This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day, yo! Kudos to peeps on front lines interacting with customers. MRY hosting Lunch & Learn. There are open CM jobs at BuzzFeed, Quirky, First Mark, Meetup, Greatist, About.com, Shutterstock, and RRE.

Tomorrow is Data Privacy Day. Celebrate with these events: Town Hall & Breach Readiness Workshop & Screening of Terms & Conditions May Apply (trailer). Legal Hackathon on Feb 8.

On Feb. 12: Industries & Mkts 2014: Whats Hot & Not @ Orrick w/ Eliot Durbin (BOLDstart), Weston Gaddy (Bain), Kane Hsieh (RRE), Spencer Lazar (General Catalyst), Micah Rosenbloom (Founder Collective), Adam Rothenberg (Box Group).

Coming soon. Apr. 4 is Start NY. It’s NYC’s premier startup event at Javits.

Cause Spotlight: My friend Linda Liukas is founder of Rails Girls, community for women to learn tech, prototyping & programming & build their ideas. Linda also just launched kickstarter project, Hello Ruby, a fun storybook to help kids learn programming concepts! It shot past initial goal of $ 10k to $ 182k.

Jan. 30 Prologue Sessions w/ Steven Fulop (Mayor, Jersey City), Rameet Chawla (Fueled), Kathryn Minshew (Muse) 5 Free Passes! Feb. 19 Startup Grind w/ Jeff Pulver (Co-founder Zula & Vonage and Investor, Twitter) 3 Free Passes! Feb. 21 Startup Weekend 4 Free Passes! (2 for participants, 2 for demo day). Feb. 22 StrategyHack Marketing Hackathon (apply by Feb. 1) 5 Free Passes!.

This week … Jan. 28 Diversity in Tech w/ Jen Lawton (President, Makerbot), Eric Adams (Brooklyn Boro President), 5 Free Passes! Jan. 29 Intro to Pricing w/ Arie Abecassis (DreamIt) 5 Free Passes! Jan. 29 Google Apps w/ Arun Nagarajan.

Coming up … Feb. 1 ProjectXpresso pairing students w/ professionals for 15 min Skype convos (tell ‘em why you love your job!). Feb. 5 E-Commerce Idea to Concept w/ Chad Rubin (Crucial Vacuum) 2 Free Passes! Mar. 21 500 Startups Commercism (2 Free Passes worth $ 400 each).

Don’t forget! ==> Apply to Cornell NYC Tech by Feb. 1. Awesome Computer Science Masters program w/ exposure to real world entrepreneurship.

Public hearing tomorrow on regulation of Bitcoin @ Dept of Fin. Services. NYC Dept of Small Biz Services Web Development Fellowship ==> FREE training w/ Flatiron School ($ 12k value) for 28 students. Nice! Apply by Jan 31. EDesign & 4.0 Schools 12 wk Prototyping Bootcamp for digital learning! Apply by Feb 3.

Only a few days left! ==> TurnToTech 12 wk iOS bootcamp! No payment till job placement And Startup CEOs/CTOs, NYCEDC accepting Round 2 registrations (1st-come, 1st-served) to speak at Tech Talent Draft @ Brown, Cornell & Penn. Apply to Startup Bus! And Downtown Brooklynites, get free Fon WiFi router.

Bunch o’ deadlines … Jan. 30 Veterans Entrepreneurship. Feb. 2 Macys Workshop for women & minorities. Feb. 21 Hardware Making Cities Better competition (with BMW Mini). Feb. 27 Girls Who Code Summer 2014 Immersion program. Mar. 12 ConnectNYC Free Fiber Access!

And now let’s see whats going down in the Alley this week…

Community Manager Appreciation Day
With Don Steele (SVP, Comedy Central) & Aaron Clossey (Social Media Mgr, Jetsetter).
Monday (Jan 27), 1 p.m. @ MRY, 11 W 19th St

[Data Privacy Day] Town Hall & Breach Readiness Workshop
With Jordan Loyd (FBI), Deborah Marrone (FTC), Clark Russell (Asst Attorney General NY), Richard Weaver (comScore) & others.
Tuesday (Jan 28), 8 a.m. @ Baruch College, 151 E 25th St, 7th Fl

Diversity In Tech Conference
With Jennifer Lawton (President, Makerbot), Eric Adams (Brooklyn Boro President), David Ehrenberg (Brooklyn Navy Yard), William Crowder (DreamIt Ventures) & others.
Tuesday (Jan 28), 2:30 p.m. @ Brooklyn Navy Yard @ BLDG 92, 63 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn

Data Driven NYC #23
With Ian White (CTO, Sailthru), Jordy Leiser (CEO, StellaService), Josh Green (CEO, Panjiva), Corey Pierson (CEO, Custora) & Vijay Subramanian (Chief Analytics Officer, RentTheRunway).
Tuesday (Jan 28), 5:30 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Fl

NYC Tech Talent Draft – Startup Panel & Networking
NYC’s hottest startups & firsthand glimpse of exciting job opptys
Tuesday (Jan 28), 6 p.m. @ Davis Auditorium @ Columbia University, 500 W 120th St

Startup Demo Night Series #20 (European Startups)
With Alex Iskold (MD, Techstars NYC), Gil Beyda (Founder, Genacast Ventures), Brian Sheng (Managing Partner, DreamTech Ventures). Demos by Guidewall, Localize Direct, iList & Creddly.
Tuesday (Jan 28), 6:30 p.m. @ Touro College, 65 Broadway

Business of Sport Forum – Football Edition
With Jim Cramer (CNBC Mad Money), Geoff Reiss (Head, Twitter Sports), Eric Shanks (President & COO, Fox Sports) and NFL Star, Osi Umenyiora.
Thursday (Jan 30), 5:30 p.m. @ Marquee, 289 10th Ave

Harrys – An Agile Success Story
With team from Harry’s – Vikram Oberoi (Developer), Allie Melnick (Marketing), Katie Rogers (Customer Experience) & Will Freund (Biz Ops).
Thursday (Jan 30), 6:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 625 Ave of the Americas, 2nd Fl

Panel Discussion – Equity Crowdfunding
With John Frankel (ff Venture Capital), Steve Ferrando (Co-Founder, CrowdClear), Aaron Kellner (Co-Founder, SeedInvest) & others.
Thursday (Jan 30), 6:30 p.m. @ Bryan Cave, 1290 Ave of the Americas

Prologue Sessions
With Steven Fulop (Mayor, Jersey City), Rameet Chawla (Founder, Fueled) & Kathryn Minshew (Co-Founder, The Muse).
Thursday (Jan 30), 7 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Fl

SmartPitch Challenge
Guiding student entrepreneurs thru initial stages of business formation. 1st Place: $ 10,000!, 2nd Place: $ 7,500, 3rd Place: $ 5,000
Friday (Jan 31), 10 a.m. @ Baruch College, 55 Lexington Ave, Room 14-220

Startup Weekend Edu
Challenge ==> Connect underserved youths with career opptys in tech.
Friday (Jan 31), 6 p.m. @ EdTech, 395 Hudson St, 3rd Fl

More events on the horizon…
[CSNYC] Women in CS – How to get girls interested and involved on Feb 03 @ Union Square Ventures
Legal Tech on Feb 04 @ Hilton NY
Masters of Advertising – Converge Collide Connect on Feb 04 @ Aol HQ
UES Tech Breakfast on Feb 05 @ Eli’s Manhattan
Bringing Your E-Commerce Idea to Concept on Feb 05 @ General Assembly West
Village Tech Breakfast on Feb 07 @ Village (To be decided)
Hack Upon a Cause on Feb 08 @ XO Group HQ
Data Privacy Legal Hackathon on Feb 08 @ Made In NY Media Center by IFP
Industries & Markets for 2014 – Whats Hot & Whats Not on Feb 12 @ Orrick @ The CBS Building
Hack for Big Choices + New York + SocialGood on Feb 14 @ Alley NYC
Startup Grind NYC w/ Jeff Pulver (cofounder of Vonage & Zula and Angel Investor, Twitter) on Feb 19 @ AOL
StrategyHack on Feb 22 @ StackExchange HQ
NY Times Travel Industry Conference on Feb 28 @ Jacob Javits Convention Center
X HACKS (Snow Sports Hackathon) Winter 2014 on Mar 01 @ Belleayre Mountain
Start NY – NYCs Premier Startup Event on Apr 04 @ Jacob Javits Convention Center

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends!

Betabeat