About Our Name
Chuck Scott first coined the phrase "CoolTea" when joking with colleagues about what was the opposite of hot Java - a Sun Microsystem web technology that was all the rage at trade expos in 95/96 which showed great promise but was seemingly not yet ready for prime time.Soon thereafter, CoolTea.com was registered in July of 1996 and CoolTea was presented as an acronym for, "COmputing On Line for Total Economic, Educational, and Entertainment Advantage."
The first CoolTea logo used a triple E in Tea as graphic treatment since we reasoned that all online activities could be reduced to any one or hybrid of these three E's (i.e., economic, education, entertainment).
With acronym in hand, we started to expand on the business premise.
About Our Path
Sensing that web technologies would revolutionize the global business scene and that University students were often the ones pushing the tech bars, CoolTea first set out to develop networking-showcasing road shows that bridged community and business leaders with University talents.Our first two events in the Cambridge area were moderately successful.
We quickly realized that without a dedicated database of prospective business leaders, we would be paying too much in advertising and promotion hence shelved the initial concept.
In the late 1990's we opted to try again, but this time by focusing on own Fairfield County Connecticut backyard - e.g., develop mindshare among influentials in a highly competitive, commuter-intensive, secondary market, where discretionary time-cost is at a premium for busy professionals.
We succeeded and by 2002, CoolTea became well known in the Fairfield/Westchester region for our MixedBrew business networking events - these were large, unstructured, theme based events that routinely attracted hundreds of attendees per event, which created a buzz and helped build a loyal list of thousands of influentials.
Since then, CoolTea branched out into other event models - like GoBoardRoom luncheons, CoolTea Talks, Blog and Dine Dinners, NetworkingU University Panels - plus has continued to innovate online solutions that foster business connections!
