Jennlog

I’ve been living in Boulder since early 1999 and every year since, as Memorial Day approaches, I’ve thought that doing the Bolder Boulder 10K Race would be a cool Bouldery thing to do.

Waiting for the race to begin

This year, my mom was visiting and in planning our time together, we decided to enter the 30th Bolder Boulder and join the “2 Hour” walking waves. We finished and my time was 1:43:21.78 (averaging a 16:39 mile) — my mom’s was around the same.

We’re planning on entering next year’s race and improving our time.

If you read a lot of blogs, you have been inundated by pixel-to-pixel coverage of the annual gadgetfest happening right now in overpriced and highly annoying Las Vegas.

A couple my CES badges from years past

When I started attending CES, a show created and managed by the consumers electronics manufacturers association (CEA), it was largely a “Buyer’s Show” produced so retailers and integrators could hang out near shouts of “WHEEL OF FORTUNE” and do some deals that would affect what the general public would find in their local stores for the next calendar year.

As the years went on, the number of retailers shrank as Walmart square footage grew — and in 2008, the majority of electronics are purchased in “Big Box” stores like Best Buy and Circuit City. The content industry changed too — as the digital and Internet-delivered media avalanche landed quicker than you could say “ubiquity”.

There will always be a room full of neon tube lit Ferraris and their 400 speakers at CES but virtually every other consumer electronic category has evolved to the point where you wouldn’t recognize them as they are now, fifteen years ago — let alone four decades ago when CES began.

The CES of today attracts a very different crowd than the CES I remember. The quickest growing classes of attendee fall within the prosumer and fanboy group. (the bleeding edge of early adopters who want to own or “review” the latest and greatest toys).

Is CES at the crossroads of turning into a direct-market show, where the retailer and integrator filters are removed from the value chain? Is it morphing into a new entity all together like Comdex evolved from PCs to Internet (before imploding) and NAB has survived and stayed relevant from RF through the inclusion of Cable and now IP.

I don’t think CES or NAB or any of the other shows quite represent what I’d like to see in a Media-Communications-Content-Electronics show today — looking forward to a “Whole Communications Show and Conference” sometime in the future.

Update: My next post will share some ideas I have on what the “Whole Communications Show and Conference” would be like.

I had a really productive (and fun) week in Toronto last week. My primary reason for going was to volunteer during pride week, in my capacity as a Director of Pride Toronto.

The week began Monday, at City Hall for the official Pride flag raising ceremony. After the ceremony, the city had a full lunch prepared for the thousand or so people who attended. I should have worn sun screen.

Tuesday, I had a couple meetings with art galleries and then went to the True Colors concert. Wow, talk about reliving 80s memories. Blondie, Erasure, Cyndi Lauper and more.

Thursday morning I went to the Toronto OpenCoffee group, and met Jonas Brandon, the founder of the group. Also in attendance were John Martin, Roy Pereira, Colin Smillie, Veronica Montero, Beverly Crandon and a few others. Although there were a dozen or so people around the tables, there were more than two times as many women in attendance as I’ve seen at Boulder OpenCoffee gatherings. Go Toronto!

I also learned about BunnyHero Labs, a Toronto company with an awesome name and a fun product.

Friday kicked-off the super packed party weekend attended by over a million people. The highlights have to be seeing an old friend who I always manage to find every year in the sea of a million or so people without fail, and meeting lots of people just at ease with who they are, at the deepest of levels. The Pride Toronto volunteers are just awesome, all 1000+ of them and our staff members are incredible — Wow, just wow.

Early Monday morning I returned back to the new Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson. I like the new Maple Leaf Lounge — free WiFi and a free hot or cold breakfast, not like the cheap United Red Carpet Lounges. The only downer was the new US Customs and Immigration area is slower. We arrived back in Denver an hour early (a freakish lack of headwinds according to the pilot).

I missed last year’s Hackers because I was in or on my way to Australia. This is one of the coolest groups of folks I’ve ever had the pleasure of skipping sleep with to have mind blowing conversations. I’m going to do everything I can do to make time this year.

For the last two weeks, I’ve made a concerted effort to escape the Yallery.com development hovel to meet local technical, entrepreneurial and VC/angel people at various events. My first one was the Boulder BarCamp on March 31st. Then there was the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup on April 3rd (I may be presenting Yallery at the May meeting at the Denver Art Museum).

Today was the inaugural Boulder Open Coffee Club (here and here) group meeting. Created by Jason Mendelson, after an idea by Saul Klein, this group brings entrepreneurs and VC/angel investors together at informal caffeine-fueled meetings around the world. I met some really neat people today. I’ll be at the next one in two weeks.