Happy Santa Cruz is Indeed Very Happy :)

After a lot of hard work and help from Todd Schafer, Davy and Ruby at Parachute Creative, Nick Sobrak-Seaton and James Lafferty (HUGE PROPS TO JAMES!) Happy Santa Cruz is now a reality. Check out the site at www.happysantacruz.com, let us know why Santa Cruz makes you happy, and spread the love!

Big thanks too to Genevieve Bookwalter with the Santa Cruz Sentinel for doing a phenomenal write up on the cover of the Sentinel Tuesday as well!

(HSC business partner and homeboy Nick is missing from the picture above)

State of the Santa Cruz Tech Scene - RePost

Yep, another repost, but Jeremy Neuner @jjneuner, CEO of www.nextspace.us, hits it out of the park with this one.  Click on the Title to link to the post itself:

The other day, I spent the morning hanging out with Margaret Rosas, Founder and Chief Strategist at the strategic web consultancy Quiddities. The Santa Cruz Sentinel had just run a story on Margaret and her team (we lovingly call them The Q-Mamas) about how their company—and our town—thrive on collaboration. As we washed coffee cups (a morning ritual at NextSpace), Margaret and I reminisced about the first time we spoke to each other over the phone in October 2007 and how we both lamented the lack of a vibrant, collaborative tech scene here in Santa Cruz. And then we marveled at how far our town and our amazingly innovative tech community have come lately.

So, inspired by my conversation with Margaret, here’s a quick (okay, not so quick!) run-down of what’s happened over the past 18 months regarding the tech scene in Santa Cruz. Please take a look. And if I’ve missed something, please drop a comment and let me know. Meanwhile, I think you’ll be pretty damn impressed with the state of the tech community in Santa Cruz….

Geek Dinners

It all started on November 30, 2007 with the inaugural Santa Cruz Geek Dinner. Local visionaries Margaret Rosas, Sean Tario, and Sol Lipman decided to put a stake in the ground, gather some talented people, and start building a community. One of the attendees, David Beach, predicted that this dinner would be the first of a series of events that would put Santa Cruz back on the tech map.  Beach’s words proved prophetic. Through the Geek Dinners, Beach met Sol Lipman. Together, along with Jakey Knobel, they started 12seconds.tv, the hottest social media start-up on the planet. I think that counts as “putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.” The Geek Dinners continue to draw dozens of talented Santa Cruzans every month.

Santa Cruz Geeks

Hard on the heels of the Geek Dinners came the Santa Cruz Geeks, a virtual and physical community of local techies. Now over 250 strong, the Geeks form the backbone of the Santa Cruz tech community. Most important, the Geeks prove that this town is chock full of talented, innovative, successful tech professionals who are passionately committed to building great companies in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center

January 2008 marked the official launch of the Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center. Recognizing that Santa Cruz is a hub of world-class design talent, the SCD+IC was formed as an advocacy group to promote that talent to the rest of the world. Over 300 people packed into an auditorium at Plantronics for the SCD+IC’s launch event, proving that the design and technology community in Santa Cruz was hungry for opportunities to organize, network, and collaborate. Aside: Plantronics is one of Santa Cruz’s great home-grown companies. They designed the headset that Neil Armstrong wore on the moon in 1969 and have been designing great products in Santa Cruz ever since. Rockstar/Boy-Genius Darrin Caddes is Plantronics VP of Design and is a huge (and remarkably humble) fixture in the Santa Cruz tech scene.

Santa Cruz New Technology Alliance MeetUp

Another local visionary, Doug Erickson, started the Santa Cruz New Tech Alliance MeetUp in February 2008. Like many of us in Santa Cruz, Doug has deep professional connections in Silicon Valley. But he knew very few of his fellow Santa Cruzans. Yet, he had a pretty strong hunch that there was a community-in-waiting of local techies in this town. So Doug started the New Tech MeetUp. He had three goals: create a monthly networking event for Santa Cruz high tech professionals, increase our exposure to new technologies that would tickle our geek gears, and stimulate beachhead startups. With humble beginnings (39 attendees crammed into the police department’s community room with no Internet access), Doug has grown the MeetUp into an organization nearly 600 strong.

Approval of the Delaware Addition

In July 2008, the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved the Delaware Addition project. Designed by local architect Mark Primack and spearheaded by Craig French from Redtree Properties, this 20 acre, LEED-certified, mixed-use, live/work development on the city’s Westside will provide the infrastructure that the next generation of Santa Cruz companies will need. Most important, the approval of Delaware Addition is the first major piece of public policy indicating that this community understands the direction that the local economy is heading: towards smaller, collaborative, environmentally-minded, high-tech businesses.

Freelance Camp

For a long time, the Santa Cruz tech scene has been famously decentralized. Many Santa Cruzans work as consultants, independent contractors, or telecommuters for larger companies in Silicon Valley and throughout the rest of the world. But independents lack opportunities for community, collaboration, and connection. So Shane Pearlman and Peter Chester (they run a company called, you guessed it, Shane & Peter, Inc.) decided to herd the cats. In August 2008, they hosted Freelance Camp for over 125 freelancers and independent consultants. This barcamp-style unconference provided yet another community-building opportunity as local freelancers shared ideas on how to run a one-person shop. Even better, Freelance Camp has become a home-grown national phenomenon, with similar conferences popping up in places like Miami, Houston, and Austin. Hey, just one more step in putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.

Digital Media Factory

Santa Cruz is building a new digital information industry. And Marty Collins, CEO of the Digital Media Factory and thirty-year industry veteran, is leading the charge. In Marty’s words, “the Digital Media Factory is a multi-business facility for the design, development, production, replication, management, and distribution of digital information products.” In my words, DMF is pure genius. Why? Because Marty believes in community. He’s gathered over a dozen digital media businesses under one roof to share resources, talent, and opportunities. Even more important, Marty is leveraging the immense talent pool at UC Santa Cruz. He’s developed partnerships with UC Santa Cruz’s Digital Arts and New Media program, as well as the UCSC Baskin School of Engineering. Which brings me to…..

UC Santa Cruz/City of Santa Cruz Legal Settlement

Universities are amazing repositories of talents, ideas, and innovations. From an economic perspective, universities are fertile ground for new companies that can boost the economies of their host cities. Heck, Silicon Valley was practically built by Stanford spin-outs. Why can’t that phenomenon happen with UC Santa Cruz and the City of Santa Cruz? It can. And it will, especially now that the UCSC and the City have stopped suing the bejeezus out of each other over UCSC’s long-range development plan. The legal settlement, announced in August 2008, marks the beginning of what I call “The Great Thaw.” It’s high time for the UCSC to show some leadership in using its pool of talent to help build local business and the local economy. And it’s even higher time for the citizens of Santa Cruz to recognize that UCSC is a tremendous asset to the community, rather than a liability. I’m incredibly optimistic.

NextSpace Grand Opening

Amidst all of this excitement, NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. officially opened its doors on October 1, 2008. We started with a handful of true-believing early adopters.  But in six short months, our community of innovators has grown to over 100 strong.  What’s happening at NextSpace?  A lot.  Take a look at this post on The NextSpace Effect for a quick rundown. Mostly, I want to acknowledge that NextSpace would not be possible without the vision, passion, and hard work of all of the people mentioned in this post.

Radio Engage

New media? Old media? The smart ladies at Quiddities think you can have both.  They received a Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to fund their new project Radio Engage.  In their words, Radio Engage is a platform allowing public radio stations to create a web presence that will draw their local community in and invite them to participate through social media.  In my words, Radio Engage will totally revolutionize how public radio stations interact with their listeners.  Quiddities teamed up with Santa Cruz’s own KUSP as a test platform for Radio Engage.  As part of the project, Quiddities hosted Public Media Camp in November 2008, bringing  public media and social media experts from around the country to Santa Cruz to discuss the future of public radio.  Are you catching the themes that we’re building here: high tech, collaborative, community-based business and innovation.

Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? Here’s the first proof point: The Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Hatched in December 2008 by Bonnie Lipscomb (City of Santa Cruz Director of Economic Development) and Nirvikar Singh (Special Assistant to the Chancellor at UCSC), PPIE brings together undergraduate business teams from UCSC with local business mentors. The first round of projects focused on bicycles and other forms of alternative transportation, a perfect fit for the tech-savvy, sustainability-focused crowd in Santa Cruz.

Launch of CruzBusiness.com

Peter Koht, the economic development coordinator for the City of Santa Cruz, is a man on a mission. Peter knew that the City offered plenty of economic development resources, but those resources were often disparate and hard to find. Seemingly overnight, Peter launched CruzBusiness.com, an interactive, community-based portal for information about starting and sustaining a business in Santa Cruz. Peter’s work is an important step in accomplishing his—and the City’s—mission of recruiting, attracting, and retaining great businesses in Santa Cruz.

The Envision Santa Cruz Summit

In March 2009, Sean Tario (man, that guy is everywhere!) hosted the first Envision Santa Cruz Summit at the UCSC University Center. Sean’s objectives for the Summit were to assemble thought leaders in local entrepreneurship and economic development, to celebrate the amazing companies and resources in Santa Cruz, and to inspire Santa Cruzans to take a more active role in building their local economy. Over 150 people showed up to discuss the economic future of our community. Decades from now, when someone writes a book about the economic history of Santa Cruz, Sean’s summit will definitely be one of the highlights.

Girls in Tech

The latest group on the scene is the Santa Cruz chapter of Girls in Tech.  Founded by Seana Sullivan and Victoria Crimmins, this group focuses on “engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.”  Their first event brought author and journalist Sarah Lacy to town. More important, this group provides a much-needed acknowledgement and celebration of the critical contributions that women make to our local tech scene.

UC Santa Cruz Business Plan Competition

Right now, as I type, as you read, 16 business teams from UCSC are going head-to-head in the first-ever UCSC Business Plan Competition. The semi-finals are on April 17, 2009, and the finals are in late May 2009. Local investors, bankers, and business leaders are judging the competition. Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? The UCSC Business Plan Competition is proof point #2. Stay tuned….

Right, so, that’s the low-down. This has been a long post, mostly because so many cool things are happening in Santa Cruz around high tech, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and community-based economies. We’ve come a long way as a community in the past 18 months. So where are we now?  I think the best benchmark is the number of companies that have started up or are ready to scale here in Santa Cruz.  Here’s a quick list of just a handful:  12seconds, UserVoice, Pergamum Systems, ProductOps, Intuvo, RideSpring, ZoomPool, Verdafero, Zazengo, Studio Cruz, and Digital Media Factory.  Not too shabby for this beautiful, brilliant, creative, innovative little seaside town.

As I said at the top, please comment if I’ve missed something in this lengthy round-up. Meanwhile, what’s next? I have some ideas. What are yours?

Hello Class… My Name is Sean Patrick Tario…

Had the opportunity to speak on campus at UCSC on Friday last week to a Business Management class led by the kind and wonderful Mary Flannery. Specifically spoke on the life experiences I’ve had and lessons learned over the past 10 years pushing the limit and trying to forge a different path than the standard 9-5 cubicle life outside in the real world. For the most part, I ended up winging it, but spent a lot of time hammering home the point that if they (being mostly Juniors and Seniors - @ 50 of ‘em) didn’t get off their butts, start finding out what their passionate about, and start looking for a job ASAP they would be SOL come graduation and forced into a career path they most likely would not be happy with.

Reflecting back, I loved the experience. Something sparked in me part way into the talk, and I was overwhelmed with the desire to go back in time and tell myself all the things I was telling the class in front of me. Made me that much more passionate about the points I was trying to get across and realize I was truly sitting in front of a room of quasi-mold able clay (other than the few students who just plugged in their headphones and tuned out the whole time). I have so much more respect for teachers now (like my amazing wife who teaches now and my mother AND father who taught back in the late 60’s and 70’s) and also a sense of the incredible responsibility they have to actually REACH their audience. Anyone can talk about a subject, but engaging your audience and actually getting them to listen is what separates those teachers who transform lives from those who just get a paycheck.

Having nearly half the class stay after to ask questions was a sign I think that this may be a calling for me… some day! :)

I See Rain Coming

Came across a post through the Geeks Group from Paul Graham (an entrepreneur, author and Partner with the fund/incubator Y Combinator) speaking to how other communities and cities are trying to “recreate” Silicon Valley and encourage more capital, entrepreneurs and startups to take root in their towns.

Can You Buy A Silicon Valley?

Having dove head first into this very conversation for the past few years with many folks here in town, over the hill and across the country, my 2 cents is that Santa Cruz is unlike almost all other city’s trying to “recreate” the Silicon Valley experience and trying to build a friendly ecosystem for startups because:

-We’re a 30 minute drive from Silicon Valley and 45 minute drive from Sand Hill / Page Mill Road where most startups end up for Series A Funding… which is exactly how long it would take someone to get there from the East Bay, Oakland or San Francisco.

-We’re ALREADY known around the world for being a hub of innovation and big ideas thanks to the incredible companies that are rooted here and serve the recreation sports industries.

-We’ve got a University that is not perfect (which one is?) but finally starting to make some strides toward helping bright and motivated students and professors with big ideas and game changing technologies to actually start doing something with those ideas and technologies.

-We’ve got a City/County that is not perfect (again, which one is?) but finally starting to make some strides toward helping bright and motivated CITIZENS with big ideas and game changing technologies to actually start doing something with those ideas and technologies.

-We already live in one of the wealthiest regions in the country.

-People go out of their way and take huge risks to try and earn a living here.

-Our entrepreneurial minded citizens have learned that waiting around for government to do anything in terms of economic development locally is a total waste of time due to policies and politics over the past few decades, and thus they’ve stopped waiting for hand outs and started creating the infrastructure on their own…

-Spend all of 30 minutes walking around the likes of NextSpace or a Geek Dinner and you’ll realize the entrepreneurs and intellectual capital is already here, alive, and thriving.

-Spend all of 30 minutes walking around the likes of NextSpace or a Geek Dinner and you’ll realize the INFRASTRUCTURE and COMMUNITY needed to help support and nurture those thinking about and actually building companies are already here, alive and thriving.

Thus, I don’t feel Santa Cruz needs to “recreate” jack squat. “Recreate” simply isn’t the terminology or conversation that needs to be had. The conversation is around how we best leverage the ALREADY EXISTING RESOURCES in a far more effective and productive way than we have been in years past.

IMHO, these past few years in Santa Cruz have been focused on tilling the soul, making sure it has all the nutrients it needs for the short and long term and planting the seeds. We each play a different role in this process and, again, IMHO, have been doing a phenomenal job taking care of our garden/farm to this extent. As we have the sun in abundance here in Santa Cruz, the one piece now missing is the capital to help water the fertile soul and planted seeds… and mark my words, by summer, we’ll see some rain coming… possibly a monsoon ;)

Sean

PS - If you want to experience firsthand why I believe now is the time for Santa Cruz, please check out www.santacruzsummit.com and attend this event. We have some great speakers coming, but it will be so very much more than your typical keynote/panel event. In fact, I GUARANTEE it will be an evening that will go down in the history books for this City/County and an ongoing EXPERIENCE unlike any other you’ve had.

I’m Throwing a Party… You Should Come

After the AmGen Bicycle Tour rolls through town

Come tour 4 of downtown Santa Cruz’s finest venues

$20 gets you great food at Hula’s and Cypress, 1 Free drink, and a chance to win a beach cruiser… Plus it helps us offset the cost of the food, band and beach cruiser!

1st Stop from 5:30 - 6:15pm @ Hula’s (Light Appetizers Provided)

2nd Stop from 6:30 - 7:15pm @ Motive

3rd Stop from 7:30 - 8:15pm @ Vida

4th Stop from 8:30 - closing time @ Cypress (Great Food, Band and Beach Cruiser Raffle)

JOIN THE SANTA CRUZ PUB CRAWL GROUP ON FACEBOOK

My Morning on KUSP’s GeekSpeak

Had a great time this morning with GeekSpeak host Lyle Troxell and his fellow geeks Drew Meyer, Miles Elam, and Ben Jaffe at KUSP’s GeekSpeak.  Thank you Drew for setting this up, thank you Lyle for making it happen and thank you Santa Cruz Geeks for all your support pre/during/post the broadcast!

Check out the 12second.tv Vid I took Prior to the Show Starting

Listen to the Broadcast (meat of it starts @ half way through)

I’m Sailing!!!! I’m Sailing!!!!

Went sailing on the Monterey Bay for the first time today with a bunch of Geeks and it freaking rocked my socks off.  Still can’t get over why it has taken me over 10 years living so close to the Bay to finally make this happen??!!

Raced a 42 foot yacht around the Bay and then had the opportunity to see 2 Humpback Whales feeding only 20-30 yard in front of us.  Thank you Lighthall Charters and Reesa Abrams for pulling it together!

If anyone has a boat in the Santa Cruz Harbor and needs/wants a deck hand for a race, please let me know!  Been thinking about making this happen for far too long… and may as well start now!  Seriously though, I’m game.