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OutCast is known for personalized, intimate dinners that bring together clients and industry VIPs with a small, targeted group of editors and reporters, offering them a casual environment for great food, wine and conversation. These media events – collectively known as The OutCast Dinner Club – have successful paved the way for excellent client relationships with key business and technology press.
Since 2002, OutCast has also hosted a larger, annual media event – The OutCast CEO Dinner. The CEO Dinner takes the Dinner Club to the next level – a large-scale evening event that spans multiple clients, many of our key local press and OutCast friends and family, including Silicon Valley VIPs.
The 2008 CEO Dinner
On June 5, 2008, OutCast Communications invited Silicon Valley's top trendsetters to San Francisco's historic waterfront Ferry Building for their Seventh Annual CEO Dinner.
The grand evening included over 140 guests who partook in cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and live music while they enjoyed the breathtaking views, architecture, and company. Guests included OutCast clients Aliph, Facebook, Mozilla Corporation, Yahoo! Inc., Nickelodeon, and salesforce.com; and influential members of the press from 60 Minutes, CNET News, Condé Nast Portfolio, Forbes, Fortune, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Economist, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and WIRED Magazine.
AfterHours 2007
On October 11, 2007, OutCast Communications held its second annual After Hours. More than 250 attendees, including OutCast clients, CEOs, VIPs, friends and reporters, joined in the festivities at Frisson Restaurant for music, hors d'oeuvres and great conversation.
Throughout the night, guests packed into an old fashioned photo booth that captured million dollar smiles and outgoing personalities!
The photo booth snapped shots of guests including those from Adobe, Apax Partners, Associated Press, Business Week, CNET News, Cross Worlds, EMC Corporation, Forbes, Foundation Capital, GH Capital, Los Angeles Times, Mozilla, New York Times, salesforce.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Soultions Biz, StumbleUpon, SVP Solutions Biz, Trident Capital, VMWare, Wall Street Journal, WIRED Magazine, Yahoo! Inc., and Zimbra, among others.
The 2007 CEO Dinner
Contemporary art lined the walls of San Francisco’s Terra Gallery on May 3, where some of Silicon Valley’s most influential players joined OutCast for the 2007 CEO Dinner.
Cocktails and dinner were served for 140 guests including OutCast clients Novazone, salesforce.com, Yahoo!, Metaweb, Omniture, RSA, EMC Corporation, Zazzle.com, and Zimbra; venture capitalists from Azure Capital Partners, Foundation Capital Partners, Khosla Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; and members of the press from Bloomberg News, Conde Nast Portfolio, Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Wall Street Journal.
After Hours 2006
After Hours, the CEO Dinner’s rambunctious younger brother, took place October 19, 2006.
Nearly 200 attendees, including OutCast clients, friends and reporters, joined in the festivities at Roe Restaurant for music, hors d'oeuvres and great conversation.
Throughout the night, guests packed into a photo booth where their pictures were taken and printed, as mementos of the night.
The photo booth snapped shots of such guests as those from Yahoo!, Google, salesforce.com, VMware, Dell, LaLa Media, Facebook.com, Ingres, EMC, StumbleUpon.com, Zazzle.com, Mozilla, Zimbra, Foundation Capital, Walden Capital, Garnett & Helfrich Capital, Azure Capital Partners, Associated Press, BusinessWeek, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, and Wired.com.
The 2006 CEO Dinner
More than 100 guests gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel on May 18 for the fifth annual CEO Dinner.
Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketing innovator, Peter Hirshberg spoke at the event and discussed the timely topic of the disruptive rise of audience and user created content.
The OutCast time capsule also debuted at the dinner. Guests were given the chance to make personal and industry predictions that would be read at the next year’s dinner. Guesses ranged from the professional, such as possible future technology, to the humorous, such as the lasting power of Britney Spears’ marriage.
Guests included OutCast clients from Dell, Foundation Capital, Garnett & Helfrich Capital, Fortify Software, salesforce.com, and Zimbra; and journalists from Barron’s, Dow Jones News Service, The Economist, Forbes, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, TIME, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
The 2005 CEO Dinner
It was a balmy evening and a beautiful setting as OutCast welcomed friends, clients and press to the W Hotel for our 4th Annual CEO Dinner.
The evening was a truly successful exercise in combining the professional with the personal. Great networking isn’t all business, according to this year's featured guest Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, and at OutCast we strive to concoct the perfect blend of news and insight with just the right amount of personal touch. It’s akin to Spock sharing intimacies, as Tom Foremski reported in his blog on the event. Not easily done and certainly not without risk. Specifically, as Tom added “You have no idea how cruel Vulcan kids can be.”
Nearly 150 of the technology industry’s best and brightest were able to join us: from technology visionaries, to the press corps dedicated to covering their travails, to the venture community, all were present and accounted for.
Guests included OutCast clients such as blinkx, Determina, Dust Networks, EMC, Fortify Software, JotSpot, Macromedia, Navio, PodShow, salesforce.com, SimpleFeed, VMware, Wyse, Yahoo!, Zazzle and Zimbra; venture capitalists from Apax Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Garnett & Helfrich Capital, Greylock Partners, Hummer Winblad, TPG Ventures and Walden Venture Capital; and press from AP, Barron’s, BusinessWeek, CNBC, CNET, Dow Jones, Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, NPR, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME and Wall Street Journal.
The 2004 CEO Dinner
The 2004 CEO Dinner returned to the Clift Hotel on October 20, and featured National Public Radio star Peter Sagal. Peter is the host of NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”, a radio quiz show that tests participants’ knowledge of current events from around the world. Despite competition from Game 7 of the Red Sox/Yankees League Championship Series, the dinner was a big success, with nearly 100 executive and media attendees (and a smartly placed plasma screen television).
Guests included the CEOs of OutCast clients ArcSight, Dust Networks, Fortify Software, Oblix, Traverse Networks and VMware; venture capitalists from Apax Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, and Garnett & Helfrich Capital; and press from Barron’s, BusinessWeek, CNBC, CNET, Dow Jones, Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, Reuters, TIME and Wall Street Journal. The evening ended with our own version of “Wait, Wait” and a randomly chosen panel of guests that Peter quizzed on everything from presidential debate trivia to the latest trends in perfumes.
The 2003 CEO Dinner
The second annual CEO Dinner was held at San Francisco’s Farallon Restaurant, where we presented an interactive discussion between Jim Collins, called the “most influential management thinker” by Fortune Magazine, and Kevin Maney, columnist for USA Today. Jim interviewed Kevin about his recently released book, “The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM,” then lead a question-and-answer session that engaged each table of attendees. The audience was able to quiz Kevin on IBM trivia, dissect Jim’s books (“Good to Great” and “Built to Last”), and ask both for their thoughts on current industry trends.
More than 80 guests included executives from IBM, Macromedia, Mercury, Microsoft and salesforce.com, and press from Baseline, Bloomberg, Business 2.0, Fortune, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today and Ziff Davis.
The 2002 CEO Dinner
Our inaugural CEO Dinner was in May 2002 at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco. A panel of client CEOs – Marc Benioff of salesforce.com, Gordon Eubanks of Oblix, Danny Shader of Good Technology and Bob Spinner of Extensity – participated in a dialogue led by industry veteran Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences and other IDG executive events. The panelists discussed trends, new technologies and the future of the market, and answered questions from an audience of just over 60 attendees.