Justin Giza: Drink Philly editor, nerd rapper leaves for NYC to pursue music career

This is Exit Interview, an occasional interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

At the Philly Geek Awards last month, the Geekadelphia crew behind the event included an ‘In Memoriam’ segment.

Pictures of a dozen former members of Philadelphia’s technology community who had moved in the past year, many of them Exit Interview alumni, were shown on the large projector screen, set to ‘It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday’ from Boyz II Men. The bit was funny and well received.

In the audience was Justin Giza, then editor of DrinkPhilly.com, which was founded in 2009 by Adam Schmidt and Technically Philly profiled in June. At next year’s Geek Awards, Giza could be on that ‘In Memoriam’ screen.

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All local VCs should move to University City

Welcome to the VC Roundup, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

MUST READS

Hidden in a recent Joe DiStefano column on Philly Deals, David Adelman of Franklin Square Capital Partners says he wants to make University City the hub of local venture capital in the area. We think this is one of the best ideas to emerge from the local venture capital community.

With Penn and Drexel nearby and the tax-friendly Cira Center (which is in a Keystone Opportunity Zone) around the corner, this idea is not as far-fetched as it may seem.

The wide disbursement of investors across the Philadelphia region ultimately stymies local entrepreneurial growth as investors and entrepreneurs are not running into to each other at the local coffee shop like they may in other markets. From DiStefano’s story:

As tenants, he’s trying to lure venture capitalists from West Conshohocken and the Main Line into University City, where the neighbors include Ira Lubert and his Independence funds group, which manage $12 billion for clients including Pennsylvania state pension funds from offices at Cira Center. “Penn should be like Cambridge or Palo Alto,” a lure to capital as well as academe, he told me.

We wish him the best.

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Events this week: Indie Publishers blowout, Philly Tech Meetup drinks and more

Well, Philadelphia that just about does it. Summer is unofficially over. Take the kids back to school and put away the swim trunks.

But your tan line’s loss is your inner techie’s gain, as Fall typically marks an uptick in local technology events. Don’t believe us? This week: DreamIt Ventures kicks off its Fall class, Philly Tech Meetup kicks off happy hour and indie publishers just kick it.

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Alex Hillman: ‘I want Philadelphia to outlast other cities,’ a Q&A with Indy Hall co-founder four years later

Photo by Chris Sembrot.

Alex Hillman partied last night.

If Technically Philly were to suggest that Hillman was celebrating the anniversary of a building, he probably wouldn’t like that very much. Last night, the co-founder of Old City coworking haunt Independents Hall was at Frankford Hall in Fishtown with more than 100 other members of a community celebrating four years of formal partnership.

In 2007, Hillman and P’unk Ave co-founder Geoff Di Masi brought together a cast of freelance web developers, software programmers, graphic designers and their ilk to put an end to home office isolation and bring about greater collaboration and creativity. Thus was born the affectionately nicknamed Indy Hall. Four years later, the community has grown, as has Hillman — to full blown entrepreneur, handling a few roles aside from community architect.

Hillman, a week into his 28th year, came to Philadelphia in 2002 by way of Drexel University, after growing up “on 18 acres between corn and horse farms an hour north of here that surely pushed me to be a city boy.” He went to Drexel for the co-op program but even that couldn’t keep him, dropping out three years into the program to start work on his own.

Now, in addition to Indy Hall fame, he has helped build business strategy for ChoiceShirts.com, is working with web services shop Wildbit and is one of two behind creative directory WeWorkinPhilly, which could see some partnership with Technically Philly.

After years of coverage, Technically Philly grabbed Hillman for our first Q&A, talking to the Hellertown, Pa. native about coworking, business and what his plans are for his future.

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Hurricane Irene: Storify praising City of Philadelphia social media coverage of storm

Add this to the list of reasons that the world has changed.

Hurricane Irene hit the region this past weekend, and the City of Philadelphia had its social media accounts active, particularly on Twitter by way of @Philly311 and @PhillyOEM and the two men on top @Michael_Nutter and @RichNegrin.

“This was the first time, here at least, that we had a hurricane by social media,” Negrin told Technically Philly.

The story might have ended there, but then City of Philadelphia officials went and did a Storify of the praise they received online.

Check it out below.

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What’s key in choosing a home city for your business: Links

• City property assessors conducting home visits [PlanPhilly] — They’re coming to you IRL to make up for a failure in data usage
• King of Prussia-based A-Frame Technology Services enters Cloud Brokerage business, launching RentTheCloud.com [Philly Tech News]
• Philadelphia getting first look at PixelOptics’ electronic eyeglasses [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• What’s key in choosing a home city for your business? [Philadelphia Business Journal]

Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

Colin M. Lenton Photography – Philadelphia Photographer Colin Lenton specializes in portraits of interesting people in interesting places. His work takes him around the country for clients that include Deloitte, Kiplinger’s and Technically Media. He also owns a rental photo studio that is available for multiple purposes.

Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.

The University City Science Center — The Science Center has officially opened Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn.

Splat Productions — Splat Productions provides smart, brand-centric website design and internet marketing services to privileged clients in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

Your Local Security — Providing affordable home security systems in Philadelphia. Top of the line equipment and monitoring services from ADT keep your home and family safe.

Caffeine Fish — Caffeine Fish develops iOS apps including Trainboard and PhillySubway and offers consulting in the Philadelphia area.

MOGO Media — MOGO Media provides best-of-class training for designers and developers through world-wide conferences and seminars. The organization will host a Dreamweaver seminar on December 15 in Philadelphia.

Newsworks — NewsWorks is the online home of WHYY News and its growing network of journalism partners. This public media service covers the Philadelphia region, Delaware and South Jersey, with a focus on regional issues, neighborhoods, health and science, and arts.

Morgan Lewis — Morgan Lewis provides comprehensive transactional, litigation, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property legal services to clients of all sizes—from global Fortune 100 companies to just-conceived startups—across all major industries.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

Indy Hall celebrates its four year anniversary today

Old City coworking stalwart Independents Hall is celebrating its fourth anniversary today.

Co-founder Alex Hillman shares the process on his blog here.

Look for our Q&A with Hillman tomorrow. Tonight, if you thought ahead and reserved your spot, hit up the community’s celebration party at Frankford Hall in Fishtown. Details here.

John Perzel: former state Speaker of the House pleads guilty to software-driven corruption

Perzel entering Dauphin County courthouse Wednesday afternoon. (Via the Harrisburg Patriot-News)

John Perzel, the embattled, former powerful state Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, plead guilty to eight of 82 counts of corruption, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first reported. The plea bargain comes ahead of a planned trial this fall.

The corruption charges largely stemmed from accusations that Perzel masterminded the spending of $10 million in taxpayer dollars to deploy a software system to evaluate voter trends meant to keep GOP lawmakers in power. Others in Perzel’s Northeast Philadelphia district office plead guilty last month. The minimum sentence for Perzel is 18 months and the maximum is 24 years, the Tribune Review reported.

From 2007 to 2010, Perzel, a 30-year veteran, lost his speaker role, was indicted and then lost the 172nd legislative district seat to young Democrat Kevin Boyle, who had never won an election before.

Read more in a comprehensive package by Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal site NEast Philly covering John Perzel.

[Full Disclosure: This reporter also worked on that NEast Philly report.]

Could 1800 Arch Street become another Comcast tower?: Roundup [VIDEO]

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates

• Another Comcast tower in Center City? [Inquirer: Philly Deals] — New plans for 1800 Arch Street
• Court Rejects Comcast’s Attempt to Throw Out 8-Year-Old Class Action Suit [V2M]  — “A federal appeals court has affirmed a judge’s decision to certify a class-action lawsuit against Comcast in an eight-year-old case over whether the cable TV giant violated antitrust law by engaging in anticompetitive behavior in Chicago and Philadelphia.”

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