Today's #BigDOCC meetup was at the Flying Horse Cafe in the Magnolia hotel in downtown Dallas. The ceiling in the Magnolia lobby / elevator area was really cool. Did anyone else notice that?

The meeting today was much smaller than last week's. Maybe 10 to 15 people attended. Just like last week, we had a pretty diverse group of people and topics. Here's an overview:

Upcoming Events:

2/26/2014 9:00 a.m : 1 Million Cups : 1 hour presentations for local startups every Wednesday. On 2/26, Foot Cardigan and Mizzen & Main will be presenting. A few months ago, I got to see Kevin Lavelle from Mizzen & Main presenting at Dallas New Tech. It's great to see them continuing to get coverage and represent in Dallas.

2/26/2014 7:30 a.m. Venture Spur Black Box Breakfast : If you'd like to enjoy a nice breakfast and hear stories from fellow entrepreneurs before 1 Million Cups, this is your chance. It seems to be a pretty limited size; so, get in while you can.

2/28/2014 3:00 p.m. VentureSpur Community Office Hours : Startups looking for an opportunity to speak with Venture Spur can attend this open office event in OKC.

More Events : Check out the LaunchDFW Events Calendar. You can also post events there.

Hiring / Seeking

Sharma P. has experience in trend research, statistics, and strategy. Her past experience is in the automotive industry, but her skills are relevant in any technology area. Reach out to her if you need an experienced data analyst.

New Attendees

Everyone say "Hi" to Phillip Show. Phillip works for 700 Business Solutions.

Beth Lahie joined us today as well. Beth works for HUGEdata. HUGEdata provides Big Data analysis and management infrastructure.

Michael (?), a charter member of #BigDOCC has come back after a hiatus. If you like Shiner Bock and feel like sporting their swag, he owns their E-commerce business.

Acquisitions

General Topics

  • More NSA/Snowden Fallout : Germany and Brazil are collaborating with new satellites and undersea fiber to elude the NSA.

  • Talented and driven students may get crowdfunding. Pave will invest in high potential students and individuals in return for 10% of their pay based on future performance.

  • More #BigDOCC Topics througout the week : https://twitter.com/search?q=%23bigdocc&src=typd

  • Artificial Flesh and Genome Modified Babies : Well isn't this a bit morbid. Our robot lords will soon be smarter than us and might look completely human. That's if they aren't bred into our babies before birth - just add Jan, Jim, and an AS/400 to the mix and Terminator be damned! We won't be able to tell the difference like in Gattaca.

  • More nails in the FaceBook teen coffin, 77% of college students use SnapChat to evade their parents and grandparents - sorry Phillip.

  • USAA is opening a 700 emloyee, high tech center in Plano.

  • Michael Sitarzewski - We need to thank our organizer and host. If you want to connect to Michael, use this website.

  • GageIn : "Google Alerts on Steroids" - Get news and profiles on companies you want to track.

  • The DEC Ambassador Program : If you'd like to help the Dallas startup community, consider applying to The DEC Ambassador Program. Ambassadors will help organize events, manage social media campaigns, and generally aid DFW startups.

  • BitCoin - Everyone loves this train wreck / moon shot (depends on your views) topic. Today's highlights:

The #BigDOCC Topic of the Day

Last week, BitCoin was the overriding topic. Today, we mainly discussed the possibility of DFW "owning" the retail / restaurant tech industry. Silicon Valley has the Internet, Houston has "Energy". Does Dallas "own" retail tech?

We talked a bit about how DFW doesn't really have a close-knit restaurant culture due to our lack of any pedestrian access, but boy do we have some restaurants! DFW also has a disproportionate share of the major restaurant and retail chains' headquarters.

If you're in retail tech, it's pretty easy to setup test beds here. We discussed / hoped that our burgeoning tech scene won't collapse like the Telecom Corridor did.