Tonight I’m presenting a lightening talk at the ICT Illawarra event, our final event for 2009. Entitled “Plugging into the Startup Scene”, I try to capture in a 5 minute talk some steps that can help Australian technology entrepreneurs to get connected to the thriving and growing community of innovation and entrepreneurship happening in Australia. Presentation embedded below.

The key lessons are:

1. Join the conversation: the single best way is to join the Silicon Beach Australia group; with over 700 members and almost 4000 posts in just over 12 months, this is one thriving community (and one that is very generous with its advice, too)
2. Track events and activities: many who’ve experienced Silicon Valley will tell you it is the face to face, person to person conversations and connections that make the place so successful. There’s a surprising amount happening in Australia, particularly in Sydney. Join the Silicon Beach Drinks weekly, attend one of the many Open Coffee meetups if you’re looking for something more family friendly, and consider joining the Australian Technology Showcase: they do lots of great events.
3. Watch and listen from afar: there is a massive roster of tech events held in the US, and thankfully plummeting streaming costs combined with the egos of event organisers and speakers means you can now watch high quality, expensive and previously inaccessible events from your own desk. Find an event you rate – like the recent Web 2.0 Summit – and check to see if they’ll be streaming it. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and their Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series, which you can watch or download a podcast of online.

If you’ve got some suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.