Radio Star Karaoke — A Night Out in New York

Originally, I wasn’t going to post photos from the Delivery Summit social events. However, after merely uploading one photo of Jared and Chisa dancing on Instagram… not only did my site traffic quadruple, but I’ve been receiving endless emails (from friendlies) about adding more photos.

It seems that other coworkers want to know how us crazy Leads burn off stress.

Social events took place in three locations… I’m only going to mention Radio Star because the restaurant we went to (which I won’t name) gets full thumbs down from everyone who attended for multiple reasons. There was a Twitter storm about the fiasco.

Karaoke is a long-standing project tradition in ThoughtWorks and other companies I’ve worked for; heading out for Karaoke after events or a stressful project day has been the norm for as long as I’ve been in IT. And, we also happened to be pretty close to Koreatown in New York, where the streets are packed with karaoke bars.

My experience in New York (based on one night) seems to be different from a place like San Francisco where professional Karaoke is a serious business and singers are often better than the actual owner of the song (e.g. Katie Perry or Lady Gaga). Rather than try to perform in a well established and cutthroat industry, we do private karaoke, which essentially means renting a room. It’s way more fun and there’s no competition.

I don’t think I will ever forget the experience of arriving at Radio Star and walking into our room. A few of us arrived late and had to walk down a seemingly long and quiet hallway devoid of people. It seemed dubious until we opened the door and the blast of noise and activity blew our hair backwards.

And, the craziness continued for many hours.