At Twiistup we believe that a key element to any successful business venture is generating energy and excitement from those that can help move an idea along. Twiistup was created as a catalyst for making that happen, within our local tech communities, by bringing together the best and brightest tech talent in SoCal (not including the SV crashers.)
Twiistup was created out of sheer determination to bring something new and unique to SoCal’s networking scene. Mike Macadaan was seeking to fill a need for a fun, tech-focused event that would showcase up-and-coming companies, while providing a casual environment for discovery and networking. No easy feat to get off the ground and started, yet here we are on the third one! The past two events were both ‘sell outs’ with a waiting list of more people wanting in. No surprise really given the vocal endorsements from local industry pundits who are taking this next Twiistup event to an entirely new level.
The Twiistup Team
Twiistup was founded by Mike Macadaan. Based in Silicon Valley, Mike has worked with a wide range of tech and media companies including TechTV, GO.com, Intuit and most recently as Senior Director of Design at AOL. He currently oversees user experience design teams in Mountain View, Los Angeles and Dulles. While his main focus is centered on delivering web products, he also has a knack for innovation within the context of small to large companies.
Steph Macadaan / Steph’s past life in public and media relations was spent educating consumers on health, safety and insurance issues. Through appearances on hundreds of local and national news programs, Steph became a voice of the insurance industry. Steph also is an experienced event planner, who admits she can throw one hell of a party. Steph married into the tech industry and is an avid user of the worldwide interweb (that’s geeky, right?).
Nicole Jordan / Nicole’s love for the tech business is genetic. She was born in Mountain View to parents who worked at companies like Fairchild, AMD and a little start-up called Intel. The majority of her career has been in The Valley, jumping in during the late 90’s to work with a number of .coms and then jumping quickly out in 2000 to represent a more stable company, Apple. Her love for all things business, geek tech and digital entertainment have taken her from the Bay Area to New York and now to Los Angeles. She’s involved with a number of networking events and organizations and doesn’t mind it one bit when her friends tease that she’s a bit of a tech socialite.
Heather Schlegel // heathervescent The rare combination of style and substance, heathervescent is no stranger to geek gatherings. Over the past two year she has built up an LA Technology community coordinating monthly geek dinners and twice produced Barcamp LA, an ad-hoc technology conference. Equally comfortable coding lolcode, evangelizing innovative technology or ad-libbing ppt karaoke, Heather brings energy, mad skillz and a passion for technology to everything she does.