TechBoise Event Round up
The June 24 TechBoise Event was as Tac predicted, probably the best attended event we’ve ever scheduled. Thanks to all of you who attended! It was kind of like old friends week at the Water Cooler; you know what I mean if you were there.
So here’s the basics if you missed it:
We had a panel presentation with Metageek CEO Ryan Woodings, Pronetos CEO Chris Blanchard, and fmr Statesman tech reporter Ken Dey. Tac provided moderation. We all gave a short presentation on what we’re doing, what’s coming up next, and that sort of thing. Ken put all that into context. And then we opened it up for questions.
You all are a shy bunch. Righhhht. I think it was one of the inimitable Red Sky PR crew that tossed the grenade into the room, that being, “why doesn’t the Idaho Legislature get tech?” I am not sure that we came to any conclusions, but most of the answers revolved around the great Ag/Tech divide, or the urban/rural divide.
We also talked quite a bit about what the government should be doing in response to tech and economic development with Mark Solon of Highway 12 Ventures soliloquizing about the state of other states (mainly Utah and all the activity in the Wasatch front and the universities there), and what he thought Idaho ought to do. That boiled down to basically following the famous Wayne Gretzky mantra of “skating to where the puck is going to be” and heavily funding R&D. That is sound advice, but everyone including myself had LOTS to say about the state of the state, and what the state ought to do. I think we ought to continue to talk about that here.
For the most part I think we all agreed that the best way for us to work with the legislature is to become more cohesive as a group, and develop relationships with those who represent us. All that said, I think one of the other things to recap is the format of this last TechBoise event.
First let me extend big thanks to George Seybold of Seybold Scientific for supplying drinks (non alcoholic drinks) at the event. Props George. We probably also can’t thank Mark Rivers enough. Mark attended the event and has really poured his heart, soul, wealth, and talent into this city and the tech community. So thanks Mark for the use of the facility. And Tac was the dude that had the vision to put all this together and try to keep all us busy wayward techies connected and moving toward being a real community.
So - some of the feedback that I heard was that people were REALLY glad to get some time to just simply network and socialize. That is one of the things that I really appreciated as well. I heard more than once that we don’t need another Kickstand - we need to do what we’re not doing so much there - which is the real social part.
So as long as I get to indulge myself (thanks, Tac!) I thought I’d throw out my own preferences, and I hope through commenting you all will share your own. I’d like to see regular TechBoise events that weren’t structured like Kickstand. Hell, I’ll come talk about Pronetos every month if you all want (I can hear the BOOOOOS from here), but I propose something I am going to steal from my colleague Dave Lester back in D.C. How about we have TechBoise each month, and we just allow people to sign up for what Dave called “Dork Shorts.” You sign up, and you get to talk for some specified period of time (SHORT - 2-3 minutes) about what you are working on, what you need help with, recent successes, etc. That gives us all a non-presentation, but still gets everyone on the same page, and allows us to network more.
I also think that after work is a great time but OMG I was STARVING at 5:30. We can’t afford catering so I’d recommend what we have done in the past: find a good place to meet where there is enough space, and we can get food and drinks. Smoky Mountain Pizza on Park Center is a good place - private rooms that are free to use if the group spends enough on food and beverage. The rest of you may know other places that will work equally well. Those are just my thoughts.
All in all, the TechBoise event was a great success in my mind, and something we need to continue. I left on Tuesday night thinking, “man, I still need to talk to like 10 more people.” I know you probably felt the same, hence the reason Krissa Wrigley had to kick you people out of the building.
So lets get it together, keep it together, keep the conversation flowing, and turn this into a bigger, more successful, more cohesive group.
Ready?
Thanks for the commentary on the event, Chris.
For everyone who attended it would be interesting to get individual points of view both pro and con posted in their own blogs or commented here on this post at TechBoise.
Surely we can’t all agree on what was discussed? I know I had my disagreements on some of the discussion points. For those of you interested, you can view them here:
http://tinyurl.com/3vyz8v
Tac - thanks again for hosting the event. Let’s keep it up and make our voice heard!
Thank you for the novel, Chris. I’m sure those who were unable to attend definitely appreciate it. Hopefully this can spark some good conversation among those who did attend as well.
I think Justin has a great idea about posting in our owns blogs. I can’t promise I’ll get around to writing anything, but I will take the time to read what anyone else has to say.
Thanks again Tac, Chris, and everyone else who participated or has taken the time to help make these things happen! Even baby steps and a tight tech community will no doubt help to accomplish bigger and better things.
Justin: I did not flesh out my thoughts about Mark’s comments, and what I think about the government, but I will. I thought in the spirit of unanimity, I’d write a post that just presented what happened. I’ll get my side of the story out in a comment, or a post on the LGM blog in a little bit.
Short story: I think Mark S. has a nice philosophy - but the govt has hard dollars to spend NOW and we can’t be talking pie-in-the-sky “fund what hasn’t been invented yet.” We’re wasting previous resources teaching kids to build chips for Micron when we could be filling positions at Keynetics and Microsoft. And no one including H12 has made a dime on clean tech and allied technologies - they will but not in the lifecycle of one of Mark’s funds.
Also, I have studied and published on the Urban/Rural divide extensively and think it is crippling the state of Idaho.
More later.
(Damn, I sound like Chris Matthews. I hope Mark gets rich on clean tech - I just think that’s 10 years out and there’s lots of $$$ to made in conventional tech for a long time to come. And Boise doesn’t have to be the best to make some improvements that will REALLY benefit the region.)
Off to softball -
Chris- people are making tons of money on cleantech; are the VC/angels? Dunno, but that’s *the* trend these days. But cleantech and software aren’t mutually exclusive categories…
What I wanted to ask Mark S is about Utah - if you missed Brian C’s keynote at IdaVation [60 spinouts in 3.5 years? 94% still alive? Yikes!], one key to their success has been heavy emphasis on applied (not basic) research. Of course, they already have ample basic research funding - and they managed to get their big funding while Utah still ran a surplus. But when the Governor and the University Prez both say that applied (commercializable) research is what they are rewarding… it makes a difference. A big difference. (Of course, U of U has faculty who think the philistines have taken over, LOL)
In the spirit of the process, I’ll post something at my own blog & link to it when it’s done!
And let me add that we still need to think long-term. I thought Mark’s point was that education in the future has to change qualitatively. Check out http://www.marcprensky.com - maybe *the* guru on education re-design for the Millennials. (One of his books is “Engage Me Or Enrage Me” - as in the kids today ARE engaged… until they get to school.)
He spoke Wed AM at the Idaho Digital Learning Association’s conference (IDLA designs & offers online HS courses & will likely hit 10K students in 2008-09.)
His talk was streamed on the web, but I didn’t know that, else I would have hooked you all up. I’ll try to get a link to any archived version. If you’re at all interested, let me know.
Anyway, the key is that teaching is VERY different for these hyperconnected kids - and we should take advantage of that. Do you try to block kids from using their phones to get test answers - OR do you MAKE them do so?
IDLA is an interesting outfit - they’re the ones I’m working with to develop a couple of HS entrepreneurship courses for distance-delivery. This will be a legal substitute for the required Econ course, so the potential to corrupt Idaho’s youth is significant!
(Note: the Idaho Rural Partnership is the driving force here & the $$$$ to IDLA came from TechConnect. So, major, major kudos to IRP & to Reverend Rick.)
I think Mark undervalues software because he’s looking for the best place for a VC investor to make money. He’s probably right, software isn’t the best place for a VC to make money.
But as a software guy, I see that there is still a lot of room for software to change the world. Take some simple problems that software hasn’t got right yet (like computer vision, an area I’m working in). Once that nut is cracked, the world will change, and every industry will be affected. And don’t even get me started on AI in general.
As far as how we help improve innovation and tech in Idaho, I think we should be focusing on things that affect everyone, but especially tech. Take the Idaho personal property tax. It unfairly impacts tech because it forces us to depreciate equipment beyond it’s usable life. And high-tech industries generally have a much greater density of personal property (in terms of assessed value per square foot) And the cost of computing our personal property tax each year probably is greater than the money it brings to the state.
Another item is education in general. I feel college education is seriously undervalued here. Putting more money into community colleges is a great place to start because it frees up the universities, and it gives a lot of students a chance to try college that otherwise never would. Community colleges may not produce software engineers directly, but I think in the big picture it advances our interests.
Finally, promotion of Idaho in general. As the TechBoise post above this one states, the quality of life brings a lot of individuals to Idaho, and at least in my case, I brought work/money with me. If Idaho was promoted in general (think tourism/recreation/etc.) it would open up the eyes of companies and innovators looking for a place to move.
The great thing about focusing on non-tech specific issues like I mentioned is that they benefit everyone. It’s not asking for handouts or tax breaks, the message is: Invest in Idaho!
Denouncing software makes no sense for an investor. The VC’s are torqued right now because they all invested in dumb software projects, for example Facebook applications. All those Facebook apps did was make Facebook worth more.
All of the big things out there now are software based. Google anyone? Craig’s List? Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Blogger? Who wouldn’t have invested in those?
We are finding new ways to use software. That is perhaps the biggest development of the last few years. Craig’s List a cool new app? Nope. Total legacy technology that sent a TSUNAMI through the media industry.
If you haven’t read Wired lately, you’re also missing some excellent observation that Chris Anderson has made about how supercomputing and new software applications driven by complex mathematical algorithms are making incredible discoveries and solving vexing problems. You want the next great drug? It is going to come from a software app. A software algorithm will eventually find out the best way to reduce carbon emissions, and lots of other things.
The problem with talking about stuff like “clean tech” is that it is the perfect example of something NOT to invest in. It’s a fad. That’s the first problem. The second problem is the time and investment required to get something to market. The third problem hinges off of that. By the time you get your product to market, the next phase of technology is already out there: you’re the guy with the cassette based walkman when Steve Jobs is announcing the iPod Touch.
We do need to invest in R & D heavily. But focusing on fads and theory ain’t gonna get it done from an economic development perspective. If we can get another handful of .NET devs out of Boise State, maybe, just MAYBE we can keep MicroSoft/ProClarity here in town. Maybe just MAYBE we can get enough people to staff up Balihoo and MDF. But we’ll NEVER turn those into middle tier companies without some investment in the software industry. The infrastructure is already there it ust needs to be realigned.