A little less than two weeks ago, we announced a happy hour event to gather Triangle bloggers together to eat, drink and chat with Duke University about their new DukeEngage student service program. All in all, tonight’s event was a success, and enjoyable.

First off, a shoutout to Maxwell at Serena Restaurant and Bar. He and his crew served us well, and I promised him we’d be back for another event. The food is good, the beer cold and the wifi free and strong.

Bloggers and others in attendance tonight: Bora Zivkovic, Adam Vandenberg, BC, Jim Buie, Steve Cory, Laura Leslie, Stephen Fraser, Anton Zuiker, Jackson Fox, Will Raymond, Ryan Irelan, Josh Staiger, Dave Johnson, Bill Higgins, Karl Bates, David Jarmul, Mike Krempasky, Steve Field, Dan Barkin, Dan Kimberg, Carly Knight and Eric Mlyn.

After informal chatting, we gathered standing around a table and listened to Mlyn tell us about DukeEngage. He seems to be very open to ideas and proposals and advice from all, bloggers included: “community partners will be important,” he said, and later encouraged us to contact him with ideas and proposals. (I’ll be following up with him about StoryBlogging, and a proposal to take a group of students to Vanuatu for a service project.) Kimberg and Knight, both Duke seniors, briefly explained why they think the Duke service program has promise — Knight’s face lit up with enthusiasm. Kimberg has raised more than $100,000 to fund his project Student U that ges college students to teach Durham middle school students.

At the end of the event, a group of us debated ways for WUNC and other local media companies to improve their online offerings, and we explored the opportunities for Duke to empower their students to communicate, both online and offline, about their service efforts and travels and academic pursuits. Quite a stimulating conversation. So, thanks to our sponsors (Duke, and their consultans Edelman), our host (Serena) and all the bloggers who joined us for this event.

UPDATE (from David Jarmul):

Thank you so much for inviting us to join your BlogTogether group last night at Serena. What an interesting evening! We went there expecting to tell people about the new DukeEngage program but ended up learning even more ourselves, about the possibilities of incorporating blogging and similar techniques into DukeEngage and other activities at Duke. Eric and I have already made plans for a follow-up conversation to explore this with some of our colleagues.