Changing the Face of Technology – a guest post by speaker Darlene Rouleau

Darlene Rouleau on February 23, 2019

Technology companies have a diversity problem. The number of women in tech has been steadily declining since the 1980s. Only recently at Colorado State University, has the number of women enrolled in Computer Science increased from 7% in 2013 to 11.3% in 2016.

As still the only woman programmer on my software development team 13 years after starting, my passion is to increase the diversity in software development.

As a mom of a 2yo girl and 5yo boy I constantly check my unconscious bias – am I raising both my children to know they have the same opportunities and capabilities? Researchers at the University of Washington found that by age 7, children implicitly associate numbers with boys instead of girls. Microsoft researchers found that by age 11, girls become interested in STEM subjects; however, by age 15 they lose interest and it rarely recovers. Computers and video games are for both girls and boys; foster a love of numbers, math and problem solving in your girls and boys; constantly check your unconscious bias.

Recognizing that there is a diversity problem and making others aware of the gender gap is the first step. At my organization I’ve organized a monthly diversity meeting to read, watch talks and discuss these issues. I presented to the entire company on life as a woman in tech. Start with awareness and then work towards changes.

I strive to change the face of your typical software engineer to inspire more women to enter tech. If we change the stereotypes of programming and show young women that women do exist in tech, we can encourage more girls to consider degrees in computer science. For example, I have spoken with high school women on my path and life as a woman in tech and taught courses through Front Range Community College. I want to be a role model for girls and women interested in technology.

I’ve made it 13 years, but life as one of the few women in tech is hard and exhausting. It’s not just me either, after 10 years, there is a 41% quit rate of women in tech (compared to 17% for men); we don’t see the career opportunities and are just burned out.

To learn more, Code: Debugging the Gender Gap is a phenomenal documentary on the lack of women in computer science. The history from the 1950s (women were in fact the first programmers!) to where we are now is astounding.

There are changes you and I can make today. I have to check my unconscious bias daily. Raise children to know they have the same opportunities. Give the women candidates and resumes a second look; was it your unconscious bias that put that resume in the no pile? Small checks on yourself can change the path of your life, someone else’s life, or the future of your organization.

About The Speaker

Darlene Rouleau is a UI/UX Software Engineer for Schneider Electric.

You can see her panel Women in Tech / Diversity / Unconscious Bias on Tuesday February 26th, 10:00am-11:00am @ Cohere Coworking.

Mike Baron – StartUp FoCo Podcast

Nick Armstrong on February 19, 2019

Mike Baron is an Eisner award-winning author right in our own back yard. If you’re a fan of The Punisher and Star Wars, Mike is someone you’re gonna want to get to know. His insights into the business side of writing are both timely and carry the weight of years of doing the work.

Mike’s panel at Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins is: How to Make a Comic Book on Wednesday February 27th, 4:00pm-5:00pm @ Downtown Artery Gallery

Hi, Mike! Tell us about yourself.

I’ve been a comic writer all my life. In 1981, I created Nexus with the artist Steve Rude for which we won every industry award. Nexus is about a cosmic adventure 500 years in the future. A year later, I created Badger which is about a hero with multiple personalities, one of whom is a costumed crime fighter. Badger’s only superpower is his ability to talk to animals. I have also written The Punisher, Flash, Deadman, and Star Wars among many other titles.

You also recently published another comic of your own, Q Ball, right?

Yes. We crowdfunded Q Ball. It’s mostly a Colorado production. I’m working with an amazing artist in Denver, Barry McClain Jr. Even though we kickstarted the first issue, we were picked up immediately by Antarctic which will publish Q Ball later this year. It’s a five issue series.

Who is doing the best working comics in Northern Colorado?

I’ve often worked with Lee Oakes who lives here in Fort Collins, he’s an amazing artist. Zach Howard, from Denver, is also an amazing artist. He’s working on The Cape with Joe Hill from IDW. Roger McKenzie, the great Marvel artist who’s famous for his work on Daredevil, also lives in Denver. Ozzy Longoria is putting out a horror anthology. Ozzy’s a very talented artist. There’s a lot of talent here.

In fact, we have a meetup group the first Saturday of every month at Griffin’s. It’s headed by Ron Fortier. Ron’s a well-known comic book writer who wrote The Green Hornet for Now and has a ton of his own books out. So there’s a lot of talent up here. I’m always amazed but not surprised when I run into more.

What would you say are the biggest challenges in either comic writing or artistry in Colorado?

Everybody has a personal challenge to do their best work. It’s difficult to break into the system. If you want to work for Marvel or DC, there are all sorts of hoops you have to jump through, but I tell people from personal experience that the best way to get a job with a major publisher is to put out your own comic, and bear in mind that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Do something outstanding, they will notice it and give you work.

What are you most looking forward to during Startup Week?

Meeting new people, delivering my speech coherently.

Do you teach often?

I haven’t taught since last summer, but I did offer a course in novel writing and it was very successful, and I have plans to launch a YouTube channel on how to write with my friend Ray Harvey who also is from Fort Collins and Ray’s an accomplished novelist as well.

I have 11 novels out, four of them are in the Bad Road Rising series featuring my biker hero Josh Pratt. He’s a reformed motorcycle hoodlum who went to prison, found God, and came out determined to do good works but the only work he could get was delivering summons for sleazy lawyers. But people keep coming to him with their problems because he straddles that gray area of the law with one foot in legality and one foot outside the law and he knows how to get things done.

Do you find that people are seeking out original fiction and off the beaten path?

Not yet. But it’s just a matter of getting the word out, because I can speak with confidence that my stuff is world-class and I’m on a tiny publisher, Liberty Island Press. There are one million novels published a year. That’s no exaggeration. Of course, most of them are self-published and they’re just crowding up the shelves. I don’t want to speak ill of my fellow writers, but a lot of them just aren’t professional quality, especially the self-published ones. And they’re all out there fighting for space and elbowing for room.

I know there are terrific writers, just great writers out there, that can barely make a living at it. There’s a guy named Ron Faust. There are so many great writers from the ’70s or ’80s that have disappeared. But I have friends who write and they write really well and they’re just struggling for shelf space. Barnes and Noble is the only mass chain left. We used to have B. Dalton and Waldenbooks and Borders. This is all due to changes in technology because most book sales these days are digital. And I can understand that, especially if you’re traveling a lot.

The physical book has been left behind, and a store like Barnes and Noble can’t afford to have books sitting on their shelf that don’t sell. They’re very picky about what they put on their shelves, and it’s all dictated by the best seller list. If you go into a Barnes and Noble, you’ll see that they now heavily feature toys and other objects that aren’t books at all. Toys and puzzles and miniature figurines that now make up a lot of their sales. On the other hand, many independent bookstores are thriving.

That same pattern’s repeating in the comic book industry?

The comic industry is in free-fall. They don’t know what to do. One of the unspoken problems is that video games have created a generation of kids that aren’t all that eager to read comics, and my opinion is that the average $4 or $5 comic really can’t compete with a really good video game in terms of value for your dollar. The video game is simply more engrossing.

This doesn’t have to be the case. But in my opinion, most of the comics being written today aren’t very entertaining. The writers don’t know how tell a story. They have a number of talking points which they shoehorn in and that’s the book. But the whole goal in the type of fiction that I do and that my friends do is to grab the reader by the throat and drag them into the narrative so that they no longer feel they’re experiencing an artifice, but are totally absorbed in the adventure, and a good book, a movie, or a comic can do that. Comics can still do that.

Is there any one artist or author who we should be absolutely paying attention to as a rising star in Fort Collins or Northern Colorado or beyond?

In terms of art, Zane DeGaine is doing some amazing work. One comic that’s never failed to deliver is Straight Bullets by David Lapham. It’s been around for at least 20 years, but those stories are absolutely gripping. They’re very well-written, but grim.

If you could tell the local Northern Colorado business community one thing, what would it be?

Comics are a terrific medium for getting your message across. Lee Oaks and I did a three-issue series for Popeyes Chicken. It’s just a good story – kid-centric and kid-friendly. It doesn’t lay on the “buy Popeyes Chicken” too heavily. There’s also SimplyHR here in town that has put out their own comic on sexual harassment called Define The Line.

The United States military has always used comic to explain things, and Will Eisner, the famous creator of the Spirit, did a number of comics for the United States Army which covers things like how to clean your weapon, how to set up a bivouac, and they still use comics.

I have boxes of educational comics in my basement from insurance companies and finance companies explaining what they do in an entertaining manner. It’s not easy to make insurance and finance entertaining, but this is one way to do it. People read comics and understand comics. You see a story in pictures, you just want to pick it up and follow it. There’s such a wide range of material.

Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred has been turned into a graphic novel and it’s very well done. Also look at the huge body of autobiographical works that are appearing as graphic novels now. These are outside the traditional comic market. They’re not about super heroes. They’re about private lives. I have one by Bill Griffith called Invisible Ink which is about his mother’s affair with a famous cartoonist, and it’s all very personal, but it’s absolutely gripping because it’s real. He recreates who they were and what they said. He’s a very good artist too. Bill Griffith is the creator of Zippy the Pinhead, which was a syndicated strip in the Bay Area for many years. But you look at the work of R. Crumb or Spain Rodriguez, it’s autobiographical and it’s very powerful.

Mike, where can we find out more about you and your work?

Follow me on Twitter @bloodyredbaron and my website is BloodyRedBaron.net. All my books are on Amazon including thousands of graphics novels on which I’ve worked, including Star Wars, Deadman, Batman, and The Punisher.

Nikki Lachar – StartUp FoCo Podcast

Nick Armstrong on February 19, 2019

Nikki Lachar and Tina Todd, co-founders of simplyHR, are shaking up the world of sexual harassment training. Crowdfunding Define The Line, their comic book-based team training tool, to the tune of $10,000, the comic book is taking root nationwide.

Nikki’s panels are:

Let’s get to know Nikki!

Nikki, introduce yourself!

Hi, I’m Nikki Lachar, I’m the co-founder of simplyHR and Define the Line. simplyHR is an HR consulting firm that’s been in operations for the last three years. Our latest project is Define the Line and we’re revolutionizing sexual harassment training for our workplaces.

You just recently published a comic book.

Define the Line is our first comic book. It is a training tool for organizations to use and we’re kind of taking a different approach to sexual harassment training with the comic book format. We think it’s worth taking a look at how we train and educate employees on workplace harassment and how to respond to situations when people are inappropriate.

Have you heard back from businesses that they found that this is applicable for them?

Yes. We finished the project at the end of December, and within now the first month of 2019, we have seen exponential growth. We’re seeing companies nationwide reaching out to us, so whatever we’re doing is working because it is growing. We are taking a look at how we’re going to kind of tackle that growth as it comes on.

You Kickstarted the whole comic book?

Yes, we did a Kickstarter campaign, and we successfully raised over $10,000 for the project, which was phenomenal because there was no other way that we as a small business could have done the project.

Having that community behind the project supporting us and saying this was a good idea really gave us the fuel to go after it. Now we’re seeing growth after the Kickstarter campaign wrapped up and the response from sending out the comic books to our backers.

It’s available for purchase as well, right?

Right. We have an online store, so you can go right onto DefineTheLineComic.com and purchase it there. We also have services like on-site training for our clients as well.

What is the biggest challenge for small businesses looking at HR issues today?

Employees that are unpredictable. Navigating complex situations with employees when they come up, understanding what kind of laws or regulations can impact our decision as business owners, and understanding risk levels when we’re making those decisions.

When it comes to Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins, what are you most excited about?

So many things. We’re kind of dipping our pinky toe into what VC funding and angel investors could look like, especially for Define the Line. We’re really excited that there is a track specifically for funding. We’re going to be at every single one of those sessions so we can get as much good advice as we can from those in our community.

What would you say to a small business owner or a startup founder who says, “I don’t need to focus on HR right now?”

There are a lot of things that you’re risking if you go that direction. Setting up a business the right way the first time is much easier than after growth, trying to backdate, or back look at things that happened in the past and document what we did before.

A small business owner can really take a look at how they hire their first employee, and how to do that correctly from a compliance standpoint. Also, how are they going to create a culture for their team moving forward? HR is really important for those small business owners even when the business is really small.

What would you say to an evil corporation that wanted to set up a really horrible company culture?

Maybe they shouldn’t have a business.

Just kidding. But everybody’s culture is different. So, something that I personally think sounds evil might not be evil for other people if they’re fine with how it’s set up. It would just really depend on what this mean, evil corporation is trying to do.

Have you noticed that different HR issues come up across different kinds of startups, or are they pretty universal?

We see a lot of common themes and trends. We’re in the space of compliance, so the rules and regulations that impact one industry, impact all industries for us. There are industries where we’re seeing some difficulty as far as retaining a female workforce, but for the most part it’s very similar. You’d be surprised.

What is the single craziest HR issue that you’ve encountered so far?

There was an employee who asked for some time off because her pet had passed away. When I spoke to the employer, they let the employee have some time, but then they never returned. A year later, the employee informed the company that they were ready to come back to work. Essentially they needed a year off after the loss of the pet, which seemed a little crazy. I mean, I love my dog, but I could probably go back to work before a year is up.

You hear stories about emotional support animals, how do you handle some of the crazy employee requests that are reasonable from a certain view, but might be totally unreasonable from a startup?

Oh my gosh, we get so many things, like employees that want unlimited time off or PTO. And we have employees that are demanding that their wages be increased by astronomical amounts. It’s really about being consistent in those practices. We might say yes to an employee who is a great worker and they’re asking for their emotional support pet, but we’re not really thinking long-term.

If we said yes, and now five years later we’ve grown to a team of a hundred employees, do we let everybody bring their pet in? Is that the culture that we want to have? Is that how we want to structure our business moving forward? You can change things as time progresses, but making one decision early on, you could accidentally offer quite a lot of benefits that you might regret if things get out of hand.

Tell us about your panel at Startup Week.

We have a phenomenal panel of experts talking about how we keep women in the workforce. We’re focusing on unconscious bias. We’re looking at empowering individuals, women specifically, and also looking at parental leave, and how that works to support women. When they do leave to have a child, or they’re looking for that next step or that promotion, how do we make sure we’re retaining that workforce, and not seeing a big dip where they kind of fall off the earth before they come back a few years later? Also, how do we support that transition as well.

Where we can find out more about you and your business?

SimplyHRPartners.com and DefineTheLineComic.com, and we’re on social media at Define the Line Comic. You can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

To a newbie business just getting started out, what would be your best advice?

Seek out experts or people that have gone through what you are about to put yourself through. Leaning on individuals who have successful businesses, who are even just a year ahead of you as far as starting a similar business, can give you such great insight and inspiration and support as you’re starting a new business.

You’re going to end up doing things that you didn’t realize you would need to know how to do and you’re gonna have lots of questions. The sooner you can start making those connections and meeting with people, the better.

Franklin Taggart – StartUp FoCo Podcast

Nick Armstrong on February 18, 2019

Franklin Taggart is a creative coach, podcaster, advisor for the Loveland Business Development Center, and he’s one heck of a musician.

He’ll be presenting 3 panels at Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins:

Here’s what he had to say for the StartUp FoCo Podcast:

Tell us about yourself, Franklin!

My name is Franklin Taggart and I am a coach and consultant. I work primarily with the creative folks in the world helping them get their business world together. I do a lot of work with marketing, content marketing, podcasting, blogging, some affiliate marketing, and business setup as well, including business planning.

And you’re also a musician?

That’s been my longest love affair. This is my 40th year as a professional musician.

So, you know all about getting paid and the business of music?

I get paid most of the time.

What genre do you play?

What I would categorize my music as is mostly folk and country, with a bit of Americana, Blues, Bluegrass Jazz, and the occasional classic rock song.

What are you seeing as the biggest challenges in the Northern Colorado creative community?

Northern Colorado has a lot of support for creative industries, but the biggest challenge that we face right now is the increase in the cost of housing, and the availability of low-cost housing, and low-cost studio and performance space. That seems to be the challenge of the day for most of the folks that I work with. I would include myself in that, too. We were lucky to have a decent landlord who let us have the same rate for a very long time. We’re grateful for that. As I look at how housing prices are changing around here, I don’t know how much longer that artists are going to be able to manage to pay the rent. That’s the biggest thing that I see.

There’s a lot of collaboration going on. I know of a lot of artists’ collectives that have popped up around, there is an artist collective in Loveland and there’s an artists’ community called the Hotdish Artist Community in Fort Collins and they’re doing some really cool grassroots things. For my money, the grassroots is really where the most important work happens in the creative scene.

When the grassroots is subverted or bypassed, the scene loses something. One of the things that I’m concerned about for music is the grassroots has seen a real shakeup in the last few years. Some gigs that were here even three years ago are gone now and a lot of that has to do with a lot of the grassroots organization that we had in the music community. I don’t see it at the same level as we once did.

If you could tell a Northern Colorado creative one thing, what would it be?

It’s really an important time for you to pay attention to your marketing. Creatives in the past have had a reliable infrastructure. In the publishing world for authors, there was a pecking order and there was a process that you went through to get published and once you were published the marketing and all of that thing fell onto the publisher’s lap.

rtists always had to have some level of marketing, but now more than ever, marketing has a central role for every creative. I’m finding more and more often my services in the marketing area are more in demand all the time.

You started a podcast around that. What was that experience like?

I’ve done podcasting on and off since 2008. Podcasting is still a growing market. YouTube has said their number of new subscribers and new users has plateaued, but in podcasting the number of new subscribers and new users is still on a very steep incline. Podcasting right now is a really fine way for people to get themselves visible in the market that they want to reach.

More expensive housing creates a commuter community where you live outside the city where you work and play. As you’re commuting, podcasts are a great way to catch up on the local art scene.

There’s so much opportunity. For my money, podcasting is the more intimate of all the different media. People have a tendency to listen to podcasts when they’re doing other things during the day, but that is when their attention is actually available. They’re not distracted. I listen to podcasts when I walk the dog. My mind is totally available at that point. I can digest the material that I’m hearing. That’s my favorite time to listen. Podcasting is a good way to get your message deep into the psyche of whoever’s listening.

What are you most excited for about Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins and ARTup week in particular?

It is an amazing opportunity for small businesses of any kind to get resources, tools, and connections. The networking opportunities alone are worth being there. What I love most is that we never see this much talent in the same place at the same time ever outside of this week. There’s just no other event like it. The value of it can’t even begin to be expressed in words. It just has to be experienced – people just need to show up.

Where can we find out more about you and your work, Franklin?

My website is FranklinTaggart.com. I have a podcast called the Reset Podcast. I also do a weekly inspiring newsletter called Inbox Encouragement.

The Value of Considering Culture – a guest post by speaker Todd Cornell

Todd Cornell on February 18, 2019

Having grown up in Fort Collins, I didn’t have much opportunity to interact with diverse cultures or mindsets. The city we know today is a mecca of diversity by comparison!

Now, when interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds, I consciously stay open to things “outside my comfort zone”, remaining mindful of thoughts and inner reactions, while reminding myself to let go of prejudice and judgemental self-talk. Confucius said, ‘those who know that they don’t know are wise’.

There is profound wisdom in all cultures, but sometimes it’s difficult to recognize. Going open-minded into a cross-cultural situation allows me to be open to that wisdom, while recognizing divisive self-talk that may emulate from my own cultural bias. This awareness allows me to see my own cultural shortcomings and gives me a head start at foiling reactions that may come off as disrespectful.

So, what is the value of considering culture when doing business across cultures, or interacting with a co-worker from a different cultural background? For me, it’s a no-brainer. I feel not to do so is a form of arrogance and ignorance. It was only by living in China for over 20 years that I came face-to-face with my own racist reality. I ran smack into a great wall of culture that didn’t make sense.

Not long after arriving in China, I learned a valuable phrase, wisdom that I hold firm to yet today, “know yourself and know others”. It’s a well-known Chinese expression that comes from the book The Art of War.

It means if we understand ourselves and others, those with whom we are at battle, negotiating, or befriending, we will be successful. He also said that if we just understand ourselves, we will only be successful sometimes. The trick is having access to the right knowledge to achieve success.

Whether doing business with, establishing political relations with, or just befriending people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we, as individuals and a country, need to realize the importance of learning about and understanding others. By not doing so, we may resort to shaming and blaming, consequently not fostering a healthy basis for success.

As Americans, we feel that everyone speaks English and watches our movies, so we don’t need to “waste” our time at learning their language and culture. But, when we consider the wisdom in The Art of War, we clearly see that this is not the case. If we don’t put forth the effort to learn about others or work with those who have; we are putting ourselves, and our country, at risk – be it in business, politics, or relationships.

Learning about others can take many years, but there are ways to bridge the gap:

  1. Hire a consultant who posses the skills you need
  2. Learn the concepts of Cultural Intelligence (CQ), and discover the areas you need to grow in
Todd and Rascal

About Todd Cornell

Todd Cornell is a China Business-Culture Consultant who has lived over 20 years in Chinese speaking countries. He possesses above average China cross-cultural skills and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He has negotiated and managed multi-million-dollar technology transfer projects, joint ventures, and manufacturing businesses in Taiwan and Mainland China, and was the Associate Director at the Confucius Institute at CSU. Todd has gained profound insight into best practices for success with China, which are found within Chinese culture and philosophy. Todd is also a certified Cultural Intelligence trainer. Todd lives together with Rascal, his 13-year-old Chinese West Siberian Laika, in Fort Collins.

You can see Todd speak about Business Best Practices in China at 11AM Tuesday, February 26 at the Downtown Artery and on Cultural Intelligence is for Everyone 1PM Thursday, February 28th at the Downtown Artery.

Awestruck – a guest post by speaker and moderator Kit Baker

Kit Baker on February 18, 2019

Once, on my way back to Scotland to finish my degree after spending the summer with my family in Fort Collins, I stopped at an arthouse cinema in London to see “Mirror” by the Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. At first, things didn’t look so good. There were three people in the audience and my jet lag was seriously kicking in. Yet once the movie started, I was awestruck. I felt something I have never quite felt before or after: that, indeed, a mirror was being held up to my innermost self.

My fascination with Tarkovsky and his undying faith that art can change the world has been rooted deep down inside ever since (you can read my take on “Mirror” at kitbaker.com). 

But what hill of beans does that amount to in the city of Bikes, Beer and Bands? What do you do when you know about art and music that does not yet have a foothold in Fort Collins but can change lives – like “Mirror” changed mine? 

That’s my challenge: to increase the range and quality of art and music we create and have access to in Fort Collins. The kind that can truly change lives.

After three years of trying that were somewhere between John Cage’s “consider everything an experiment” and Samuel Beckett’s “Fail again. Fail better.”, there has finally been a breakthrough.  On February 28, thanks to LC Live and CSU (with an assist from yours truly), a quartet of woodwinds from the Brooklyn-based International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will play a concert here featuring modes of heightened listening conjured by outstanding women composers from both sides of the Atlantic – Anna Thorvaldsdottir (Ecological) and Pauline Oliveros (Deep). 

ICE started up with $603 in catering tips; today, thanks to a steadfast commitment to placing the artist entrepreneur at the heart of everything they do, they have 35 of the best young musicians in New York on their roster and a budget north of $2M. Two of those musicians will be in Artup Week talking about new digital tools and a research project that have applications both within and well beyond the music world. They will be joined by two experimental media artists and CSU lecturers talking about a digital tool of their own that lifts sounds to rarified heights and a transgender entrepreneur from Denver who is breaking astonishing new ground with the firm belief that anything is possible.

This encounter between local and global is a microcosm of the balance that invigorated my life and work in New York, London and Berlin – a balance I am now working to foster here in Fort Collins.

One of my favorite pieces of music is Ives’ “The Unanswered Question.” My career has been a million unanswered questions, through which artists have led me to places I never dreamed I could be.  Nothing means more to me than to be joined by friends in those places.  I hope to see you on this and many more creative adventures to come.

About Kit Baker

Kit Baker is an arts administrator, writer, and producer who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic.  In New York, he worked with artist entrepreneurs Michael Counts, an opera director, installation artist, and creator of large scale immersive theatre events, and MacArthur Fellow and Avery Fisher Prize-winning flutist Claire Chase, founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble.  In London UK, he worked with Pierre Audi at the Almeida Theatre to resource productions and performances by Tilda Swinton, Yuri Lyubimov, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass, Phelim McDermott, Deborah Warner, Toru Takemitsu and dozens more.  As a development professional, he has raised millions of dollars for the Tate Gallery, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc, Aperture Foundation, Cunningham Dance Foundation, GAle GAtes et al., Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and more. He was assistant director of the Jeff Award-winning TransformTheater Berlin on tour from Chicago to Siberia.

You can attend Kit’s panel Notes from the Field: Using Technology to Advance Artrepreneurship at 3PM Thursday, February 28 at Downtown Artery.

The Classical Convergence Series concert featuring the International Contemporary Ensemble will be Presented by LC Live & CSU Thursday February 28th at 7:30PM in the Organ Recital Hall at the University Center for the Arts.

Machine Learning for non-PhDs – a guest post from speaker Derek Haynes

Derek Haynes on February 18, 2019

Since I was a pasty, awkward middle schooler I’ve been writing computer code. Much of my coding time is spent fixing my own silly bugs, but a couple of magical coding moments standout:

  • When I accessed my hideous, lets animate-all-the-gifs AOL-hosted homepage on a middle school computer.
  • Character-by-character, copying Tetris onto my TI-85 calculator from a friend.
  • Watching the How to build a blog engine in 15 minutes video with Rails video. Rails was the secret weapon for small teams with big dreams.

Whether it’s skepticism honed by time or just reality, I’ve experienced fewer of these of moments over the past ten years. That is, until recently.

About a year ago, I solved my first problem with machine learning, identifying handwritten digits with only a few lines of code. It was magical taking something that seemed so human and solving it with so little code. There’s no way I could solve this problem elegantly with my traditional toolset. The problem I worked on is only scratching the surface of what machine learning can do. For example, machine learning is used today to:

It’s possible machine learning and the larger field of artificial intelligence will be the largest technological leap since the Internet.

So, where to begin? And should you even try?

There’s clearly demand for jobs in machine learning. Notice the large gap in employer demand vs. job seekers:

A major reason for this gap is that many companies are mistakenly looking for machine learning researchers, not candidates that know how to apply machine learning. Paraphrasing Cassie Kozyrko, Google’s Chief Decision Intelligence Engineer: if you run a bakery, you don’t hire an oven maker. You hire someone that knows how to bake bread. There’s a small minority of ML problems that require a new algorithm. Most problems can be solved with off-the-shelf models.

This hiring mindset is changing, but the wheels of big business move slowly. Today is a great time to take advantage of this gap: it’s significantly easier and cheaper for small companies to collect large amounts of data than it was a decade ago. Many smaller software companies have large enough data sets to solve time-consuming, differentiating problems. However, very few small companies have an applied machine learning engineer on staff to take advantage of all that data.

If you’re like me (machine learning-curious and too lazy to go back to school), applied machine learning might be for you. At 11AM Tuesday the 26th of February at The Innosphere, I’ll be giving a talk on getting started with machine learning. You’ll learn enough to talk intelligently about machine learning at your next network event, see me live-code a machine learning problem, and receive a curated list of resources to get you started.

In short, take advantage of my wasted efforts, false starts, and wrong turns. Just get the good stuff for applied machine learning.

3 Reasons Your Cloud Bill is So High – a guest post from speaker Lisa Gumerman

Lisa Gumerman on February 15, 2019

At Sunshower.io, we talk to a lot of people about their cloud infrastructure usage. In our professional lives, we’ve dealt with the confusion caused by different cloud vendors, including confounding billing methods, lack of insight into the infrastructure you’ve built, and just throwing hardware and money at the current problem and hoping it’ll fix it. Understandably, the question we’re most frequently asked is the one that’s most mission-critical: How did my cloud bill get like this and how do I get it down?

1) You Forgot About Some Infrastructure

“Cloud sprawl” is extremely common, and happens when you’re running more cloud instances than necessary. It’s easy to see how this can happen—running workloads that you’ve forgotten about and unused and idle workloads are all key culprits. In a complex cloud ecosystem, it can be tough to keep watch over everything running in the cloud. Monitoring and controlling those workloads is key to making sure you’re not over-spending on the cloud.  If your company isn’t using auto-scaling, you might be running instances 24/7 that aren’t always performing a necessary function. Running instances that you’re not using is essentially throwing money away—like going away for the weekend and leaving all of your lights on.

2) You Bought Too Much “Just In Case”

Overprovisioning refers to buying more cloud resources than you typically need. It’s important to tailor what you buy to actual usage, because it really adds up. The first step is figuring out what you’re actually using, which monitoring  and optimization tools can help with. If this process is overwhelming, there are vendors you can work with to help you sift through your options and make the best possible choices. Without good monitoring tools, it’s impossible to what you’re wasting. Only then should you start looking into what to buy instead.

3) You Drank The Vendor Kool-aid

The custom services provided by cloud service providers are tempting, but the cost can really add up. Even worse, it removes your ability to migrate to other cloud providers, so it’s hard to pivot to more cost-effective solutions over time. As you build your cloud strategy, try to avoid locking yourself into a relationship with a single cloud service provider. Don’t tie yourself to a single vendor because it’s convenient—make sure that you’re allowing yourself the flexibility to change providers and adapt new strategies when costs start to increase.

Setting Yourself Up For Future Success

When it comes to cloud costs as a whole, think about it this way: When you build a snowman, you start with a tiny ball. As you roll it around, it picks up more and more snow until the ball is eventually so big you can’t even move it. No way are you picking that guy up—he’s staying right where he is until the inevitable destruction by meltdown. Cloud costs can incrementally build up (and melt down) in much the same way. Not everyone has a full-time IT department or the expertise to be able to game the system and make sure their cloud infrastructure is as optimized as possible.

The good news is, there are tools out there to put you on the path to reducing your cloud costs today. The trick is choosing the right solutions—ones priced for the size of your company that simplify your life on the cloud, rather than complicate it. Choosing the right tools to help avoid sprawl, overprovisioning, overspending are vital parts of a company’s survival. Make it a priority to understand how you use the cloud today, and you’ll be in a better position to reduce cloud spending tomorrow.

About Lisa Gumerman & Sunshower.io

Lisa Gumerman is the CEO of Sunshower.io, which offers cloud management solutions with a lower barrier to entry, focusing on turn-key solutions that don’t require installation or a complicated configuration process. Whether it’s visualizing and tracking cloud infrastructure, deploying applications across clouds, or economizing and using space more efficiently, we simplify the complicated task of working on the cloud. Our initial product launch optimizes AWS EC2 spend by 40 to 80% and is free until June 2019.

You can see Lisa’s panel Managing Technical Debt on Monday February 25th, 12:30pm-1:30pm @ The Articulate.

Peggy Lyle – StartUp FoCo Podcast

Nick Armstrong on February 15, 2019

Peggy Lyle, the Director for the Downtown Fort Collins Creative District, is one of the foremost advocates for treating artists like the entrepreneurs they are. She’s got her finger located directly on the pulse of our growing creative community.

You can check out Peggy’s panel Sharing Your Personal Culture: Where Dance and Music Intersect on Wednesday February 27th, 5:00pm-6:30pm @ The Music District Living Room.

Peggy, tell us about yourself!

My name is Peggy Lyle and I am the Director for the Downtown Fort Collins Creative District. And I help to organize ARTup Week.

So you’re not busy at all then?

Not at all.

What’s got you most excited about Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins and ARTup week in particular?

I’m most excited about getting everyone together. There’s such amazing synergy when lots of creative brains and entrepreneurs get together, making connections and learning new things. Those are the most exciting parts of the week.

Similar to what Franklin said, “you just have to show up and be there in this energy.”

You really do. It’s a safe space for you to bring new ideas and risky questions, things that are burning for us as entrepreneurs, as creative leaders, and we don’t always get a chance to talk about them or learn the right strategy forward without significant investment. But this is a safe space.

“Safe space” in this context meaning a coopitition-type model?

Cooperation and collaboration breed better products. We ultimately make connections that might be great business partners, mentors, or new customers. Being able to be in that safe place where you are able to talk about kind of any ideas is really liberating. You walk away inspired from the collision of diverse ideas and business models all coming together.

Besides you, who’s doing the coolest things in Northern Colorado?

There are some amazing things happening with The Music District here in Fort Collins. I’m really excited about some of the stuff that the Fort Collins Musicians Association is taking on. They have a brand new executive director and are ramping things up. There are also so many things happening in tech and in green energy and in education. I really couldn’t be more proud of Fort Collins and Northern Colorado for all of the amazing cutting-edge things that people are willing to take on.

What are you seeing as the biggest challenge in Northern Colorado creative community?

There are shared nation-wide challenges like being valued for your work, viewing the creative industry as a legitimate business center and economic development tool, and recognizing creative endeavors as a realistic career choice. We also have unique problems in Colorado and in Fort Collins having to do with the affordability of spaces and being paid a living wage. We have an amazing support system from our city infrastructures. Really great schools and wonderful things, but sometimes it’s hard to afford to continue to live in this environment. We’ve developed such an attractive place to be that there’s an influx of people who want to live here. That’s driven some of those market prices up while unfortunately it hasn’t also driven wages up.

If you could tell a Northern Colorado creative one thing what would it be?

Think about yourself as a business person. It’s not a hobby. It’s a business and that means you need a business model. It has value. You need to take it seriously. That also probably means you need help, you need other professionals to help you do your business just like any entrepreneur does.

Where can we find more about you and your work?

The Downtown Creative District is a certified district through the Colorado Creative Industries. Our website is dfccd.org. We’re telling the unique stories of our creatives, connecting people to resources, and providing professional development as well as continuing to turn downtown Fort Collins into an arts and culture hub.