expertSEM

The first boco conference was held this past Friday in Boulder, Colorado. Organized by Andrew Hyde, this conference was being touted as a mini SXSW. While I have never been to SXSW and, therefore, cannot make an accurate correlation, I see great potential in boco. With all the amazing and brilliant talent on the Front Range, there is no doubt in my mind that this could be huge.

Why tech, music and food?, you might be asking. These three things might seem extremely separate, but they’re not at all. Or at least shouldn’t be. By using technology to influence food and music, we can not only improve the consumer’s experience, we can help reduce the carbon footprint treaded by these industries. And Boulder/Denver is an ideal place to get it started. This area is, as many people know, extremely environmentally conscious. What you may not know is that the music and art scenes are phenomenal, and talented and driven techies are popping up all over the place. I believe we’re in a great place to show the rest of the country that you don’t need a coastline to be innovative. In fact, the fresh mountain air might just be better suited to feed these ideas.

The first group of sessions was called, Food and Music Inspire. Rachel Weidinger kicked off the day talking about Handheld Awesome Detectors. She married food and tech by discussing iPhone apps that tell you where to find the freshest, healthiest and most eco-friendly products. The app she mentioned that interested me most was Good Guide. It rates foods by safety, health and “greenness.” If you’re standing in front of the beverage cooler at the grocery store trying to decide on a drink, you may reach for a bottle of OJ. This is the best choice because it’s made of 100% fruit juice, you think. But is it truly the best choice overall? Where was it produced and how was it packaged? If it came from a location that took weeks to transport, it can be more damaging to the environment. A more locally-produced drink that is healthy for your body and was bottled in an environmentally-friendly facility produces a smaller carbon footprint and is truly the better choice. Good Guide helps you make this educated decision. Spawned as much from her personality as her knowledge of tech and food, Rachel’s presentation broke free of the dull PowerPoints we all know too well. Later, while waiting in the restroom queue, I watched Rachel put a sticky note on the wall that read, “Ladies of boco, I’m glad you’re here.” Thank you, Rachel. We were psyched to be there and glad you were there, too!

Next up was Mark Menagh, speaking on Organic vs. Locavore. Mark discussed how organic does not mean that a product was simply grow in your backyard. Organic foods come from a rather new science that requires a great deal of technical savvy to create. Just because you picked a tomato from your neighbor’s garden does not mean it isn’t covered in chemicals. In fact, it is extremely difficult to grow organic produce. Therefore, the tomato is most likely shrouded in all kinds of unhealthy and unnatural molecular chains. Mark pushed the audience to rethink their ideas or organic and support the industry to help inspire new technologies that make organic foods simpler to produce, or at least more common.

The two best sessions of the day, in my humble opinion, were by Rick Levine and Amber Case. Rick is a techie turned author (The Cluetrain Manifesto) turned chocolatier (Seth Ellis Chocolatier). He discussed chocolate and how it relates to ideas put forth in The Cluetrain Manifesto, a book which discusses how businesses operating within a newly connected marketplace should act. While nearly ten years old, the ideas in the book still hold true in our internet society, and may be even more pertinent with the rise of social media. The main thesis of the book is that markets are conversations, a constant that has been around since ancient marketplaces and is still strong, albeit very different, today. Rick’s presentation was a delicious concoction of marketing, technology and food science, with a dash of humor. And then he tossed out delightful Sun Cups—a completely nut-free, gluten-free snack that tasted like a peanut butter cup and came in a compostable wrapper.

Amber Case is a self-titled cyborg anthropologist. Huh? What that means is she studies human computer interactions and how technology affects the way in which we communication with each other. Amber was animated, interesting and gave an insightful presentation that is still lingering in my mind. One point she made with really stuck with me was that the hammers we use today still resemble—look exactly like, in fact—tools make by troglodytes millions of years ago. Yet, the laptops we carry around today look nothing like the first nearly warehouse-sized computers made only 50 or so years ago. We are evolving at an exceptional rate—what is that doing to our social selves? Amber is a tech fanatic, yet views our advancing reliance on it with a mindful eye. We all may be cyborgs, but Amber made it clear she is no drone.

There were tons of other fabulous sessions by smart, introspective and motivated individuals (few shout outs: Dan Kohler, Seth Haber from Trek Light Gear, Ingrid Alongi, Grant Blakeman, Justin Perkins from Olomomo Nut Company, Scott Andreas) and a beautiful, chill-inducing performance by The Autumn Film (if you haven’t heard them, I strongly suggest you download (for free!) a few songs from their site and I knowingly challenge you not to get choked up).

I really enjoyed how the boco sessions were scheduled—you didn’t have to choose between a bunch of topics, you got a little taste of everything and then went to break out sessions on a variety of topics.

I’m thrilled to have attended the first (annual, hopefully!) boco and look forward to getting more involved in years to come. It’s Rocky Mountain High-time Colorado broke free of the Crocs-sporting, granola-munching, “dude”-spouting stereotype and claimed our position as the burgeoning cultural and tech hotspot that we truly are.