As an emerging company within the New Zealand domain technology industry, we take our community responsibilities seriously. But there's a sound business strategy behind being a friendly neighbour. We are only as good as the people around us.

At iWantMyName we are firmly committed to engaging with our local tech community. That's why we are right behind event organisers such as Unlimited Potential and Startup Weekend. Such events fit nicely with our own tech mentorship initiative too. We organise and contribute to one or two tech meetups around Wellington because developers are a core audience for us. We also get a huge thrill seeing the successes of other tech firms and sharing the good news with others.

We have selfish reasons as well. Starting and growing a tech company is a big job that requires entrepreneurs to draw on external skill sets and knowledge sometimes. It's good for any new venture to get to know its neighbours. We also love getting feedback about new features; and when things go wrong (as they occasionally do with most tech sites) we'd rather hear about it from our friends first.

Apart from supporting community events we also use local businesses. In fact we are excited to be working with one of the coolest little Wellington web design companies around as we give our site search functionality a Spring clean and makeover. After a hard day's blogging and hacking we also hang out at craft beer pub Little Beer Quarter and we do most of our coffee meetings over at Meow Cafe.

New Zealand is facing a lot of challenges at present and it is only through building strong communities and supporting local businesses that we can make progress. We will be at the UP AGM and Beer Tasting and at Startup Social next week. Maybe, see you there?