Event highlights for the week of July 27 – August 2, 2009

It’s true, folks. Media is no longer the empire it once was.

That’s why we’re psyched to see Saturday’s all-day DIY Days, featuring an impressive list of innovative speakers ranging from writers to filmmakers to musicians to game developers, all there to try to figure out the future. Represented organizations include Wired, Weathervane Music, P’unk Ave, Philly.com’s Phrequency and more. Hell, even the Blair Witch Project made it on the list.

Our guess, which is hardly a guess? All are secret techheads. Gadget geeks. Media monsters. Which is why you should be there. You’re thinking: this must cost like a million bucks, right? Two Grants? A Benji?

What’s that? It’s free? Gosh it’s good to do it yourself.

Another hot development? Looks like a group of gamers is getting together to explore the possibility of bringing a LAN Party biz to the city. The complaint is that there’s plenty of LAN locales in the ‘burbs, but nothing that you can bike or walk to (unless you’ve got Schwarzenegger legs). As always, we’re psyched to see some more developments in Philadelphia’s gaming community, including this one from Philadelphia LAN Party.

For the Web developers, Philadelphia Drupal Camp is sold out, but waiting for last minute cancellations. And maybe you know somebody, wink wink. If you can’t make it in, you can always sharpen up on the basics with HTML for Beginners.

A few other events and plenty of links to our comprehensive events calendar, after the jump.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

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Friday Q&A: New Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce head Rob Wonderling

Rob Wonderling is losing his office in the Harrisburg State Capitol complex.

On Aug. 1, the two-term Republican state senator from Delaware County will report to the Avenue of the Arts as the new president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, as the private, 5,000-member organization announced last month.

By taking the helm of the region’s largest business advocacy organization, he says he’s eager to rebolden the region’s new business community.

“We’ve really lost the language of entrepreneurship [in the region],” Wonderling, 47, says. “Risk taking and capital and job creation are almost scurrilous terms in some political quarters. I feel very passionately that for a free democratic society, we need all of that.”

He has startups on the brain — even if startups aren’t exactly in his past.

Before winning his district in 2002, wunderkid Wonderling served as deputy secretary of transportation to then-Gov. Tom Ridge. He spent the previous decade working for Bentley Systems, an Exton-based software firm whom we’ve profiled and Allentown-based Air Products and Chemicals.

Those gigs are more representative of his gadget trigger. See, Wonderling is something of a tech head, having professed that his Blackberry made him a better legislator.

“If you want to be an effective public servant, you really need to master emerging communication tools and techniques that mirror the way constituents are getting their information,” Wonderling, who was among the first Pennsylvania lawmakers to use a handheld wireless device as a legislative tool, told me last summer. “We’re a more mobile culture. I need to be, too.”

Wonderling’s ascension as the Chamber chief after former Gov. Mark Schweiker — who is taking an executive gig with Center City-based business services company PRWT — ended a six-year term was not without criticism.

There was some speculation after Schweiker announced his impending resignation that the Chamber might hire a female or minority chairman for the first time in its 208-year history, as the Business Journal reported, but still the Wonderling choice seemed to surprise few.

The young legislator could even be positioning himself for a possible gubernatorial run in 2014, as suggested by conservative columnist and Pottstown Mercury city editor Tony Phyrillas, who noted Wonderling signed just a three-year contract. Already there are a host of political ramifications from Wonderling’s departure.

But in an exclusive interview with Technically Philly, Wonderling stays off politics and instead tells us how he’ll use, promote and cultivate technology at the Chamber and throughout the region. He also uses the word “scurrlous” unprompted.

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PECO invests $4 million in smart distribution switches

PECO customers in the Philadelphia region could soon notice improvements to their electrical service. Or if things go as planned, they won’t notice at all.

PECO announced yesterday that 50 “smart” switches, which help prevent wide outages and improve service, are being installed on its grid in Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties this year, according to a press release.

At $50,000 to $60,000 per device, PECO has invested $4 million into the project. Installation will begin as soon as this month in Media, North Wales and the Roxborough section of northwest Philadelphia.

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AT&T taking on IT work for Wawa

AT&T is going to help make sure you get that hoagie of yours.

Our beloved Wawa transitioned much of its IT infrastructure to an operation fully managed by AT&T yesterday, according to a company press release.

The mini-mart retailer signed a new five-year contract with AT&T to migrate and host its existing SAP applications, which consists of more than 30 servers used by more than 15,000 employees across the region. Wawa first began using SAP for its retail IT in 2005.

Wawa has grown from a small milk-delivery company to the region’s third largest food merchant in its 45 years. For a large chain, most customer love remains high. Now if only they’d come back to Philadelphia in a big way.

The full integration of AT&T management was scheduled to happen within 18 hours, so if you pop in today for coffee, you can thank the Dallas, Texas-based telecommunications behemoth.