Judging by the list of events and parties over the past month and the future one, it seems what the Israeli hi-tech industry is best at is – conventions, conferences, unconferences, more events, and parties. Just got a new invitation for an industry event last night, and as someone posted on Facebook – my calendar burst out laughing.

I wonder why this is. I mean, for me, an entrepreneur working on my own at home, every event is a chance to meet my co-workers. Same as you people, who work at your offices, get a chance to chat with the person sitting next to you in the office, or to go out for lunch together. I get this chance at those events, and sometimes much more.

About a year ago I’ve decided there are enough events offered so people like me, the bootstrappers, can settle for free events, and actually do some work between one event and the other. One filter applied. But it’s still hard to choose.

Some events seem more important or even valuable than others: You’ve got to show your face, make sure someone takes a photo of you, preferably in the same frame as someone “famous”, don’t forget to tag yourself on Facebook – that’s how your co-workers the other entrepreneurs, not to mention the surrounding industries, will know you are alive and kicking and just about to make your big announcement. Networking is a big part of any entrepreneur’s job. When the time comes to raise funds or launch, who your friends are might come in handy.

This week was amazing: I’ll start with the obvious – The Marker’s “com.vention”. Two great blogs posts were written about it in Hebrew immediately after the event. Yami Glik wrote on “The co.ils” a post title “a reason to worry” – about how small the local dot-com industry really is and how obvious it was in this huge convention, where every body who is any body had to show their face, but no real networking was possible nor the contents was of any real value or information to the dot-com industry members. Read it here.

Yuval Dror wrote about it a funny blog post – “A twitted summary of the com.vention” – which gives a pretty accurate impression of the event. Yuval didn’t attend the event this year or last year, but what he writes, (read it here ) makes a pretty accurate description of the trend.

The groupies trend.

An urge to see and be seen. To brush against the leaders. To have this important sense of belonging (“for those who missed #techonomy you missed out big time…”), not to mention the even stronger feeling of “being chosen”, preferred, favored, to participate in such events like Kinnernet or TEDx TLV, strangely enough filtered by the same figure, who’s groupies we all are. Or should better be, if we want to have any chance of success in the small, intimate, interdependent community of startups in Israel.

See you all at the next event.:-)