The Boston/ Cambridge/ Route 128 area might have some of the best conditions for tech start-ups to thrive : Student brains, Universities, capital, established businesses, incubators...

But according to Christian Perry, an entrepreneur who specializes in producing networking events for start-ups, the city's "old-school" social structure can stymie young entrepreneurs.

"There's this artificial barrier on the East Coast between work lives and personal lives," proclaims Perry. "If you spent a couple of months in San Francisco, you'd be invited to parties every night - from karaoke to dinner parties to people's birthday parties."

According to Perry, a 27 year-old who spent a few years in Silicon Valley after college, this unstructured social world is one of the things that makes Silicon Valley a great incubator for tech companies.

"I've seen deals start to come together because of drinks people have had," Perry said. "You can say what you will about whether you have to be in Silicon Valley, but at the end of the day, it's the world's greatest technology ecosystem, and they do a lot of things extremely well."

Perry argues, though, that there's nothing special about Silicon Valley that makes that social structure unique to the region. And he's trying to change what he calls the "social exostructure" of the high-tech community in Boston, and elsewhere, by importing Silicon Valley's loose, horizontal structure to other places.

"As much as we can, we want to take what makes Silicon Valley work and bring it to cities everywhere else," he said.

Perry's company, Beta Ltd., hosts informal tech gatherings in over a half-dozen cities across the country, and he recently held his inaugural BostonBeta event at Kendall Square's Microsoft NERD Center.

Trade show with Cupcakes, Fake Cash, and Booze

BostonBeta, a hybrid of a trade show, networking conference, and a social event, drew nearly two hundred people from within and around the tech community to the stylish conference room of Microsoft's NERD Center. --

Perched at the edge of the Longfellow Bridge, and overlooking the Charles River and the Boston night skyline, guests were feted with Cosi coffee and cupcakes from Sweet (itself a 2008 local startup). Cash bars on either end of the room helped ensure that guests wouldn't mistake BostonBeta for an "old-school Boston" business function.

BostonBeta featured a friendly competition as well. Each attendee was handed three poker chips upon entry, and told that the chips each represented $10,000 to be "invested" in companies of their choosing. The companies with the most chips -- and the most investment cash -- won bragging rights.

My first stop was at TurnStar (which was called Textaurant before the event, and briefly changed its name to Turnstar, and subsequently has changed its name back to Textaurant), a company selling software that allows restaurant hostesses to buzz patrons' phones with text messages when their tables are ready (replacing the often-bulky pagers restaurants have used for decades.)

TurnStar marketing manager Meredith Childs took a turn demonstrating the software -- a couple of taps on her iPad, and I started receiving text messages telling me my table (at an imaginary BostonBeta restaurant) would be ready soon.

Childs said she looks forward to events like BostonBeta for the chance to introduce herself and her company (which she'd joined a couple of months prior) to the Greater Boston entrepreneurial community.

"If you don't get out there, no one's going to know who you are," Childs said. "And it's a great chance to practice your pitch."

Farrell McClernon was one of three employees manning a booth for Privy, a startup that helps companies embed coupon software in their own web sites or Facebook pages.

Privy's booth scored a great location next to one of the bars.

"This is prime real estate, man," she said. "I know. I used to work in real estate."

Privy may not have needed the real estate to garner attention. The company offers restaurants, salons, and retailers the chance to offer rewards to their most loyal customers directly (without a third-party site like Groupon), and already has about 15 customers.

Dan Vidal, the co-founder of ArtVenue -- a company that links artists with pieces to sell with businesses who want art to display in their offices, dining rooms, and retail spaces -- had even more confidence. His young company already has 400 artists and over 30 businesses signed up - and within two weeks of launching its pay system, the company had already processed two dozen art sales (which earn the hosting business 20 percent commission - and ArtVenue 10 percent) .

Vidal even managed to sign a new business at BostonBeta. "We just signed a bank an hour ago," he said, about halfway through the event.

Competing for Attention

ArtVenue wound up winning BostonBeta's informal competition, collecting $900,000 in Beta money (or, if you'd prefer, 90 poker chips) from the attendees. Privy and TurnStar also scored highly. And while that competition was merely for bragging rights, many of the companies featured at BostonBeta came fresh from MassChallenge (local incubator), which has evolved into one of the premier events supporting Boston's burgeoning tech/startup culture.

Vidal said he came up with the idea for his ArtVenue just a week before the MassChallenge deadline, and had to scramble to put together a business plan - but for his trouble, he received a $50,000 Gold prize from MassChallenge.

While MassChallenge has higher stakes than BostonBeta, the atmosphere is similar, with entrepreneurs and professionals probing each others' businesses, asking tough questions to try to make each other stronger.

I spent a few minutes at TapLab's booth, and heard Bisceglia field questions ranging from "What games did you play as a kid?" to "How can you make REAL money playing this game?"

Could BostonBeta have preserved Facebook as a Boston area startup?

Perry wants to make sure high-tech startups in Boston have stronger resources. He said things are already headed in that direction, "You see more incubators opening, MassChallenge is becoming more popular. This month, there was something going on [in Boston] every day."

Even attendees who didn't have an official booth at BostonBeta still had ideas to promote. Richard Bond, a computer programmer attending as a guest, touted his recent work-- building a live streaming website for "Radio Bar," a new live music venue in Somerville's Union Square.

He also underscored how important informal socializing can be to a career in the tech economy. Bond told a story of a group of young tech professionals he met several years ago, who offered him a job programming for a social media start-up.

The only catch -- he'd have to move to Silicon Valley with them.

He declined.

A few months later, he started noticing the head of that group of techies -- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg -- on magazine covers everywhere.

Discussing BostonBeta after the event, Perry pointed to recent statements Zuckerberg made to Harvard students as evidence that Boston can be a vibrant and successful hub for entrepreneurs.

"If I were starting now, I think I would have stayed in Boston," Zuckerberg said, explaining that a lot of the startup culture in Silicon Valley is far too short-term focused.

At the same time, Zuckerberg admitted that as a startup, he only survived because of the resources that were available in Silicon Valley to young companies in the mid-2000s.

Perry hopes to continue his mission with another BostonBeta event within the next couple of months, as soon as he can finalize a date with the Microsoft Center. In the meantime? He's busy launching DublinBeta.