Mike Maney

Tag: denver

  • In Pictures: Defrag X

    It’s taken me longer than I expected to write this post. It’s been a decade since Eric and Kim Norlin sent out the first registration link for a small Denver-based conference called Defrag. 10 years for a tech conference is a helluva run.

    Defrag had a long run because Eric and Kim made it something special. Attendees never knew what to expect from the agenda other than it would be mind-expanding and changing until about two weeks out. Unlike many conferences, the talks weren’t chosen by committee. They were chosen by whatever Eric saw coming down the pipe that the community might need to get in front of. From connections between housing starts and ladders falling off of trucks at one exit in Los Angeles to tales of dinner table conversations with computing greats and cosmonauts in training…Defrag never disappointed.

    Luckily, much of what made Defrag great will carry on at Eric and Kim’s other long-running conference: Gluecon. Different time of the year (May instead of November), but same Bat channel. If you’ve never attended, I encourage you to register and come prepared to learn from some of the smartest people in the business.

    And, if you’re like me and have been to more Defrag’s and Glue’s than you can count, I’ll see you, my friends, in May at the Omni.

     

     

  • Two Brain-Pounding Conferences: Defrag + Monktoberfest

    Defrag 2011It’s now just under two weeks until the 5th annual Defrag. No tech conference gets me more excited. Defrag is held each November on the outskirts of Denver, bringing 300 of the technology industry’s smartest thinkers together for a unique and intense mix of keynotes and hallway interaction. This will be my fourth Defrag and I suspect this one will make my brain hurt just as much as the previous ones. Agendas honestly don’t get any better than the ones that hatch from organizer Eric Norlin’s sun-soaked head.

    Alcatel-Lucent is one of the lead sponsors of Defrag and we have some special surprises in store for this year’s anniversary edition (we are also the Community Underwriter of Eric’s other kickass conference centered around APIs and cloud computing, Gluecon). The conference is nearly sold-out (Eric is capping attendees at 325), so if you can make it out to Denver, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to get some of that sweet sponsor discount moving your way.

    Keeping to the cool conference theme, I also attended a great Defrag precursor the other week: Monktoberfest. How do you top a conference that began with a simple tweet:

    Monktoberfest: The tweet that started it all

     

     

     

     

     

    Check out Stephen’s post on the official background story.

    As the name implies, yes, there was beer involved. Good beer. Very, very good beer. And lobster rolls. Can’t believe I almost forgot about the lobster rolls. But the food and beer were secondary to the content the gang at Redmonk pulled together for the 150 or so attendees. It was a killer lineup of speakers exploring “how technology is impacting the way we socialize and how the way we socialize is influencing the way we build and use technology.” The exclusive conference was high on brains and low on douchebags, something not terribly common in conferences focused on social. Monktoberfest is without a doubt on my must-attend for 2012 (provided my liver recovers in time).

  • Defrag 2009: Day .5

    It was arrival day for one of the tech industry’s most brain-straining conferences, Defrag 2009, in Denver. Lots of catching up with old friends like Graeme Thickins and meeting new ones like PostRank CTO/founder Ilya Grigorik. Here’s a quick shot from our table at the John Minnihan/Freepository-sponsored pre-conference dinner hanging with Infectious Greed’s Paul Kedrosky, Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, and the man himself, Robert Scoble.