People came in their tropically-themed best, listened to steel drum music, mingled around Bobbie’s pool (at least two jumped in) and noshed on barbecue sandwiches and cole slaw. The Hot Tickets went to seven companies: AirWatch for hottest bootstrap, LivingSocial for hottest buzz, Invertix for hottest emerging government contractor, BroadSoft for hottest exit, OPOWER for hottest management team, myRete for hottest startup, and ScienceLogic for hottest VC deal. (We suppose our award for hottest Internet-based fedtech reporter got dropped in the pool.)

Pillsbury biz dev manager Jamie Graham, K12 deputy GC Chris Ryan and UGL Services senior associate Mary Catherine Williams were pool-side placing bets on the winners. And there was some chatter about how education tech firm K12 ($384.5M in revenue in 2010) has been integrating its recent acquisition of Kaplan (our story about the deal). The company’s online curriculums are used by virtual schools, private schools, and public schools in more than half the country. (Sorry, kids, "virtual school" doesn't mean your World of Warcraft character goes to school for you.)

Berico Technologies strategic initiatives director Anne Meree Craig sheepishly accepted her award for best female outfit. (How could she think she wouldn’t win?) Her Arlington-based company was nominated for hottest emerging government contractor. The company recently brought in a new leader to help transition it from startup mode to big-playa mode (our recent Berico story). Best male outfit went to Nemacolin Woodlands Resort sales team Eric McElhone, Jerry Taggart, and Keith Schreiner who wore coordinated Panama Jack ensembles.

Sponto operations director Andrea Shore and founder Jamey Harvey were all smiles after recently securing more funding for their mobile college app. They’ll use the money for a big fall launch of a free app that helps college kids find where other clusters of kids are congregating. (No more getting left off that Evite.) They tell us college kids are a sleepy market in the summer months, so it’s a perfect time to work on the product. (Aren't college kids sleepy all the time?)

Microsoft officially took the wraps off Office 365 yesterday, so we chased down Microsoft Federal CTO Susie Adams (here hanging out at an undisclosed location in Wisconsin) to get the info-dump on the new cloud-based collaboration service. Office 365 is the successor to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (even the name got upgraded). It pulls together Microsoft's Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting video conferencing, and Lync unified communications platforms (but we're sad to report it doesn't include a cloud-based version of Minesweeper). Susie says agencies have been asking for a seamless product that can be integrated with their directories with a single sign-on. She recognizes 365 faces competition from Google Apps for Government, IBM's LotusLive, and VMware's open-source Zimbra. But she’s hoping product familiarity (translation: huge government installed base) will give it a leg up. It also helps that agencies are pushing their way to the cloud and seeing enterprise services as commodities, she says.