Wine Tech Food Conference #WTFconf

03/11/2015

The event not only went over by two hours, there was an after party, followed by a full day of wine tasting, barrel tasting, beer drinking, drone flying, hot rod races and more outdoor madness.

It all came to an exhaustive end on Sunday when the speakers scattered back to the four corners of the globe, then slept for a week.

We're already planning 2016. If you attended 2015 you're already on the list and get first priority. 2016 will sell out, and we have even more crazy ideas planned for next year. It has something to do with donkeys.

In case you missed the legendary CC Chapman. He was kind enough to create a photo album of the event on Flickr. The NSFW version is in photo locker. Enjoy!

First annual Wine, Technology & Food Conference in the wine country of California. Find out more at www.wtfconf.com

03/04/2015

We're thinking about a prize for the best lie or most creative costume used to sneak into WTFconf!

02/28/2015

This speaker's got game. She was a college basketball player before she mastered the Google game. After 10 years working on Search Engine optimization, she know's a thing or two about how get a website to rank on page 1 for generic terms like coffee, wine, restaurant, hotel, etc.

She'll show you why your website isn't working, and what you can do to reach page 1. Interesting factoid, 80% of all clicks on google search happen on page 1, in the first 7 spots. If you're on page 2 you don't exist.

Maybe I can convince Janelle to play Clay Hebert in a little one and one. If I was a gambling man, I'd have to put $20 on Janelle

Learn from the best at Wine Tech Food Conference on March 5th at the Sedgwick Reserve.

02/25/2015

This is the most emotionally charged speaker announcement I've made for Wine Tech Food Conference .

In 2007 he was an overweight, overpaid, under appreciated, and unhappy financial executive in Manhattan. On December 31st, of that same year, he stood up from his big cushy chair, walked over to his boss and quit. He walked to the elevator, pushed the down button and never looked back.

Prior to that he'd been a broke, but happy Shakespearean actor, who also ran a very cool Shakespeare production company called the LAC Project, with his lovely wife Melissa.

Fast forward to 2015, now he runs the coolest company on the planet, Misfit Inc. Misfit includes a publishing company, a humanitarian company, a design agency, an events company and a film festival.

He is a Shakespeare Fellow, Humanitarian, Author, and Philanthropist. He’s raised more than six million dollars for social projects in South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Malawi. He’s currently on an epic adventure to travel around the world for 1,880 days.

As I said in the past, I'm great at one thing, and that’s recognizing talent and opportunity. In 2008 AJ published a video post on a tech blog my company had recently launched. At that moment I knew he had something very special.

Since that day, seven years ago, I've backed or supported every single project or crazy idea he's ever had, and with no reservations or guarantee of success. I just knew he'd figure it out…and he did.

Now AJ is taking a chance on me, and on our community. He is supposed to be in Kenya on March 5th, but changed his plans to come to Santa Ynez. His story is like no other.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that my dear friend AJ Leon will be the keynote speaker at WTF on March 5th!

02/24/2015

We felt it was fitting that the very first speaker at Wine Tech Food Conference be the Resident Manager of the Sedgwick Reserve, Kate McCurdy.

For the past 9 years, Kate has been helping the local wildlife and farmland thrive. I had the opportunity to drive around in an open jeep with Kate, and I had no idea of the beauty and scale of the reserve.
We talked at length about issues ranging from poaching, water management for bears and mountain lions, irrigation for vineyards and fruit trees, to deers that are feeding on oak tree seedlings. We also drove by a few of the research projects of which there are currently 35!

The Sedgwick Reserve is home to so it's fitting that we learn from Kate about the importance of the reserve, and it's impact on wildlife and farming in the coming years.

It's a little known fact, but the Sedgwick Reserve will be the research facility for VineRangers. We will be conducting research in conjunction with Kate, the UCSB Computer Science Department, local vintners and farmers.

Before Sedwick, Kate spent 12 years as a Wildlife Ranger at Yosemite, Santa Monica Mountains and Channel islands studying black bears and mountain lions.

Kate lives on the reserve with two burros, an old brown horse and her trusty Labrador retriever Angus. As for the bat in the picture below, I'm guessing it didn't along with Angus.

02/22/2015

Over the past two weeks, all we've been doing is promoting speakers for Wine Tech Food Conference . We thought it was time to talk about the other cool things happening at the event.

After the first round of speakers are done, you'll be able to take your first drone selfie, while sitting in hot rods from the 30's, 40's and 50's! "Why" you say... don't ask why, it's just fun. That's reason enough!

For your viewing pleasure we'll have some amazing drones on display that are used in everything from agriculture to filming television commercials and movies.

There will be wine from SAARLOOS AND SONS, Firestone Vineyard and Winery, Westerly Wines and Tercero.

We were able to knab some very cool Blonde Ale from St. Archer. A San Diego based company that recently opened up shop here in town. Really great way to support a new local company.

After you're done with your drone selfie, and your wine and beer, you'll enjoy some delicious Tri-Tip sandwiches and BBQ Chicken.

We don't recommend you stuff your face while taking a drone selfie because we're shameless and we'll post it within seconds.

The countdown has begun. kicks off in exactly 10 days! Due to capacity limitations we can't sell more than 99 tickets. Get the last remaining tickets at wtfconf.com.

02/21/2015

Wine Tech Food Conference is about to break the internet.

Clay Hebert will be speaking at WTF on March 5th.

He is one of the world’s leading crowdfunding experts, Clay has helped over 100 entrepreneurs raise over $25 million on crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Clay is the founder of CrowdfundingHacks and the creator of Fund Your Dream. His clients include Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities and nonprofits in the world.

Clay has written for The Washington Post, Forbes and The Next Web and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Lifehacker and The Financial Post. He is a regular guest on FOX Business.

When clay isn't helping entrepreneurs fund their dreams, he's playing basketball. When he's not playing basketball he's drinking wine. At WTF give him a few glasses of wine and then ask him to shoot hoops. He'll still kick your ass, but at least you'll get more time with him.

If you've ever wanted to launch your dream, but money got in the way, Clay will show you how to make it happen.

Learn from the best WTFconf.com.

02/21/2015

We're on a roll! The next speaker Wine Tech Food Conference is Jim Klingshirn, he's Co-Founder of PowWow Energy. 4th generation farmer and expert in leak detection and water management. Water was a common theme when we interviewed farmers. You ask, you get.
Mr. Klingshirn is currently developing algorithms to measure leaf cover and to detect irrigation leaks by processing multispectral aerial imagery of vineyards and orchards.
We're in a severe drought that has no end in sight. Water management will be critical over the next decade. Come learn from the best. March 5th, at the Sedwick Reserve.

02/20/2015

If you collect email addresses, you're in the list business. If you collect recurring revenue (aka wine clubs) you're in the subscription business. Lisa Horner has built, without question, some of the largest and most successful email lists and subscription businesses on the planet. She can count her customers in the tens of millions, but she started out with zero emails and zero subscribers.

She cut her teeth as a Santa Barbara based restaurateur, then tech-head turned marketer. I'm very proud to announce she'll be speaker at Wine | Tech | Food Conference on March 5th at the Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Ynez.

Lisa loves Champagne. I mean really loves the bubbly. If you want more time with her at the event, just throw back a few glasses with her, and she's yours!

What you'll learn from Lisa:

1. How to talk to your customers
2. Online reputation management - online listening via yelp
3. Marketing and engagement 101 - How to Capture and Create Demand for your product or service
4. Paid media vs. Earned Media
5. Customer Relationship Management Systems & Marketing Automation

A ticket is only $99. Lisa gets paid thousands to teach companies these skills. You do the math. WTFconf.com.

02/19/2015

Type Fargo in Google and look at Images. What do you see? The only image most of us have ever known...the movie, Fargo.

My first trip to Fargo was in 2013 to speak at Misfit Conf. Fargo was actually the exact opposite of the movie. A thriving tech scene, artistic community and beautiful downtown. The real estate market was booming...and still is.

Much of the credit for Fargo's new image and growth can be credited to Greg Tehven. Greg is a fifth generation North Dakotan. He is a connector, builder, and advocate. He believes it is each person's responsibility to build the community they want to be part of.

In college, he built Students Today Leaders Forever into a national non profit. He returned to Fargo to build Emerging Prairie with friends to raise the profile of entrepreneurship and innovation in Fargo, and leads TEDxFargo, 1 Million Cups Fargo, and hosts Midnight Brunch.

Speaking first hand, Fargo has literally become the tech and artistic hub of the Midwest. I asked Greg to speak at Wine Tech Food Conference to share his story. To inspire our local community to be the change we want to see in our beautiful wine country.

02/18/2015

Vanity Fair calls Julia Roy "America's Tweetheart." Shes created new media marketing campaigns for companies like Pepsi, Ford, Coach, Hearst. She's the Co-Founder of WorkHacks, a public speaker and an amateur Neuroscientist.

Now she can add Wine Tech Food Conference to her impressive list of accomplishments. It was easy to convince Julia to join us. She's so into big brain neuro stuff, I just used a couple of hypnotism hacks and voila, she said yes!

Get tickets at wtfconf.com. March 5th at the Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Ynez. Julia is coming here all the way from New York. Once she figures out my hypnotism hack, I won't be able to get her back again. I've seen her live, she's not to be missed!