{"id":544,"date":"2009-10-03T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T00:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/000544"},"modified":"2015-02-19T08:21:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T14:21:56","slug":"boco-colorados-sxsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/544","title":{"rendered":"Boco: Colorado&#8217;s SXSW?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I spent yesterday at <a href=\"http:\/\/boco.me\/\">boco.me, a one day, one track conference in Boulder Colorado<\/a>. The focus was on three different areas: food, tech, and music.\u00a0 Apparently, South by Southwest (SXSW) has a similar multidimensional focus.<\/p>\n<p>I was looking forward to meeting people from different spheres with different interests, and it certainly delivered that. Most attendees I talked to were tech people, however. Many thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewhyde.net\/\">Andrew Hyde<\/a> and company for organizing this. I hope it&#8217;s the first of many.<\/p>\n<p>Before signing up and actually before the conference, I did not have a very good idea of how much I was getting.\u00a0 It was actually quite affordable: $99. For this modest price, attendees received:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>entry to a concert: value $15<\/li>\n<li>$30 worth of dinner at one of Boulder&#8217;s many fine restaurants<\/li>\n<li>happy hour with beer and wine and apps<\/li>\n<li>three sessions with about six speakers per session<\/li>\n<li>three breakout sessions<\/li>\n<li>a free T-shirt<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/images\/Photo_100309_002.JPG\">a thank you note from Andrew<\/a>(!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Boco was, to put it mildly, a hell of a deal.<\/p>\n<p>The conference had, as first year conferences tend to, a few flaws. The things I would change were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>allow users to ask questions of the speakers<\/li>\n<li>have the breakout sessions be a bit more organized&#8211;they felt very ad hoc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What follows are my notes from yesterday.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycamera.com\/business\/ci_13474111\">what the Daily Camera had to say<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>First up was <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/rachelannyes\">Rachel Weidinger<\/a> (her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rachelweidinger.wikispaces.com\/\">slides are here<\/a>). She mentioned the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.longnow.org\/views\/essays\/articles\/BrianEnoLongNow.php\">&#8220;big here and long now&#8221;<\/a> and talked about tools that make our here bigger&#8211;&#8220;handheld awesome detectors&#8221;.\u00a0 The tool that excited me the most was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodguide.com\/\">Good Guide<\/a>. This site offers what I&#8217;ve been looking for for a long time, which is detailed information on products, so that price and marketing are not the sole guides when you purchase something off the cuff. This guide has an API so that <a href=\"http:\/\/developer.goodguide.com\/api_usage_examples\">third-party developers can access their data<\/a>. Oh, and Rachel is also looking for someone to build snake detecting goggles.<\/p>\n<p>Next, Mark Menagh spoke on the differences between eating organic and eating locally.\u00a0 I paraphrase, but he said that folks who eat organics are pessimists who want rules to prevent bad things from happening to their food and locavores are optimists.\u00a0 He also emphasized that this November, Boulder voters are going to be asked to extend the Open Space sales tax ( till <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bouldercounty.org\/newsroom\/articlefiles\/1764-2009-100_POS_ext.PDF\">2034!<\/a> [pdf]) and that while we do that, voters should let the county commissioners know how they feel about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycamera.com\/ci_13204690\">GMO crops on open space land<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then, Justin Perkins, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.olomomo.com\/\">Olomomo Nut Company<\/a> discussed some of the similarities he had noticed between building a band fanbase, as he did in the 1990s, and building one for a local food company, as he is doing now.\u00a0 I can tell you from experience that his nut products are quite good.\u00a0 He talked about engaging users in the product so that they feel it&#8217;s part of their story. Takeaway quote: entrepreneurs &#8220;have to be consistent and persistent as hell&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Cindy O&#8217;Keeffe spoke about her experience fighting the GMO beets on Boulder County Open Space land.\u00a0 I had heard about this issue before (Mark also discussed it), but she gave a good overview of the issues, and she had a compelling story about her personal journey from detached global environmentalist to local leader opposing the GMO planting.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Levine, an author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cluetrain.com\/\">the Cluetrain Manifesto<\/a> (read it if you haven&#8217;t!) and now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sethellischocolatier.com\/\">chocolatier<\/a>, gave an overview of the Cluetrain ideas, and then talked about his new venture into high end chocolates, including some of the physics of chocolate.\u00a0 Seth Ellis, his company, have shiny candy bar wrappers that he claimed were home compostable.\u00a0 When talking about the Cluetrain and his experiences in technology, he offered up the observation that while he had been really interested in technology, his really great moments were talking to people.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theautumnfilm.com\/\">The Autumn Film<\/a>, a two person Boulder band, talked a bit about their experiences in music creation at this time.\u00a0 Takeaway: music used to be &#8220;work hard, get lucky, hit it big&#8221;, but the industry changes have now just made it &#8220;work hard, hit it big, work harder&#8221;.\u00a0 You can check out <a href=\"http:\/\/theautumnfilm.com\/share\">some of their music for free<\/a> (well, you have to give them some of your personal information). Then, one member of the band performed.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed the first breakout in which five of us gathered outside and discussed a wide variety of topics.\u00a0 It was great to have a framework for getting to know the other conference participants.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/caseorganic\">Amber Case<\/a> led off the second session by talking about cyborg anthropology&#8211;basically the idea that humans extend themselves via their tools, and that the malleability of current tools (think iphone) far exceeds the malleability of previous tools (think hammer).\u00a0 Several of the other attendees found her ideas fascinating, but I wasn&#8217;t as astonished.\u00a0 I guess I have thought about this topic, though certainly not with the rigor that Amber has.\u00a0 (reading Snow Crash is <a href=\"http:\/\/oakhazelnut.makerlab.com\/thesis\/\">no thesis<\/a>.)\u00a0 She did have some neat pointers to other work going on in this field: <a href=\"http:\/\/web.media.mit.edu\/~monster\/\">human-blender &#8216;communication&#8217;<\/a> and hug storage. Humorously, her email sig reads \u201cSent from my external proesthetic device\u201c<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/heyrich\">Rich Grote<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/daveangulo\">Dave Angulo<\/a> then talked about what makes an online influencer&#8211;relevance, audience, access and one other thing I forgot to write down.\u00a0 They are working on a company, which I was unable to find a link to, to leverage online influencers for marketing purposes.\u00a0 It reminded me a bit of what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/000523\">Lijit presented on in June<\/a> at the BDNT.\u00a0 They also talked a bit about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dunbar%27s_number\">Dunbar&#8217;s number<\/a>, which is the &#8220;theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/cscotta\">Scott Andreas<\/a> discussed his experiences building <a href=\"http:\/\/sunago.org\/welcome\/home\">social software for non profits<\/a>.\u00a0 The takeaway for me was that when you have a cohesive group and you provide them social software, it can enrich the community.\u00a0 The most important thing is that the community (and their norms) exists and is enforced outside of the software.\u00a0 He also talked about <a href=\"http:\/\/sunlightlabs.com\/\">Sunlight Labs<\/a>, an open data source about the US government. Also, Andrew Hyde mentioned at this time the idea of floating your revenue through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiva.org\/\">Kiva<\/a>.\u00a0 I certainly am not earning a lot of interest on my business savings right now, and using the funds to do microloans could be a great social good.\u00a0 I would be a bit concerned about loan losses, though (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiva.org\/about\/help\/stats\">98% loan repayment is a bit worrisome<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seanporter.com\/\">Sean Porter<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gigbot.com\">Gigbot<\/a> gave a breakdown of the live music industry ecosystem.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a lot of middlemen between the fan and the band when it comes to concerts&#8211;ticketing agencies, promoters, management.\u00a0 He started down the path of explaining how much of the ticket price you and I pay each of these folks get, but didn&#8217;t go all the way; if he had, I think his presentation would have been much stronger.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.electromute.com\/\">Ingrid Alongi<\/a> talked about how she learned about work life balance, and techniques for maintaining it.\u00a0 Good ideas in there&#8211;having a status meeting with coworkers while on a bike ride was probably my favorite, though.\u00a0 Incidentally, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.gnip.com\/2009\/09\/28\/the-only-constant-is-change\/\">she was laid off on Monday<\/a> and had found a new job by the time she talked on Friday<\/p>\n<p>Grant Blakeman and Reid Phillips (the latter being a member of The Autumn Film) talked about the new music business models.\u00a0 Takeaway quote: &#8220;things always change&#8221;.\u00a0 Sounds like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/This_too_shall_pass\">Abe Lincoln<\/a>. They are <a href=\"http:\/\/go-backstage.com\/\">building tools<\/a> that allow musicians to use some new media to market and connect with their fans. I enjoyed their insistence on musicians retaining control of their work, and using new technology to facilitate that.\u00a0 It reminded me of this great article by Joel Spolsky where he talks about how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/articles\/fog0000000007.html\">your business should never outsource core business functions<\/a>.\u00a0 Fan interaction seems a pretty core part of the band business, so I doubt it should be outsourced.<\/p>\n<p>Ari Newman of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filtrbox.com\/\">Filtrbox<\/a> talked about the realtime web: how we&#8217;ve reached a technology tipping point and that Twitter and its open API pushed the real time web into the forefront, but that it is larger than the Twitterstream.\u00a0 Ari also mentioned how the real time web actually isn&#8217;t all that real time&#8211;even if the technology delivers news to your computer in half a second, if it is not in front of you, it doesn&#8217;t matter.\u00a0 Maybe he should collaborate with Amber on some goggles that would push realtime news to you <em>all the time<\/em> \ud83d\ude42 .\u00a0 He had real neat slide effects, too.\u00a0 I chatted with him a bit and it was great to hear stories of his old sysadmin days&#8211;Linux on a Mac 8500!<\/p>\n<p>The second breakout session was over lunch.\u00a0 Was really interesting to talk with Ryan and Angie of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.location3.com\/\">Location 3<\/a>, a Denver interactive agency, as well as Andrew Hyde, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/pugofwar\">Ef<\/a>, Rahoul(sp?) and Dan Kohler; wide ranging discussion and not too focused.<\/p>\n<p>The third set of sessions was more informal.\u00a0 Half of the speakers did not follow their topics on the program&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>First, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/Emilyolson\">Emily Olson<\/a>, from <a href=\"http:\/\/foodzie.com\/\">Foodzie<\/a>, discussed how she had turned her passion (food) into a job (Foodzie, among others).\u00a0 Her main points: pay attention to what you do in your free time&#8211;that&#8217;s an indication of your passion; find a mentor; be willing to work for free, especially at first; don&#8217;t try to find the one true vocation.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Kohler, of <a href=\"http:\/\/renegadekitchen.com\">Renegade Kitchen<\/a>, discussed how to not have your blog\/website suck.\u00a0 He had 3 people up on stage read 3 different posts, and critiqued them.\u00a0 Takeaway&#8211;&#8220;put your voice into&#8221; your blog.\u00a0 I have a pretty vanilla voice on this blog, but part of that is due to professional concerns; however, Dan made the point that really, if you do drive some people off with the tone of your blog, the people you have left will be fiercer fans.<\/p>\n<p>There was a panel on where the local music scene was heading, moderated by Sharon Glassman, a local bluegrass musician, and featuring Jason Bradley and Ira Leibtag.\u00a0 I stepped out during this panel, but I do remember Jason Bradly discussing how &#8220;lots of people live in a box&#8221; in reference to his bringing an accordion to a bluegrass jam (and the reaction of the other players).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.feld.com\">Brad Feld<\/a> discussed the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.feld.com\/wp\/archives\/2009\/09\/the-founders-visa-movement.html\">startup visa movement<\/a>.\u00a0 The idea is anyone who wants to move to the United States and start a company would get a 2 year visa; it would be automatically renewable for achieving certain goals (raising more funding, employing a certain number of people).\u00a0 The founder would have to show proof of funding.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/startupvisa.com\/\">More information here<\/a>.\u00a0 I like anything that gets more smart folks to move to the USA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.elanaspantry.com\/\">Elana Amsterdam<\/a> spoke on her experience turning a blog she wrote into a recipe book, and stated that her experience showed how you could really build a full fledged business out of a blog, using your passion and the blog as a platform to publish.\u00a0 She also recommended &#8220;Write the Perfect Book Proposal&#8221; by Jeff Herman.\u00a0 <em>Updated 10\/4: I asked a friend in the book publishing business about this book and she said: &#8220;Yikes. Any book that says &#8220;it&#8217;s easier to get published than you think&#8221; makes me want to hurt myself. Proposals aren&#8217;t about capturing a publisher&#8217;s attention. They&#8217;re about showing your expertise, your marketability, and just plain having an idea that fits within what a company actually publishes.&#8221;\u00a0 For what that&#8217;s worth<\/em>&#8230;\u00a0 I think that she&#8217;s absolutely correct, for certain kinds of blogs.\u00a0 I know that Eric Sink did the same thing with &#8220;Eric Sink on the Business of Software&#8221;, a fine book that has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericsink.com\/bos\/Business_of_Software.html\">collection of blog posts at its core<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, <a href=\"http:\/\/lillystable.com\/\">Lilly Allison, a personal chef<\/a>, spoke about eating seasonally and consciously.\u00a0 She is using the web to extend her reach (and her brand!) as a personal chef&#8211;if you sign up, she&#8217;ll send you meal weekly plans with in season menus.\u00a0 I signed up and will let you know how it goes\u2014I do have lots of food from my CSA (here&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/writing\/csa.shtml\">list of Colorado CSAs<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>There was a third breakout session, but I had to run some errands, so I missed it.<\/p>\n<p>Then, it was happy hour time.\u00a0 Off to the <a href=\"http:\/\/bdw.colorado.edu\/\">Boulder Digital Works<\/a>, above <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brasserietenten.com\/\">Brasserie 1010<\/a>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a beautiful space in downtown Boulder, and I talked with some of the incoming students who are doing the first 60 week advertising certificate.\u00a0 In addition I had conversations on a variety of topics from the success of boco to how to scale a custom chocolate business to whether presenting at BDNT helped business (answer, indirectly, yes) to what to do with consulting requests that interfere with your core business (with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.occipital.com\/\">Occipital folks<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>At the end of happy hour, we gathered into groups of four.\u00a0 I had dinner with with Scott Andreas, Dan Kohler, and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/jenmyronuk\">Jen Myronuk<\/a>; a fine meal at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centrolatinkitchen.com\/\">Centro<\/a> and then to a concert at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bouldertheater.com\/\">Boulder Theater<\/a>: <a href=\"http:\/\/paperbirdband.com\/\">Paper Bird<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, a fantastic conference.\u00a0 It was eclectic and not as focused as other conferences I&#8217;ve been to, but for that reason alone has value.\u00a0 I get bored if I only educate myself in one dimension.\u00a0 Thanks again to the boco team, and here&#8217;s hoping that next year is as good, if not better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent yesterday at boco.me, a one day, one track conference in Boulder Colorado. The focus was on three different areas: food, tech, and music.\u00a0 Apparently, South by Southwest (SXSW) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,34,40,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-conferences","category-social-media","category-technology-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2030,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}