You may have seen Andy Sack’s blog last month on lessons he learned from having cancer.  It struck a big cord for me so I’m using it as the catalyst to say thank you to the folks that give so much time and talent to our tech community, Andy being one.

From the WTIA’s vantage point I get to see the magnitude of what goes on across our tech landscape from industry, individuals, the public sector, and academia.  We are an amazing community.  To everyone that comes through the WTIA’s doors and lets us serve, thank you.

Thanks to the folks who have made the 1^st month of 2013 a hit for events – both speakers and attendees.  Predictions is my favorite WTIA annual event; here’s why .  Our new Tech-in-Focus series started with a cloud computing event at F5 that was standing room only.   Your attendance is the qualitative side of measuring our effectiveness.  January’s turn out and speaker engagement tell us it’s working.

A special thanks to the WTIA board who are fired up to move our strategic initiatives forward. Early Stage relevance (led by Chris DeVore and Gail DeGiulio), Work Force Development (led by Tayloe Washburn), Policy Advocacy (led by Ed Lazowska), and Member Growth (led by David McCann and Janice Anderson) are the key focal areas for our efforts this year.  You’ll hear more about how these play out during the coming months.

The WTIA shouts out *thank you* to the incredible organizations, groups and individuals actively engaged in keeping Washington a vibrant growing tech hub.  This is the organizational equivalent to “tell someone you love them.”   There, I said it.  Thanks for the reminder Andy.

~Susan