theme stores. So perhaps, it's more honest.)
Hey, if they can credit SoCal with JPL, they can credit us with Goddard.
don't forget about NIST!
I never would have guess DC as a techie town.
I never would have guess DC as a techie town.
Indeed, DC has plenty of techies! DC has been a big player in the ISP world - we had UUNET, SURANET, AOL, DIGEX, MFS and the MAE-EAST.
Then there is the huge IT staff of the Federal Government, plus the folks military and intelligence R&D.
On the other hand, applying technology for art has not been so widespread in DC as it is in SF or NYC, so I helped to found the DC chapter of Dorkbot to help catalyze the expansion of tech art in the DC area.
Come out to the Dorkbot DC meeting at Provisions Library in Dupont on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 7PM and meet local artists who use technology, and local techies who also do art!