Tuesday, July 31, 2001

The Cyber Scene in Denver ~ by Suzanne Lainson

After two weeks of nonstop conferences (first oil and gas and then music), I am getting back into the Cyber Scene swing of things.

On July 31 I attended Carl Fischer's Pink Slip with a Twist party. He was going to have it on the terrace of his loft in Writer's Square, but the weather looked threatening so he relocated it for Josephina's in Larimer Square. I had planned to go anyway, but knowing that Wendy Woo (http://www.wendywoo.com) was playing the event a nice plus. Carl provided us with food, margaritas, and music -- not a bad way to contemplate a declining economy and to brainstorm ways to overcome it. While there I had a chance to catch up with Curtis Hart of 2c1h.com (http://www.2c1h.com). You can read more about Carl and his projects at:
http://www.emilehigh.com/news/viewnews.asp?alt=100001532&author=Lainson

On August 1, I attended the first CIK Apres Work (http://www.cik.org) in Boulder. It was held in a private room at Triana. There were probably twenty to thirty of us there including Cate Lawrence of Warrior Solutions (http://www.WarriorSolutions.com/warrior/html/index.html) and Erich Stein of Erich Stein Communications (http://www.erichstein.com). Erich's partner Nina and I had a long talk about the tango, which she teaches. Emanuela Panebianco, CEO of EC-Way (http://www.ecway.com), and I talked music and also the European tech show she is involved with. As she told me, "The show will be held in Milan, Italy, Oct. 18-22.Our exhibit, endorsed, among others, by the Mayor's Office for Economic Development, will be part of by the US Pavilion organized by the US Chamber of Commerce." She encourages Colorado companies to become sponsors.

On August 7, I attended First Tuesday (http://www.ftdenver.com), which this month was held at the brand new Mile High Station, a renovated turn of the century industrial building that is now available as a party location. Among the people I saw were Yvonne Lynott of Lynott PR, Jeff Finkelstein of Persona (http://www.persona.com), Suzy Thevenet and Mark Weakley of Holme Roberts & Owen (http://www.hro.com),  Dilpreet Jammu of Nortel Networks, Dan Lubar of dataDistributions (http://www.datadistributions.com), and Greg Berry of Think Tank West (http://www.thinktankwest.com). The Spire team was there, most notably Pamela Bergeson, the new VP of sales and marketing (http://www.spiremedia.com). And PR divas Donna Crafton, Jen Hofmeister, and Marissa Peede were there. Donna's starting up PrimaDonna PR. You can read more about the event at:
http://www.emilehigh.com/news/viewnews.asp?alt=100001574&author=Lainson

And then on August 9, I attended the CIK meeting at the Chop House in LoDo. I had never been there before, but was glad to check out the place that has hosted various Avalanche parties. We had a back room to ourselves, which was nice. Among those making the rounds were Mike Gellman and Brandon Shevin of Spire, Cate Lawrence, Erich Stein, Curtis Hart, Scott Price of CustomerCentrix (http://www.CustomerCentrix.com), Alex Teitz of FEMMUSIC (http://www.femmusic.com), Jon Fetzer of TamTam (http://www.tamtam.com), Kari Nelson of Recess Active Entertainment (http://www.YourRecess.com/index.html), Larry and Pat Nelson of ICR Web (http://www.icrweb.com), Mark Weakley and Linda Wackwitz from Holme Roberts & Owen, and Sara Yelton and Terri Douglas of Catapult PR (http://www.catapultpr-ir.com).

On August 10 I was down in Colorado Springs for the Colorado Technology Summit 2001 at the Pikes Peak Center, a great venue. Lots of Boulder/Denver folks made it there. I saw Mark Weakley, Larry and Pat Nelson, and Julie Jacobs of PHD Management Group (http://www.juliejacobs.com).

Governor Owens looked particularly spiffy at this event. And he obviously felt comfortable in this Republican stronghold. I arrived in time to hear him speak, followed by a panel of mostly telecom CEOs, and then the keynote speech by Craig Barrett, president/CEO of Intel. The three most noteworthy comments of the day were John Sie, founder/chairman/CEO of StazEncore, saying that entertainment would drive broadband usage, Larissa Herda, chairman/president/CEO of Time Warner Telecom saying that her company knew better than to get into the DSL business, and Craig Barrett saying that on Intel's website, $60 million in orders are placed each day.

As always I have been hitting the clubs and running into familiar faces. Mark Weakley and his wife were at the Boulder Theater for an eTown performance featuring blues guitar legend Buddy Guy and blues/folk singer Odetta. Alex Teitz was at the Gavin Summit enjoying all the live music that comes to Boulder every year in conjunction with that event. Kari Nelson dropped into Soma, the techno club in Boulder. Erich Stein and Curtis Hart were among those who joined me to catch Wendy at Denver coffee house Stella's. Then later than evening those of us who were still around headed over the Herman's Hideaway to hear Opie Gone Bad do their final set, capped off with Wendy and Jake Schroeder doing a full bore duet to the Bill Withers classic, "Use Me."