/TECH_4.0_Digital

SAN JOSE’S INNOVATIVE & CREATIVE CULTURE

CONTENT

Issue 4.0 Tech | Winter 2012

TECH Featuring: Sam Liccardo/Phil McKinney/Zero1

le papillon DINING

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C AT E R I N G

4 1 0 S a r a t o g a Av e . , S a n J o s e 408.296.3730 www.lepapillon.com

ZERO 1 Joel Slayton FEATURE

Sam liccardo FEATURE

Phil Mickenny FEATURE

DESIGN 10 Kitchen Tablet

WRITINGS 46 Stephen Coughlin

PROFILE 12 Druniverse 14 Andre Hart 18 Two Bloggers 22 Jeff Tarbucco

FASHION 48 The Usuals 58 For Him

FEATURE 24 Nuerosky 28 Pinger 30 Zero1 34 Phil McKinney 38 Sam Liccardo 42 Art Boutiki

66 KickStarter

64 Cultivator’s Notes 65 Contributors

37 N. San Pedro St. San Jose, CA 95110 408-292-1502 thesatoriteacompany.com

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CONTENT

Issue 4.0 “Tech “ Winter 2012 The Makers:

Daniel Garcia Cultivator

Gillian Claus Contributing Writer

Sarah Garcia Marketeer

Mark Haney Contributing writer

Sarah Hale Sustainer

Kevin Kempis Designer

Stacy Ernst Shaper/Blogger

Jeff Gardner Designer

Sobrina Tung Style Editor

Daniel Millan Designer

Mary Matlack Contributing Writer

Sonia Ayala Intern

Steveyann Jensen Contributing Writer

Britt Clyde Proof Reader

Felicia Larson Contributing Writer

Aleksandra Bulatskaya Contributing Writer Victoria Felicity Contributing Writer/Photographer

To participate in Content Magazine: editor@content-magazine.com Subscription & Advertising information available at content-magazine.com

IN THIS ISSUE

Sam Liccardo/Phil McKinney/Zero1

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BY THE NUMBERS

The daily grind, the rut, the hamster wheel, the same-old-same-old. We know the feeling. They are all familiar laments in our work-a-day world.

And sometimes with those hard-working blinders on and precious little time to look around, we get complacent and bored. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. I agree that when you live in a one-horse town, it can get pretty boring.

SAN JOSE

As I traverse San Jose, district by district, one thing is clear: this is no one-horse-town. Every turn I take reveals something new and unexpected. Some things I can file under “been-theredone-that” but most go into the “need to visit again” file. And that file is bulging.

From live world class jazz and saucy tuxedo-clad waiters to kayaking on the San Francisco Bay and savoring a steaming, handmade tamale, I’m inspired by all that I see. Now’s the time to abandon the hamster wheel and get out there.

My list is getting longer by the day and we hope yours is too. Take a look at District 3 - downtown San Jose and District 4 which includes some of the world’s swankiest HiTech addresses just a hop, skip and a jump away from San Jose’s water treatment plant.

Hey, everybody’s got to be somewhere!

By Mary Matlack

district aka downtown

Three remain in America and we’ve got one!

When I was a kid, downtown San Jose was downright undesirable. It was a rough place and the rapid development of the suburbs didn’t help. In fact, the suburban sprawl surrounding San Jose is a legacy that downtown still wrestles with. I live downtown now, and many of my neighbors lived through those lean years and have unbelievable stories to tell. District 3 is downtown San Jose with the airport on the western border and the Alum Rock neighborhood on the eastern border.

It includes some of city’s biggest attractions: The HP Pavilion, more than a few historic theaters, scads of art galleries, big hotels and restaurants in all shapes and sizes. District 3 is small but mighty. The historic neighborhoods that grew up around the downtown area in the early 1900‘s still exist and much of that old, historic architecture has been preserved.

San Jose’s Japantown was founded over 120 years ago and is a one of three authentic, historic Japantowns remaining in the United States. It is also home to San Jose Taiko - a world class performing ensemble and conservatory. When they aren’t traveling the world, San Jose Taiko has quite a few performances at home. The drums are big but their passion, bigger.

Councilmember Sam Liccardo Serving sine 2006 Prior to Politics Liccardo worked as a prosecutor in the Santa Clara Country District attorney’s office.

Claim to Fame At Georgetown, Sam rowed on the heavy crew team and graduated with a degree in government and economics.

Sam teaches a political science class at San Jose State University. www.sanjoseca.gov/district3/

District Challenges Councilmember Liccardo sums it up, “I represent several fragile neighborhoods where as many as 20 percent of the adults are unemployed, many families struggle for basic necessities, and cuts in basic government services have left people more vulnerable than ever. Our greatest challenge lies in empowering our communities to get back on their collective feet.”

Liccardo faces a complex challenge, but the Downtown Streets Team (DST) is one thing he has brought to the city. Established in Palo Alto, “DST employs a work-first model in which members of the homeless community have the opportunity to rebuild their lives through our volunteer work-experience program.” Currently, DST employs 50 homeless folks who work cleaning up the creek and the neighborhood in exchange for stable housing, food and services. They’re out there, building and rebuilding people, neighborhoods and community.

Downtown Streets Team www.streetsteam.com

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San Jose Taiko www.taiko.org Japantown is located between 4th and 6th Streets and Jackson and Taylor www.japantownsanjose.org

Building Community Sami Monsour didn’t set out to be the President of the McKinley-Bonita Neighborhood Association, she was just a new neighbor looking for some help. With a little encouragement from Liccardo’s office, Monsour has built a neighborhood community where prior to her arrival, it was “every-man-for-himself.”

With a garden-share program in her front yard, Monsour provides space for neighbors to garden as well as free cooking classes in Spanish. “Our top three challenges are safety, building community with neighbors and cleaning up our streets,” said Monsour. To that end, she has empowered her neighbors with donated computers, computer training and phone numbers. “We work closely with the police, and we’ve seen a change. People in McKinley-Bonita are starting to call the police when the have a problem. Previously, they didn’t know who to call.”

Along with Sami Monsour, Communivercity brings hope to the McKinley-Bonita neighborhood. http://www.communivercitysanjose.org

Keeping the South Bay Jazzy For the past 25 years, San Jose Jazz has solidified San Jose’s spot on the Jazz map! Most people are familiar with the San Jose Jazz Festival which brings 100,000 people to the city each summer, but San Jose Jazz keeps the vibe going year-round with free weekly concerts, and an emphasis on educational programs. “Education is the heart of San Jose Jazz. Studies show that students involved in music do better at almost all facets of their lives and achieve more in the long run.” With programs in local schools and a summer jazz camp, San Jose Jazz continues to make its mark on the community.

San Jose Jazz www.sanjosejazz.org

Your Grandpa Dined Here and So Can You!

New School Hip

Original Joe’s is just that - an original, opened in 1956 and still owned by the Rocca family. It has weathered hard times in San Jose and today it’s packed. Go for the ambiance, the counter seats, the professional, tux-wearing waiters and for the Hideout Bar. The food is old-school and plenty.

Original Joe’s 301 S. First Street San Jose, CA 95113 1-888-841-7030

The Luna Park Chalk Festival debuted in 2008 at Backesto Park and has blossomed into an unstoppable annual event. For $10 you get a box of chalk and the space to create. Amateurs and professionals are welcome.

The art is jaw-dropping and the community it creates in the Luna Park neighborhood, even better. www.lunaparkbusiness.com

The next Luna Park Chalk Festival will take place on Saturday September 22, 2012.

www.originaljoes.com

Outdoor Adventure

“World Famous” Henry’s Hi-Life has been slinging steaks and BBQ in San Jose since 1960. Specializing in game-day dining, Henry’s even opens at 8:30am during football season serving steak and eggs to an enthusiastic crowd. The building is quirky and the clientele, old-world San Jose.

Although still a little disjointed, the Guadalupe River Park Trail consists of 11 miles of trail through downtown and out to points beyond. The potential is visible and promises to make San Jose a more bike-friendly city.

Take a ride from downtown to the airport or even out to Willow Glen and connect to the Los Gatos Creek Trail.

“World Famous” Henry’s Hi-Life 301 West St. John Street San Jose, CA 95110 408-295-5414

Guadalupe Park and River Gardens www.grpg.org

www.henryshilife.com

Best Reason to Celebrate Fruit Cocktail At the Barron-Gray packing plant in downtown San Jose, Herbert Gray first made fruit cocktail in 1926. It was ritzy. It was a new invention, and it was in a can. Barron-Gray Packing Company later became Dole Pineapple and Mr. Gray’s invention lives on.

ALVISO

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SUNNYVALE

What do Houdini and Cheese have in Common?

In 1903, a man named David Jacks started building the Jose Theater on Second Street near San Fernando. The theater was built with vaudeville acts in mind and even saw the likes of the magician, Harry Houdini.

David Jacks sold the theater some 10 years later and went on to mass produce and successfully market a revolutionary new cheese: Monterey Jack. The Jose is the oldest theater downtown and after an earthquake retrofit in the 90’s, thanks to the efforts of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose, The Jose is now known as the comedy club, The Improv.

The Improv www.improv.com/ComedyClub/SanJose

Preservation Action Council San Jose Dedicated to preserving San Jose’s Architectural Heritage www.preservation.org

The Only Bar in Town Requiring a Secret Handshake With just a barrel hanging above the door, Single Barrel is easily the hippest spot in town. With a Prohibition-era-speakesy vibe, fine cigars and handcrafted cocktails, there’s just nothing else like it. Just kidding about the handshake.

Single Barrel 43 West San Salvador San Jose, CA 95112 408-792-7356

www.singlebarrelsj.com

Theater isn’t Just for Adults in San Jose 43 years ago, Children’s Musical Theater San Jose (CMT) was born. Today the theater is going strong with performances year-round and a no-cut casting policy that children and parents love. The historic Montgomery Theater on Market Street is home to CMT. Children’s Musical Theater San Jose www.cmtsj.org

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MORGAN HILL

aka North San Jose, Alviso, Berryessa What is it about triangles? They are pretty simple, aren’t they? Three sides, straight lines. Maybe it’s the angles that create the confusion - as in “The Bermuda Triangle”.

In my town growing-up there was a “golden triangle” neighborhood and if you didn’t live inside of it, you certainly had been lost in it, many times. North San Jose has its own “triangle” and indeed, I’ve been lost there too.

The familiar names passing me by - Zanker, Trimble, Tasman, Montague Expressway, Brokaw Road told me that I was somewhere, and I knew from early morning traffic reports that it was somewhere important, but heck if I knew a way out.

Welcome to San Jose’s District 4. With Alviso on the northern tip, the Berryessa neighborhood on the eastern edge, a good portion of District 4 is known as the Innovation Triangle - with 1,400 mostly high-tech companies and a workforce of 66,000. It is home to the likes of Cisco, Brocade, Canon, Siemens and eBay and has recently welcomed clean energy companies to the neighborhood.

The shiny, new high-tech companies stand in stark contrast to the historic communities that flank them: Alviso, established as a town and the port for San Jose in 1845 and Berryessa, a community named after a prominent Basque-Spanish settler who was granted Rancho Milpitas in 1834.

Councilmember Kansen Chu serving sine 2007 Prior to Politics Chu worked as a Microdiagnostics Microprogrammer at IBM for 18 years.

Claim to Fame Chu is the first Chinese-American to serve on the San Jose City Council.

Thanks to Councilmember Chu, heart defibrillators are located all around San Jose. Oh, and green building standards, he initiated those too! www.sanjoseca.gov/district4/

SAN JOSE

BY THE NUMBERS

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Unique Fact Coyote Creek, providing drainage for the Diablo Range to the East and The Guadalupe River, which drains the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south, both empty into the Alviso Slough. The rich soil in the area was home to many birds, fish and animals that sustained the indigenous people - The Tamien (or Tamyen) a linguistic division of the Ohlone-Costanoan people.

From High Tech to No Tech District 4’s Innovation Triangle, bordered

by Highways 101, 880 and 237 consists of nearly 5,000 acres of office parks arguably the most prestigious high-tech address in the world. Follow N. 1st street over 237 and you are instantly in a time warp. Alviso was annexed to the city of San Jose in 1968. The old, salty buildings and crumbling cannery walls speak volumes about San Jose history.

Drive Zanker over 237 and you’re in the middle of a sheep ranch, then a water treatment plant and then a landfill before resting at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Just when you thought the industrial detritus had taken over, the vista opens up with salt marhes, bird watchers and the largest tidal wetland restoration project on the West Coast. www.southbayrestoration.org

Local’s Perspective “We call it Taco-Thai” says Erik Soule who works in the heart of “Innovation Triangle” everyday. “It’s a Thai place in an old Taco Bell location.” With so many day-trippers in District 4, lunchtime is primetime. Orchid Thai on N. First Street is a just one spot with a loyal following. www.thaiorchidsiliconvalley.com

Old School Cool Alviso has so much old school cool - it’s hard to choose one spot! The South Bay Yacht Club was established in 1888 in the days when the Port of Alviso was a major shipping hub for goods headed north to San Francisco and the Sacramento Delta. Vahl’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge is the real deal. Established in 1941, Vahl’s remains unchanged. It’s the kind of place where the bartender knows your name and your favorite drink. To keep up with the times, they’ve added Karaoke and some neon lights, but the menu, service and comaraderie are genuine. Just around the corner, Maria Elena’s Mexican restaurant is the go-to place for the techie crowd. Within a matter of 10 minutes, the previously empty parking lot at the sand-bag distribution site suddenly looked a lot like a Saturday at Valley Fair. In fact, the restaurant was so full that I was sure it was a company party. Not so - just lunchtime at Maria Elena’s.

Vahl’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge 1513 El Dorado St San Jose, CA 95002 408-262-0731 Maria Elena’s Restaurant 1450 Gold St Alviso, CA 95002 408-946-5336 South Bay Yacht Club www.southbayyachtclub.org

ALVISO

Fast-food for folks who “don’t-do” fast-food Just when you thought that Innovation Triangle couldn’t get any denser, Brocade has figured out a way with 562,000 square feet of office space featuring “clean tech” design and cutting-edge IT technologies. Along with their massive new building, the @First minimall is a one stop shop for Brocade employees and other day-trip techies working in the area. Target, Chipotle, Sweet Tomatoes and a luxury hotel make folks feel right at home.

First Shopping Center First St, N @ Hwy 237 San Jose, 95134 Hotel Sierra 75 Headquarters Dr San Jose, CA 95134

Outdoor Adventure The first urban National Wildlife Refuge established in the United States, The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, consists of 30,000 acres with access to salt marsh and mudflat areas as well as hiking trails, boating and even hunting (waterfowl). Grab the kids and head out past the sights of the city. The trail is flat and the boardwalks are fun. The water smells briny and the white pelicans are spectacular. Next door, the Alviso Marina County Park pro-

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Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge 1 Marshlands Rd Fremont, CA 94555 510-792-0222 Alviso Marina County Park Mill Street, Alviso (the park has no physical address) 408-262-6980

Home of the Asparagus King Thomas Foon Chew, an entrepreneurial Chinese immigrant, established the Bayside Canning Company (1906-1936) in Alviso.

Bayside soon became the third largest cannery in the United States and Chew became known as the Asparagus King thanks to his ability to can asparagus and keep it crisp and fresh. Bayside was famous for canning many of the Valley of Heart’s Delights: spinach, asparagus, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, pears, tomatoes, catsup, tomato sauce, hot sauce, tomato puree, fish sauce, and fruit cocktail.

The Ultimate 130 acre Family Outing Since 1960, The San Jose Flea Market has been home to generations of vendors and shoppers with nearly 4 million visitors each year. A bounty of food choices, a 1/4 mile long farmer’s market, bouncy slides and mariachi every weekend, the San Jose Flea Market is an institution and to many, synonymous with the Berryessa neighborhood.

The San Jose Flea Market 1590 Berryessa Road San Jose, Ca 95133 408-453-1110

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SUNNYVALE

vides hiking, marsh viewing and boat access to San Francisco Bay. Here in the South Bay, we know the water is out there, but getting to it is another story. Access from the Alviso Marina is a sure way to navigate the salt marshes and reach the open water.

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MORGAN HILL

K I T C H E N

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T A B L E T

By Sarah Garcia

through the recipe to find the suggested temperature. My hands are messier than I thought, leaving a little bit of butter on the side of the iPad. Even with all my care to keep it from getting dirty, I’m irritated that I’m still going to have to clean it. The iPad sits, on the counter, able to be referenced, but clearly separated from the cooking experience.

I’m what I like to call a “practical early adopter.” I’m not afraid of technology. I want to incorporate the latest innovations into my life and routines. I want to have the newest version of whatever might be the latest rage. But, my practical sensibilities make it almost impossible for me to justify the expense. So when my boss gave us all first generation iPads, it was the perfect combination: the latest technology at no personal expense.

I wonder if maybe I need a better “holder” for my iPad--something that will allow me to bring it into my food prep space, but will keep it from being in the way, or getting dirty. I lust after a beautiful, tech-centered kitchen I see online—where the owner has created a cabinet door that the iPad can be slid into. But, there’s no kitchen update centered around my iPad in my immediate future, so instead I try a couple of options that come forth when I do a google search on “kitchen iPad holder.” First, I try an acrylic option reminiscent of a cookbook holder I had years ago. The inventor of this version has produced a well-thought out design. The holder base must be affixed to my cabinet, but the holder is able to pop on and off so as not to take up too much space on my counter when not in use. This option definitely keeps the iPad clean, but again, I struggle with where to mount it, and I’m consistently nervous the iPad will slide off of it.

My family was excited for various reasons. The kids couldn’t believe how great “Angry Birds” looked on the large screen. My photographer husband imagined using it to show his portfolio. I, being ever practical, was determined to integrate it into my life as a busy working mom. Grocery lists, recipes, finances, photos, and calendars…the possibilities were endless. Being at the front of the curve, I checked for new apps almost daily. I followed an exercise of asking myself “What do I want to do?” And “How can this iPad help me do it better?” Several dozen free apps and almost two years later, I’m considering just how (or if ) the iPad has made anything better.

A data organizer by nature, I used it to keep grocery lists, calendars, “to do” lists and chore responsibilities. The seamless syncing of data between my iPhone, personal laptop, work desktop and iPad is great for having easy access in multiple locations. The aesthetic interpretation of a traditional “to-do” list and simplicity of my Teuxdeux app make this both possible and beautiful, but at the end of the day, what I really want is a pencil and paper to write down what needs to be done and have that fabulously satisfying feeling of crossing it off.

Then, I discover a simpler, more versatile approach--plastic sleeves. I slide my iPad into the sleeve and pull out all my ingredients to make my sister in law’s oatmeal cake. I place the iPad, without worry, next to my mixer and make my cake. I feel a little rebellious, “Look at me, not worrying about what happens to my iPad.” But it’s still awkward to move the image on the screen, through the plastic sleeve.

When I take the sleeve off, I get flour on my iPad, again, and am faced with the reality that it’s not really that “green” of an approach, while I throw the plastic sleeve away after one use.

So maybe scratch paper “to-do” lists can never be replaced, but one source of constant frustration for me is my ever-growing, messy pile of recipes collected over the years. The recipes that I’ve torn from magazines quietly and secretly in waiting rooms; the recipes printed from the computer for that last minute dinner; the recipes collected from recipe exchanges and the recipes handwritten by my mom and my grandma. Stored in boxes and binders, in cookbooks and digital files, the piles of recipes have become overwhelming. So for me, the iPad represented a chance to finally gain control over my messy, disorganized hobby.

Maybe later, with clean hands and some downtime, I’ll rate some of the recipes I’ve tried, or add in some of my alterations; but something about the kitchen tablet experience is lacking.

It’s helping me gain some control of the paper piles of recipes, that’s for sure. But in losing the paper, I’m choosing to lose the dog-eared pages with notes in my handwriting, reminding me of a specific time in my life, or a photocopy of a page from my mom’s church cookbook with a character all its own. And the hardest to relinquish, the recipes in my late Grandma’s handwriting on 3x5 cards—instructions for baking, yes, but to me, a connection. It’s as if the handwritten words talk when I read them, remembering how she taught me to scald the milk but let the butter sit in it while the yeast was activated. No matter how hard I try, my digital approach can’t replicate that.

Hesitant to commit to an expensive recipe box app, I tried other, cheaper versions. Knowing that gaining full digital control of my recipes would result in hours of scanning, typing and organizing, I wanted to make sure this was the “right” direction to go. I found a spot on my counter—close enough to be reference-able, but far enough to be safe from flying flour and any inadvertent spills. And I’m delighted to find that I can reference my recipe while listening to my Pandora station, making my time in the kitchen that much sweeter.

I pulled up recipes—a quick search on the internet, browsing through my Epicurious app, referencing saved recipes from the “cloud.” I loved the ability to find a recipe, change the serving proportions and read reviews and alterations. It was easy to save recipes, mark them as “favorites” and make notes of my own adjustments.

The iPad made the planning part of a dinner party easier. Storing recipes in folders, adjusting serving sizes, referencing links to what a “roux” really is…but then I got to the food preparation part.

Teuxdeux___teuxdeux.com Acrylic Holder___kitchenipadrack.com

To set the scene: I’m in my kitchen, cute apron on, ingredients properly mis en place, recipe pulled up on my iPad. I’m ready to make my Grandma’s cinnamon rolls. Since she died, I like to make them for my Grandpa when he comes to visit. I’ve combined my ingredients, kneaded my dough. They’ve risen once and I’m forming the rolls. My hands are sticky and caked in flour and dough. I can’t remember what to set the oven at. I take my one knuckle that is free from flour and tap it against the screen to wake it up, scrolling

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Interview by Victoria Felicity & Stuart Mahoney Photography by Victoria Felicity

Entering the studio, I sensed the weightlessness and wonder of a new, yet familiar, galaxy. I felt like an honored guest in a marvelous artistic environment. My first experience traveling the Druniverse was in downtown San Jose at South First Billiards. I was blown away with the performance energy and unique mixes by this electronic music artist from San José. Dru, not entirely his real name, is a young, humble graphic designer with a musical alter ego called the “Druniverse”. Recently, Dru invited me to his home to visit the nexus of his digital universe.

His home studio is a custom-built electronic music laboratory where keyboards, laptops and synthesizers stand ready for the day’s experiments. One wall houses neatly framed vintage DC Comics, a movie reel of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and a stack of classic Disney VHS tapes. A mountain of video games, drawings from a beloved uncle, and various instruments cover another wall and flow into every corner of the room.

Above the bed hangs an enormous, surreal landscape print by Salvatore Dali - its presence a reminder of the strange universe enveloping me. And on the nightstand, the slightly oversized white helmet mask, reminiscent of Nintendo’s popular Megaman character, sits neatly on the nightstand waiting for our hero to become Dru and begin the journey into his beautiful, bass-drumthumping, electronic dance Druniverse.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in San Jose, the Evergreen area.

I was actually voted ‘Most Musical’ my senior year. Musically, I wouldn’t be who I am if I wasn’t here in San Jose. San Jose is awesome in that there are just good people here. People are friendly. Growing up with all those instruments and doing Mariachi, you don’t want to just play one instrument, you want to learn them all.

I see quite a few insturments here. How many do you play?

Guitar, bass, ukulele, drums, synthesizers/ pianos (they are one and the same). I used to try the trumpet, and flugelhorn.

Wow. How did you learn to play so many instruments?

I started with the guitar and then the bass, because it was natural. Once I started transferring chords from the guitar to the piano, I started to figure out how to make cords. It takes time. It takes loneliness. Now I make my own instruments. That’s what synthesizers do. You have to take your time and program every setting; you can make any sound you want. Each synthesizer is built around isolators, and they send out different wave forms.

You can modify the isolators and glide and

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bend the waves, balance the sound and play with the resonance. You can have different synthesizers: one that’s a computer program or one that inputs the sounds.

There are so many things here that don’t look like instruments. What are all of these gadgets?

Well this one (little red box with a black screen) is my filter. When I mix, it lets me control my frequencies with my fingers. I can control my high and low notes with this touchpad. The vocal robot noises come from my synthesizer Yamaha DX7, go into my talk box which, is basically a speaker. It vibrates those tones that I hit on the keys, into this tube in my mouth. You just move your mouth and it makes these crazy noises. Daft Punk and Peter Frampton have used these kinds of things. It’s old school.

I see you have quite a few keyboards. How many do you have?

Oh well, I have a few, and this one is my favorite. It’s a sampler that my uncle gave me. He’s a musician and he gave me that bass cab and a lot of other things. He was in the music biz in the 80s, so, he gives me some cool stuff. It looks like a keyboard, but it actually connects to this old hard drive and when you play it, the sounds are sent into the computer.

“It takes time.

It takes loneliness.

What do you think about technology, living in Silicon Valley and being in the epicenter of it all.

Technology, old and new, is awesome. I made this piano part on one of my songs done with this 1982 mini keyboard that has a little headphone jack. Any type of noise can be amplified in different programs, and you can make sure that different frequencies don’t leak through if there are things that you don’t want. Besides the robot vocals, I also record people when they don’t know it-- like when I’m out with friends or when people spend the night and they’re looking back at the night. I record some of them when they are talking. I just take those little clips and snippets of words, and right before a drop, when I have a bass come in, I’ll throw those words in.

I just live life, and if I can make Druniverse happen during it, then it’s going to happen. I don’t plan it.

Tell me something no one would expect from Dru? I have a Mariachi outfit. I do Mariachi with my grandpa. I’m down here in San Jose alone. I have been living alone since sophomore year, and I had to find ways to make money to be able to pay for school and to take care of myself. It was also a way to build

up courage. It’s those experiences, looking over at my grandpa playing around a fire pit, with people drinking and singing around us-to have this moment with my grandpa where I know he is proud of me, and I am happy to be with him. It’s cool to have that experience; and who knows how long that will last.

myself, balancing a full time graphic design job. Music isn’t easy, but since I play all the instruments and record everything by myself, it’s all good.

Do you incorporate the Mariachi style into your Druniverse?

Druniverse? Dru was a good representation for the music. When I would show people my earlier stuff, they would all say that it sounded like video game music, genesis-style stuff. I wanted to create a character, and these characters have their own background and style. Druniverse is also inspired by some dreams that I’ve had, and this idea that I didn’t want to be seen or judged for the music I’m making. It’s about the music that Dru makes, not who I am. People don’t know what race or age I am under the mask, under the guise of the character. The mask lets people develop their own interpretation of who Dru is. I like that people can have their own personal experience with the music.

Yeah, the chord progressions are so classic.

Hearing them translated into the software program and then into these electronic bleeps and bloops, it’s not the same song anymore at all.

How did you get interested in electronic music?

My band broke up in high school and after high school, everyone spreads out. You think to yourself, ‘Well, what do I do now?’ But, I actually was the one who wrote all the music that my band performed, and a lot of times, I was the one who would suggest that they play certain things. I don’t know why, but they looked to me for things like that. Now we are all doing our own things and they are still really supportive and are really excited about the new music, new sounds, new instruments that I have been playing around with. I started to record everything by

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And the idea for Druniverse? Did you always know you wanted your own universe?

Druniverse music is available from iTunes and the Druniverse video game:”1.2.00.2.3 levels” is available from the Druniverse website. thedruniverse.com

Andre Hart

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“I’m not a painter.

I am an artist.

It has nothing to do with paint or a color; it is something you are.”

Interview & Photography by daniel garcia

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The sum

of our yesterdays and pull of our tomorrows shapes us today. Andre Hart is no different. The rural, golden east foothills, the house his grandfather built with his own hands and his wild Bob Dylan hair are not just where Andre has come from, they are the influences that shape him and his work today. Relatively new to the San Jose art scene, Andre, who has been drawing and painting since he was three, is primarily self-taught. Though he tried art school, much of his instruction has come from an unnamed early mentor and his family friendship with San Jose artist, teacher and gallery owner Al Preciado.

A little over a year ago, in the shadow of his grandmother’s passing, Andre’s grandfather gave him a nudge to move forward with his art. He encouraged Andre -- not in an over-handed, ‘do something with your life, kid’ approach, but with the blessings of an experienced man of a quiet generation gently sharing the potential he saw in his daughter’s son.

The result, among others, was a self-portrait.

Andre: My grandmother had died, and I did my self-portrait. I wasn’t doing music at the time, but she had left me harmonicas. Well, my grandpa gave them to me, but she played them. I had no idea she played. And at that time, I was listening to Bob Dylan. So, I call this painting “Weary Tune” after his song “Lay Down Your Weary Tune.” It was very appropriate for the time because it was very close to what I was experiencing. It was really dramatic because when my grandmother died, it was like my mom had gone. I was that close to her.

It took me six months to paint. I mean, it was fairly done within about two weeks, but I tinkered with it.

I could actually go on record as saying that the reason the harmonica is not in the harmonica necklace is because that symbolized my grandma not being there anymore.

I don’t play guitar. The whole reason the guitar strings are doing that is because it’s supposed to symbolize roots or something going back. It’s almost a prophetic painting because I envisioned myself branching off into something different and now, I have been creating in visual arts and now, also, in sound.

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Weary Tune 2012

I Know I Was Born To Die But I Just Hate To Leave My Children Cryin’ 2012

It’s Republican or Democrat. That’s not a choice at all. So that’s what that came out of.

Why I was born into this free country that’s not even free, kind of a thing.

Andre: I see a part of my work as ‘paraphrasing’ or taking someone else’s ideas and going against that, kind of like how folk music has done—taking a theme and exploring it in new ways. Taking an idea and ‘twist’ it a bit, that’s kind of how I work.

This is different from my other work and when somebody that hasn’t seen it before sees it, they are turned around and completely terrified by it. It almost seems so foreign.

That’s why the hand it’s not her arm, obviously. It’s very contorted and there are six fingers on the hand. Everybody always misses it, too, because the hand looks so realistic. It’s elongated, it’s like she has two forearms.

So, I was reading a newspaper article. I ended up wanting to do something different where I wasn’t focusing on faces which I do a lot of, and I still ended up with a face in there, but it’s not my traditional face. I don’t have a lot of nudes either, actually. I just wanted to do something different. And, at the time I was listening to an old blues song by Booker White, called, “Fixing to Die” and there is a line in it that says, “I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children cryin’.” I was listening to that song and thinking about our society. That one just came at a time where I was really irritated with everything that was going on all around me. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean an end of the world kind of a thing. I guess there were ideas about how I was very frustrated with our government and the way that there’s a left and a right and how those are our only choices, when really that’s not a choice. That’s no choice. Two sides.

I made it that way, because I think that the corruption in this government and in this society, and I’d say in the world, is just so subtle. We are distracted by so many things that we just miss the obvious.

The colors I used for this painting... isn’t that I’m a environmentalist--I just wanted the whole picture to look like pollution. Not pollution of our environment... it’s the pollution of our society.

You can find Andre and his work at: facebook.com/theandrehart

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Josh Santos: thesanjosebog.com

“I’ve travelled a lot...

San Jose is by far my favorite city in the world.”

A Tale of Tw Written by Sobrina Tung Photography by DANIEL GARCIA Interview by Sobrina Tung

& Stacy Ernst

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Blog

wo

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Matt Bruensteiner: sanjose.metblogs.com

______ If you’re ever pressed to come up with entertaining things to do or see in San Jose, Matt Bruensteiner and Josh Santos have you covered. The voices behind San Jose Metblogs (sanjose.metblogs.com) and The San Jose Blog (thesanjoseblog.com) share a common mission: to showcase the wide range of events and compelling stories that make San Jose great. Here, Bruensteiner tells us what he won’t write about and Santos lets us in on his impressive goal: to eat at every downtown restaurant...

All 207 of them.

How did you get started blogging?

MB: I had just purchased this new camera, and I started posting stuff on Flickr. It was kind of newsy stuff. Somehow Joann [Landers], who’s the city captain for San Jose Metblogs, saw them and sent me an email and asked me if I’d be interested in writing for them. I said I had a full-time job, and I couldn’t promise anything, but I’d try it. That was three years ago, and I’m still there.

JS: I was very involved in different forums about San Jose, especially Skyscraper City.

Basically there’s a small group of enthusiasts who are into new projects in San Jose; the news of projects would break there first. I remember there was a post about San Jose hitting a population of one million, a huge milestone, and there was a thread with all this negative criticism—‘There’s nothing to do in San Jose,’ ‘San Jose has no culture’—just a bunch of negative things. That inspired me to prove them wrong and to try and show people the way I see San Jose.

Which is?

JS: I’ve traveled a lot—all over Europe, New York, Tokyo... San Jose is by far my favorite city in the world. There are so many reasons, but mostly it’s the people. As an example, my wife and I were at the San Pedro Square Market last Sunday, and we started talking to two people that live in downtown San Jose. They invited us over to their house, this beautiful home with a garden in the backyard. It was just amazing meeting people and instantly becoming friends. I think people here are more accessible, friendly.

MB: That’s definitely a part of why I blog, too. I live here; I want to support it. I want to make the city better. There are a lot of good things going on like live music, Cinequest, Left Coast Live, South First Fridays...

Who is your target audience?

MB: I think anybody who’s interested in San Jose. I try to focus on downtown. I write about stories that are too small for the Mercury, but stories that make this a great city.

JS: Overall, I think we have the same focus and vision of trying to improve San Jose. For me, it’s basically anyone who lives in San Jose or near the area. A side story: I had this guy email me about how he was ready to move to San Francisco. He wrote, ‘My wife was driving me crazy, all her friends live up there and I was tired of driving there every weekend. Seeing your blog and all the things that we could do here completely changed my perception of my life. Now I’m happy living here instead of al-

ways feeling like I have to go somewhere else.’

Is there anything you won’t write about?

MB: I stay away from stuff that could intersect with my day job. If there’s news about the company I work for, I won’t touch it. There’s always the proprietary information issues and all that. There’s plenty of other stuff to write about. I also try not to write anything that nails down any one person too hard.

JS: I have a similar philosophy. I try to post more optimistic things. I’d rather try to build the momentum for people having a positive perception of San Jose. Primarily, I’m promoting local events and new store and restaurant openings. I’m a big foodie. I have a crazy project right now to go to every restaurant in downtown San Jose. We’ve compiled, what I think, is the most comprehensive list that goes far beyond what the downtown association has. There are 207 restaurants; I’ve been to 185 of them. Sometime next year, I’ll have literally gone to every restaurant in downtown San Jose.

Which one is your favorite?

JS: I have a lot of favorites, but if I had to pick just one it would be Morocco’s (moroccosrestaurant.com). The two people running it are very passionate about the food and every aspect of the restaurant.

Are you blogging about it as you go?

JS: Once in a while, if I have a really good, or really bad, experience.

What have been, or are, your favorite things to blog about?

JS: My favorites are posts to encourage something new to happen. An example would be Halloween in the Park. I’d love to have something analogous to Christmas in the Park for Halloween.

MB: For me it’s the festivals. Things like Cinequest. Once at Cinequest, I took a day off of work, saw four films and got to experience the whole thing. That was really fun.

Where do you get your post ideas?

JS: I used to read a lot of news, but now I probably get about five emails a day trying to plug different things. I’ve started getting really picky about what I plug and am trying to make the blog as hyperlocal as possible. About 90 percent of what I post about is submitted to me.

Do you ever feel like you’ll run out of material?

JS: It would be impossible at this point. It’s a never-ending stream that is and it’s accelerating.

MB: I just keep my eyes open. For example, my post about the new Fresh & Easy coming to downtown. I knew nothing about that. I was just walking downtown and saw the notice about the permit process. I looked into it and saw Fresh & Easy was getting a liquor license for the old Albertsons location. That’s a story right there.

San Jose Metblogs (sanjose.metblogs.com) The San Jose Blog (thesanjoseblog.com)

Interview & photography by Daniel Garcia Written by Gillian Claus

In 1999, before he came to the Arts Council Silicon Valley, Jeff Trabucco was working in marketing for bigwords.com, a textbook searchbot in San Francisco. By day he worked in the dot-com world, by night he lived in Palo Alto doing local theatre. Performing with large cast musicals at Foothill College, Trabucco marveled at the incredible community the cast members would build during each show. Long before Facebook, Trabucco was thinking about a website where all the actors could stay in touch and perpetuate the friendships that were built during the run.

About a year later, he had a prototype with coworker David Dassinger. They put together a streamlined events calendar with artist profile capability. Theatre people could log on and see which shows their friends were in. Suddenly, dancers and musicians joined in. Then visual artists became interested. Trabucco now had a full-blown calendar with a social component on his hands. Back at his day job, he had survived four rounds of layoffs, and the time was right to find new pastures. Fortuitously, Arts Council Silicon Valley was hiring a tech person and had received grant money to develop a marketing program. After showing Director Bruce Davis his calendar, the Arts Council bought the name and technology and Trabucco became the Associate Director. With significant investment from Knight and HP, Artsopolis was officially launched in 2003 and their numbers jumped from 5,000 to 50,000 visitors.

Starting with a very basic design and enhancing it with help from The Knight Foundation, Artsopolis attracted other communities and is now in 35 cities around the country.

It is fun, obviously, to see Nashville, Philly and Boston on the list. You get excited. But it’s great to know Grand Forks, North Dakota or South Bend, Indiana, solid communities, are using it and benefiting from it as well. In fact, in some ways, those smaller cities may benefit from it even more.

Assuming cities get an average of 40,000 visitors every month looking for entertainment in the arts, Artsopolis has a pretty significant impact and provides so many more options for people looking to fill their time.

I just hope folks will turn off the TV, walk out the door and go into a theatre or a gallery or an open-air festival! Start to interact and that’s where the magic happens...

As an actor, musician and a passionate father, Jeff Trabucco is not the first member of his family to innovate within the arts. His great grandfather invented the Victrola.

You think of the RCA dog and the cone, that was him, Leon Douglass. He had worked for Edison when he was young, but then broke away and started his own com-

pany called Viktor Talking Machines. So he had been on more of the innovation track... taking music and just making it accessible to everybody.

In the 80’s, Trabucco began his musical career as a heavy metal guitarist in the days of Metallica and Dio. As a survivor in a family with a strong history of mental illness, he has experienced the healing nature of the arts.

His bipolar mother committed suicide when he was 16, and his brother struggles with schizophrenia.

Stepping back when I think of the arts and when I think of what’s vital about having the arts in our lives, it’s not just about painting pretty pictures. It is literally survival of the soul. Yeah, I had a mullet back then but now I play Irish traditional music. I used to play with an Irish bar band over in Santa Cruz called The Wild Rovers and do a little hand drum, do a little guitar. I do a lot of singing. I would say that my first love would be music.

Does Trabucco consider himself an activist?

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A comparison between Occupy Wall Street and the work he is doing trying to affect people’s daily lives ensues. He sees us arriving at a time when people are open-minded enough to change into a tolerant and accepting society.

In that sense, I feel a little bit like an activist. It’s actually interesting how technology has given a lot of people who didn’t have a voice, a means for channeling their power to do that - to be able to spread a message or an idea.

Looking to the future, Artsopolis has plans to extend the user’s experience - from just the website into the actual venues they visit. Real-time “deals” at nearby restaurants, sharing messages and information with friends about performances are all in the works. Trabucco wants to shift the system from a broadcastoriented model to making Artsopolis more of an interactive moderator.

I’d say our focus is shifting from telling people what they should be interested in or what they should be doing to being more

“It’s not just about painting pretty pictures.

It is literally survival of the soul.” by an integrated school system which incorporates the arts.

I’ve have small kids, and I want them to live in a creative community. That’s critical to me. Anytime you read the research, it’s obvious that a creative community drives the economy. And when I look at this OWS thing, it’s people who are economically forced into a condition - one that leaves them so concerned about their very survival and sustaining themselves that they don’t have the freedom or the luxury to move to the next level, which is being creative.

As a self-confessed quiet rebel, whatever Jeff Trabucco does needs to have an impact socially. Arts or environment, he is a causedriven person. It just happens that his creative background is in music and theatre which is where his affinity for Artsopolis comes in. He is awed and inspired by large organizations with huge resources choosing to use Artsopolis. In this way, he can help the cultural organizations do their work better and benefit audiences in a way that really helps to build community. of a moderator/curator/facilitator of those relationships and just get out of the way.

Although Trabucco still works for Arts Council Silicon Valley, he now lives on Bainbridge Island, which is a thirty minute ferry ride from downtown Seattle. The island is the size of Manhattan with only 27,000 people.

I was born and raised in the South Bay. I am really having a hard time with the rain up here in Washington State.

Trabucco fondly remembers growing up in the Bay Area because there were so many hands-on activities. As a child, he knew that San Francisco had wonderful things to observe: top-level galleries, opera, theatre and ballet. But the South Bay has always had a participatory and active culture, which is one of the reasons Silicon Valley has seen so much success. Despite all the tech companies, San Jose’s economy has not fully crossed over into the arts scene. Arts groups in San Jose have long struggled in the shadow of San Francisco. Getting audiences to go south

instead of north has always been a challenge.

It can be frustrating to know that there is a high quality of art in San Jose of which even the locals are sometimes unaware.

I almost see San Jose as being the workshop or Dave Packard garage – the place where you hone your craft and then you go out to lead the world. San Jose has a voice that is yet undiscovered fully. It has yet to mature.

He cites San Jose music festival Left Coast Live as a great example of musicians coming together and getting to play off each other.

He played there himself with The Wild Rovers two years ago.

As a passionate father, Trabucco sees the vital nature of the arts and creativity in early childhood development. Artsopolis did some work with First Five Santa Clara which stressed the importance of the years from 0-5 in the imprinting of a child. He resents that families now have to fill in the gaps with private lessons rather than being supported

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So the fact that this has grown into what it has, really is a dream come true. I’m not rich. I didn’t invent Facebook, but just the fact that it has had an impact the way it has. You know, we’re not done yet. We want to see more humanity come out of this as result of what we do with the technology.

In December 2011, Artsopolis officially became LiveSV.com (rhymes with give).

Powered by Artsopolis, LiveSV is the local name for the newest version of what we used to know as Artsopolis. Each Artsopolis member or city has a website with a unique name and LiveSV is now our local entertainment resource. The site is robust and almost overwhelming - featuring arts related happenings all over Silicon Valley. Indeed, LiveSV.com gives us little excuse to ever be bored again.

This focus on Silicon Valley should be music to Jeff Trabucco’s ears.

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Sensors and Sensibility: Catching Neurosky’s Brainwave in San Jose Written by Gillian Claus Photography by Daniel Garcia

I stand wearing fuzzy cat ears on the 9th floor of an office building overlooking the annual Santafication of Cesar Chavez Park, thinking about brainwaves and identity. The cat ears are called Nekomimi, and they are mounted on a small headset. You can wiggle them just by using your mind. That’s the idea anyway. Only my set is just spinning and whirring noisily. When I finally focus my attention, the ears snap upright so suddenly that it makes me jump.

The ears work because of a tiny biosensor, Neurosky’s Brain Computer Interface technology. By converting emotions into algorithms, the sensor can analyze your raw brainwaves. The simplest of these emotions is attention vs. meditation, i.e. either your mind is focused or it’s not. In more primitive times, this would have been signaled by a string of drool hanging from your lip.

On the desk before me is a row of metallic heads, each wearing a headset. The first model, affectionately referred to as “Diver Dan,” looks hardcore Maker Faire and dates back to 1990 when Korean researchers Jongjin Lim and Dr. KooHyoung Lee were studying mind-control technology. At the request of Lim’s daughter, they managed to build a remote-control car, driven only by brain impulses and eye movement.

Lim, Lee and their toy car found their way to Stanley Yang in San Jose where they created Neurosky. The technology behind that car now powers some of the hottest games by Mattel and Myndplay as well as ground-breaking diagnostic tools.

The sensor filters out the background noise and zeroes in on the tiny electronic pulses made by our brains, like streamlined little brothers to giant EEG machines. Data can be collected via an inexpensive lightweight headset which involves no gooey gels or electrodes. That’s why the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine may allow snorers to take home a headset rather than

25

spending a night in the lab. Children with focus problems can see just when their attention wanes. Brain damage can be assessed in high school athletes.

At this point, CEO Stanley Yang arrives, sporting a monkey-faced Paul Frank sweater and blue sport coat. He does not look old enough to have worked more than 20 years in the tech industry, but he is evidently young enough to recognize that it is cool to have your sci-fi headquarters a heartbeat away from the Tech Museum.

Born in Taiwan, Yang moved to the States in 1978, just in time for Star Wars. He confesses that his need to go high-tech was

inspired by that movie.

“I spent countless mornings as a kid sitting at the breakfast table trying to move my cereal box. I believed I had ‘the force,’ and I sometimes imagined I moved it an inch,” Yang says.

It would seem natural that their first product was a toy called Star Wars Force Trainer, but his dreams don’t stop at light sabers. Yang sees the biosensor as a gateway to a more efficient future, one in which every electronic device in your daily life becomes personalized. He explained to me his fantastic visions of intelligent refrigerators that sense your identity as soon as you touch the handle and present the contents accordingly.

26

I imagine what that would be like: just by touching the doorknob when I get home from work, my kitchen could come alive, play a little mood music, and maybe even prep that dry martini.

I glance down at my phone to check the time, and Yang asks, “Why do you call your smartphone smart? It doesn’t even know it’s you.”

It may not know it’s me, now, but the way Neurosky’s sensor is being used by countless companies today, that reality may not be too far off. For example, Toshiba uses the sensor to record reactions to songs while you listen. Sharp is having soccer enthusiasts use these headsets during Euro Cup 2012 to determine which country’s fans have the highest heart rates and vocal excitement. Move over emoticons, make way for we our real emotions. The future looks dim for Facebook’s “like” button.

On my way out, Yang urges me to try their latest partnership with Mattel, Mindflex Duel. I slip on a headband and try to focus on the blue ball in front of me, rather than just looking like an extra from Glee. A blue ball hovers in the air over a small cup. I face my opponent and, just by concentrating, the ball begins to move away from me. Seconds later, I have won.

My journey downstairs was disappointing after visiting Neurosky.

The elevator seemed so mundane; I had to press the buttons, and I couldn’t even select the Muzak with my mind. But, I sense that will be changing soon…

Neurosky 125 South Market Street, #900 San Jose, CA 95113 408.600.0129 neurosky.com

PINGER

By Mary Matlack Photographer by Daniel Garcia

|

The Evolution of Cloud Communication

The grey, chunky building in downtown San Jose on the corner of San Fernando and South 2nd was quite something in 1908.

Home of the first furniture store to open west of Denver and with five floors of furniture, 97 S. Second Street was the largest showroom in San Jose. L. Lion and Sons had a 109 year run in San Jose, providing the growing community with the latest fashions for the home. Today, passersby seeing a small black sign reading, “The Lion Building”, might think that the building was named after the ceramic lions that grace the front entrance. They might not notice that up on the second story where the floor to ceiling windows are a clue to the building’s former glory, another business is poised for a significant run some 40 years after the Lion family closed up shop.

“Neque porro quisquam est, dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore.”

thrilled about free and about having text and voice capabilities on the previously un-text/un-voice friendly iTouch. “70 percent of our users are on the iTouch,” says Sipher, “our median age is 14.” If you wondered who the heck uses Pinger, just take a look at their robust text and ring tone options. You can find just about any sound you can imagine and many that you never thought to imagine; sophomoric humor abounds with cutesy-edgy backgrounds and custom emoticons. For users who aren’t interested in emoticons and wacky ring-tones, Pinger’s wifi-telephony system means your computer or iPad can have a phone number. Essentially, if I know my husband is working on his computer and might not have access to his phone, I can text directly to his computer and vice versa.

Original Douglas-fir floors, exposed brick and modern workstations now grace the historic furniture showroom where uber-modern Pinger is fast at work on a free app that allows you to text and talk free from an iPhone, iPad, iTouch, Android or the web. Pinger uses phone numbers and wifi which proves to be a nifty way to use text messaging and voice with devices such as an iTouch and a desktop computer. Even though my phone already has texting and voice capability, Pinger gives me the option to use voice and text without paying the phone company. Can you hear me now?

In 2005, Greg Woock and Joe Sipher, started Pinger. With past careers at Palm, Handspring and Virgin Electronics, Woock and Sipher had worked together and decided that they were a good team. “I tell people that in high school, I was the kid in a band and Joe was the Eagle Scout,” says Woock. Sipher smiles and shakes his head no, he wasn’t an Eagle Scout, but the point is well taken.

“We had had a good experience there, at Virgin Electronics, and I decided I wanted to try to take a run at creating my own culture and company,” says Woock, Pinger CEO. As for Sipher, officially titled Chief Product and Marketing Guy, “I wanted to touch millions of people with a product.” For the first few years, they puttered around with a texting product that was pre-smartphone. In 2007, “Apple came out with the iPhone and that changed everything,” remembers Woock. “The iPhone accelerated the adoption of smartphones and the app economy that used to be controlled by the carriers. Prior to the iPhone, AT&T decided what apps you got to use. Well, AT&T didn’t decide anymore, Steve Jobs decided or, at least, Steve Jobs decided that AT&T wasn’t going to decide.”

It’s pretty obvious from Pinger’s social media voice and from meeting Woock and Sipher at their beautiful and peppy (with ventilation shafts painted ‘Pinger Periwinkle’) San Jose office, they work hard and strive for a fun work environment. When asked about their take on the dreaded startup work-life balance, Sipher is clear, “It comes down from the top. We both have very balanced lives. We have families, and we have obligations outside of work. I think compared to most startups, this is a very balanced place to work.” Woock agrees, “We’re older. I’ve done that, and I don’t want to do that. I just don’t think it’s healthy. It comes down to the direction from the top. Setting expectations that you work to live, you don’t live to work.”

Their downtown San Jose location is ideal and according to Woock, it was initially a financial decision. “We’ll save well over a million dollars this year versus being in Palo Alto. That’s purely a function of rent.” With a light-rail stop outside their door and Diridon Station a mile away, their location is convenient. “Unless you’re on University Avenue in Palo Alto, you’re going to be stuck in some office park with a deli or cafeteria. It’s depressing,” says Sipher. “Here we have dozens of restaurants within 5 blocks. It really encourages people to get out for lunch.”

That pivotal moment in the evolution of Smartphones was a catalyst for Pinger’s success. “Once that [iPhone release] happened, we knew our first app was done. We realized that we could go back to the early Palm days. We knew what an open application layer on a mobile device would do. Lots of people would make compelling applications. We knew texting and we knew advertising.” So, two years later, in March 2009, Pinger launched its “Text Free” application, and they became profitable. “Prior to that we were trying,” remembers Woock. “After launching Text Free, we were literally sitting there watching the chart go up and up and up. That was the first feel good moment for everyone here.”

Pinger’s free app may seem like a cute toy for 14 year olds, but the vision of the founders is big. According to Gartner, Inc., smartphone sales have increased 57 percent in the past year. “I really believe when I say that everyone is going to have a smartphone and communication is going to be free. This is a multibillion dollar opportunity,” says Woock. “It may be a number of people in a variety of different ways but somebody is going to be the Hertz of the market, the McDonalds of the market.”

Using WiFi is new and cool, but phone numbers seem old-school and clunky. Woock gives a nod to Skype, “A client goes through the internet to another client and that certainly works. We also think that there is value in having a phone number. If I need to call a cab in Prague, I don’t know the guy’s Skype ID! You gotta have a phone number. To do business, you have to have a phone number, and I think you always will. We’re bridging the traditional telephony infrastructure and this new application infrastructure. Both are going to be important, and both are going to be widely adopted for different reasons. We’re not going to bet on either, we’re going to bet on both.” Sipher boils it down, “Essentially, this is voice and texting in the cloud.”

In the meantime, while Woock and Sipher plan for world domination, their base continues to grow. With 50 million downloads, Pinger estimates that 10 million people use their apps every month.

They’ve moved around 20 billion text messages and anticipate approximately 1 billion voice minutes this year. They began service in Germany in 2011 and recently announced that their Headquarters for all service outside of North America will be in Dublin, Ireland.

Pinger is on a mission and it is hard to argue with their inspiration.

With passion in his voice, Woock makes it clear, “On your mobile phone, there’s nothing that you are going to do more than talking and texting...not even Angry Birds. Somebody’s going to figure out how to make that free. I want that to be us.”

And of course free is never really free; for Pinger advertising pays the bills. After their first year on the market, “We had enough data to say that we think this makes more money with free,” says Woock.

“It’s true, immediately we were right,” adds Sipher. “We can actually make money with advertising. We’re sending billions of messages a month and have billions of ad impressions a month.”

Pinger 97 South 2nd Street San Jose, CA 95113

Pinger’s Facebook page, with 370,000 active users, is carefully managed and certainly no one seems bothered by advertising. Users are

www.pinger.com

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Joel Slayton was an original member of the Visible Language Workshop at MIT in the mid 1970’s.

In 1984 he started SJSU’s CADRE Laboratory for New Media, one of the first programs in the country to grant BFA’s and MFA’s in this field.

Slayton is a tenured SJSU professor, on leave to run ZER01. His research explores social software, cooperation models and network ontology. Slayton was the founder and President of C5 Corporation, has served on the Board of Leonardo/ISAST (International Society for Art, Science and Technology), and was the Chair of the Leonardo/MIT Press Book Series and ISEA2006 (International Symposium on Electronic Arts). He was an artist in residence at the Xerox Parc Research Center, received a National Endowment for the Arts award and has shown his work at galleries and museums worldwide.

Written by Diane Solomon Photography by daniel garcia

One of Silicon Valley’s newest arts organizations is ZER01. Its high profile Biennial is now one of the world’s major digital technology and emerging media arts festivals, bringing new attention to this region as the center of innovation and showcasing contemporary artists who are addressing real world challenges using technology as their medium.

ZER01 transformed downtown San Jose in 2010. In addition to gallery and museum exhibitions and the Absolute Zero and Green Prix block parties on South First Street, dozens of outdoor interactive public art installations employed digital technology as the medium of artistic expression.

One notable, was a nightly light show projected high up on a building at the corner of San Fernando Street and Almaden Boulevard.

Despite the invisibility of air, modern sensors and the latest laser projection technology installed on a nearby traffic signal island provided a real time waterfall-like visualization of particulate pollution.

The block long South Hall of San Jose’s Convention Center became Silicon Valley’s mythical garage. It was filled with a dazzling array of interactive artists, happenings, artificial atmospherics, tech shops and a drive-in movie theater fashioned out of salvaged cars.

While outdoors, a zip line allowed visitors to strap in and fly high over a man-made marsh while learning about estuary preservation and aviation.

Embedded into the Biennial were symposiums like GLOBAL WARNING, a gathering of artists, academics, scientists, policy-makers and the public to examine case studies of collaborative environmental art projects and the relationships between artmaking, science and ecology.

Despite the dismal economy’s impact on arts organizations, ZER01 is thriving.

Content spoke to Executive Director Joel Slayton about the 2012 Biennial, their new Garage and how ZER01 may be fueling Silicon Valley’s economic recovery.

Tell us about ZER01’s 2012 Biennial festival.

Our past Biennials have run as kind of a weeklong blow out. In 2012, there will be a September opening, but exhibitions will continue through October. So, there will be more opportunities for people to plug in and experience different things.

In three iterations of the Biennial, we’ve featured over 500 artists from more than 50 countries. We’ve commissioned 80 original works making ZER01 one of the largest commissioning bodies in the U.S. We’ve attracted over 100,000 visitors and contributed about $20 million in economic revenue to this region.

The 2012 thematic is ‘Seeking Silicon Valley’, looking at both the mythology of what Silicon Valley is and its realities. The hub of the Biennial will be here in San Jose but we’ll be doing more in San Francisco and other Bay Area locations because ZER01 is a Silicon Valley Biennial and Silicon Valley isn’t a place, it’s a way of thinking. If you’re working in the tech industry in San Francisco, Santa Cruz or the East Bay, you’re in Silicon Valley and it’s not feasible to create an international cultural event in the Bay Area and limit it geographically.

ZER01’s new Garage will anchor us in San Jose. We’re creating a place, a network and a community for creative risk-takers from the arts, business, science and academic sectors to interact and spur responsible innovative change. So, it’s important in terms of influencing innovation practice in industry but it will also be important in influencing innovation practice in culture.

It’s always been our intent to be more than a biennial, to be a vehicle for bringing artists and Silicon Valley’s tech industry together to create opportunities to innovate new ideas and try new ways of doing things creatively.

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But ZER01 is deeper than the Biennial; it’s ongoing conversations about art’s function in culture and the artist’s role in contemporary society. Biennials are there to be provocative and to challenge assumptions about the way things are thought about and the way they work. The Garage is there to feed that and create an ongoing opportunity for artists to be engaged at the deepest level with where this technology is taking us.

ZER01 was recently awarded two major grants: One from the National Endowment for the Arts and another from Artplace, a collaboration between large foundations and federal agencies. Why is ZER01 getting funding instead of more established arts organizations with track records?

I think this is very closely tied to this idea of placemaking. Engineers invented the past, artists will create the future and we’re creating opportunities and platforms for that to happen.

It’s not just about making a cool city to hang out in, although that’s important too. It’s about looking at the problems faced in an unjust world and working with people who are working on those problems. It’s about attracting jobs and talent and opening up new avenues for retail and creating conditions that support the new ideas coming out of the dorm rooms, or the two guys and a dog, or two women and a dog, who will come up with the next generation software. I think that’s why we’re getting funding because we have good ideas about how to get it done.

In the 1970’s you were one of the students who worked with Muriel Cooper and helped start the Visible Language Workshop that became part of MIT’s legendary Media Lab. You left MIT and came here in 1981 and began working with Silicon Valley companies like Apple Computer, Silicon Graphics and the NASA Ames Research Center. What were you doing for them back then?

It was such an anomaly that art was somehow connected to this really rapidly unfolding landscape of technology in Silicon Valley. So, to be able to see what else could be done with this technology was really important, and that’s what I was doing. I’d be working with

tools or systems or software and just tweaking it and manipulating it in ways that they weren’t, so it was informative to them.

I guess in a very early way, it was like influencing innovation practices inside the companies. They could look at what you were doing as an artist and say, ‘Oh, that’s a cool idea. I never thought of using our stuff that way.’

You have been called a pioneer of digital and new media arts. Do you consider yourself to be a techie, an academician, a researcher or an artist?

Well, first and foremost I’ve always seen myself as an artist. I kind of emerged from being a photographer into a conceptual art practice and media and technology and, like a lot of people, ran that parallel with an academic career.

Artists have been working with technology since the beginning of time and have been innovators and tool developers and designers of the world that we’re living in. There’s a very serious and deep history with art’s relationship to more contemporary industry that begins even from the Bauhaus forward and ways of thinking about the influences of design practice and artistic practice and cultural innovation and all that stuff, so ZER01 is part of that history. Maybe we’re one of the latest incarnations of it. But it will go on forever, and it’s been there forever.

I think we have a particular spin on it that‘s unique to being in Silicon Valley but we’re not the first ones to come to the table to try to figure out, ‘well, what’s the contemporary role of arts in culture and society and what’s this relationship with this really vast technological economy and industry?’ and that kind of thing. There have been other major enterprises bringing artists and art, science technology, and engineering together. We’re not hanging out on a limb by ourselves.

Was there anything in your childhood that hinted at a life at this new crossroads of art, technology, and digital culture?

Growing up as a military brat, I was always around military technology and that certainly had an impact on how I saw the world or thought about it, but there are specific things that happen to you along the way.

I remember when I got my first dark room. I ordered it out of some catalog where for $50 you could get the whole setup. I remember setting it up in the bathroom at our house.

I was probably about ten or so, and I developed that first roll of negatives, but after they came out of the canister they were all wet. I remember pulling them out thinking it was, like, magical!

I could see these pictures that I took but I didn’t know what to do with them after that.

So I took them outside and hung them in the trees to dry (laughs). It seemed like a good way to go and they got all scratched up and messed up and stuff and then I printed them and it was like, ‘Wow! This is like crazy insane!’ This sort of weird interaction between, I don’t know, I guess the technology and chemistry and light and optics and all that, but also this kind of weird happenchance spontaneous thing that happens when you just screw up. You know? It was part of it.

So, I’ve always had this idea that experimenting and playing with and treating these things in not such a precious way allows you to see into technologies what else they can be.

What’s something surprising that people don’t know about you?

Probably no one realizes how subversive I am (laughs) about getting stuff done.

For me, ZER01 is a very large conceptual art project and I love the politics and the administration and the budgets and the numbers, and it’s all art product. It’s not a means to an end. It’s very much part of building a collaborative framework that IS the artwork itself.

It’s the process and that’s always been central to the work that I do as an artist. So, that’s kind of what I meant by a little subversive. It’s like ‘OK, I’ll be the administrator (laughs) fine!’

Call me what you want. It’s really the subject matter of the art. As an artist this is what I do. So, they probably don’t know that if this were not an art project, I wouldn’t be working on it (laughs), you know?

I think this comes out in conceptual art practice where you’re working with administrative structures and alternative ways of creating art product and art experience. It’s very much a part of what you do. So I think I love administration (laughs). It’s a really rich palette to work with. I think most people would probably look at these jobs as being executive director of an organization and think ‘oh my god, there’s an artist that sold out to the system!’

What’s the paradigm? Those who can’t do teach? Those who can’t teach administrate (laughs)? Like, it’s really super pathetic. Being an administrator is in a lot of ways equivalent to just being the biggest loser ever and for me it’s SO much not that.

It really is an art piece, and I hope that’s what in the end makes my contribution really kind of powerful and I can walk away from it at some point and realize that I really helped create something.

People usually hit dead ends when they try to get ambitious new projects going. Are there any people skills that you think are responsible for how ZER01 has been able to grow and thrive despite an economic climate that’s been slaying established long-time arts organizations?

I think you have to have a vision and you have to be able to communicate that vision to folks to motivate them to feel like they can make a difference. It’s not just having a vision and communicating it. You’ve got to get others to adopt it in their own way and then allow them to take action on that.

It’s an ongoing learning process and, of course, everything always seems rosier than it is when you’re on the outside looking in.

We have our struggles, we have our financial difficulties and problems just like everyone else does. But, we’ve got a really great idea and having ownership of it and being able to share that with folks and push it and be open to change and not being stuck is what’s working.

I have to talk to hundreds of people a month and the thing you’ve got to do is listen, you know? You’ve got to listen to what THEY’RE thinking and then listen to yourself listening (laughs), you know? So it makes you a better person and more thoughtful about what you’re doing.

In the end? You have to have parameters and that comes from knowing what the vision is and what your real mission is and not getting off track and that’s a big part of it. DON’T GET OFF TRACK! Don’t get sidetracked onto a bunch of other stuff that you don’t have capacity for or you aren’t good at. Do what you love, you know? (Laughs) zero1.org

“Customers don’t buy products, they buy solutions.

They buy solutions to their problems.

Taking his Message to The People How do I

They’re not buying because it’s some shiny gadget.

Phil McKinney moves innovate Beyond the Obvious

Phil McKinney has always been a little ahead of his time.

He met his wife when he was 15. He did his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college at the same time at the University of Illinois. And it was in this accelerated-learning, Doogie-Howser environment that McKinney first met a computer, and he was smitten.

Interview by Mary Matlack Photography by Daniel Garcia

and create solutions to customers’ problems?

Problems they might not even know exist because they don’t know what’s possible.

That’s your job as the innovator.”

In 1980, as a Sophomore in college, McKinney married his sweetheart and wrote a prophetic paper, which he recently posted on his blog, titled: “The Right Conditions for Creating Technology”. I met up with McKinney in December of 2011 shortly after he retired from a nine-year stint at HewlettPackard where he was officially known as the vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s Personal Systems Group. Of his time at HP, McKinney recalls, “In my backpack or in my pockets, I was always carrying the latest and greatest thing that HP was working on. Reporters would ask to see what was in my pockets. I’d show them ... no photos, of course. So, the ability to work with an amazing team and be at the forefront of developing the next thing when it comes to the devices that we all use for our own personal productivity, was really the best part of the job. I was right there at the leading edge and being able to not only influence it but actually to be a part of the development of those teams.”

Outside of HP, McKinney has been known as: “The Innovation Guru,” “The Gadget Guy” and “The Chief Seer.” Now these titles have nothing to do with his sophomore year English paper, that was simply a coincidence.

Just as his many years in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, becoming an Eagle Scout and at one point leading nearly 6,000 Boy Scouts may have been coincidental at the time, it is clear that those experiences shaped the man. “It’s not just about my technology background that has allowed me to be successful. It’s also leadership skills that I’ve learned. For me that really does come from my background in the Boy Scouts which allowed me to learn and perfect the ability to lead people, get people interested and excited about doing things and mustering those resources to get something done.”

With three grown children and a desirable, cutting-edge job, what would possess a man like Phil McKinney to retire? “Just prior to starting at HP, I was already working on my blog and the podcast, which was really about sharing to my listeners and readers my view of innovation and creativity ... how to create teams and how to create award winning products,” says McKinney. What started out as a single recording in a hotel room while on a business trip, the podcast quickly took on a life of its own with 30,000 listeners and many blog and Twitter followers. Certainly McKinney’s casual banter and comforting tone puts listeners at ease—like listening to your childhood scout master—the one who might have smiled and said, “You can do this, son.”

A literary agent contacted McKinney in the spring of 2010 and wondered if he had ever considered writing a book. McKinney chuckles and scratches his red beard. “I kinda laughed when the idea first came up. Here I was, I already had a full-time job, an 80 hour week and as I say: two arms, two legs, 24

“It’s no longer about technical skills. Knowledge is a commodity.

There are great universities all over the world and guess what, there’s always going to be a place cheaper than here for people willing to do your job.

So the question is, what’s the value we put into our students, so that they have a competitive skill set in areas that we need, given the changes that we are seeing.” hours a day, there’s just a limit to how much you can do!” Instead of throwing in the towel, he resolutely perservered and sent in a proposal and... Bingo! McKinney then signed on with Hyperion Publishing and began a new phase in his life: producing a 75,000 word book in a little over 6 months.

A full-time book and a full-time job left McKinney stretched, and he became enamored with the idea of getting his word out

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there. Retiring from HP and taking on the book project seemed like the logical next step. “The fact is, innovation and creativity is not an art. It’s not some secret or some blessing that certain people have and other people don’t have. It’s a skill that anybody can learn, anybody can practice and anybody can become proficient at. Problem is that people have just never been taught how. So, the combination of the book and me going out and doing my speeches, I’m looking for ways to really get that word out there.”

In true McKinney fashion, the book was delivered right on time, much to the surprise and delight of his publisher. He admits that writing a book and writing a blog are two different beasts. “If someone had told me how hard it was to write a book,” McKinney says, “I probably wouldn’t have started down the path.”

The book, “Beyond the Obvious” is due out in February 2012 and McKinney has moved on to promoting the book and sharing his knowledge with the world. His path is undefined and uncharted, but he acknowledges, “It’s comforting in the fact that it’s in an area that I feel I can deliver a huge amount of value to companies and individuals in the form of mentoring and coaching. I’m excited to have a broader influence—instead of just being inside HP—and now being able to take that to a much broader audience.”

And what does success look like to Phil McKinney? “The ability to not only have an influence and an impact on a broader set of companies out there, but also to be able to have more time that I can donate to the non-profits and charities that I’m involved in.

That would include the work that I’ve done with “Hacking Autism” which is bringing together the tech community and developing technologies that would allow people who are on the Autism spectrum to have a voice, to have communication skills and to interact socially. But also the work that I do with the Boy Scouts, and the work that my family and I are doing in Rwanda. We have a small venture fund. We’ve made a fairly significant investment in Rwanda to help build the entrepreneurial community there.”

Taking a dose of his own medicine, or eating a bit of his ‘own dogfood,’ as they say in the industry, McKinney has stepped out beyond the obvious corporate job to bring his message to businesses, families, nonprofits, education, government and the world (first translations: Chinese and Portuguese).

“Innovation isn’t just for businesses. It’s for everyone.”

Video interview with Phil McKinney at: content-magazine.com philmckinney.com hackingautism.org

“I’ve seen organizations and teams run into challenges when they find a path to success and they don’t want to vary from it. They want to stay on that path, because they think it’s the path that got them to be successful versus the process of discovery.”

SAM LICCARDO Written by Jennifer Fey Interview by Jon Talbert Photography by Daniel Garcia

Councilmember Sam Liccardo sent a text from the elevator saying he was just seconds away from joining us. When the elevator doors opened and he cruised into the room, any thought of this being your bog-standard city council interview quickly dissolved. Overlooking downtown for the 88’s modern penthouse, Liccardo served up charm and insight as he assessed life in San Jose and the vital partnerships that sustain the city through these times of scarcity.

Shirts | So What Industries Location | the88sj.com

Let me ask you this. San Francisco has a vibe. LA has a vibe. What’s San Jose’s vibe?

We’re at the highest homicide rate in the City of San Jose, or close to it...

housing and other kinds of necessities.

San Jose’s vibe is more diverse, more eclectic than a typical big city. Because we’re so diverse, it often makes it difficult for people to pin a single identity on us. This is a city that has changed very, very quickly in the last 3040 years. So the vibe is one of constant dynamism, and one that really celebrates diversity in a city that prides itself on innovation.

Not quite.

In this case, the Downtown Streets Team was willing to come to San Jose and work with folks who are in the creeks, doing cleanup in those creeks. As a result, we were able to leverage federal funding from the EPA, and funding from local foundations at eBay and elsewhere to try to get 50 homeless men involved in this work program. When you see that start to work, that’s a big thrill. We got a call two weeks ago from a gentleman by the name of Jim, who has been living in Coyote Creek for over four years. He called us to say, “Hey - I’m in a program right now - a clean and sober program. I’ve got a permanent place to live.” He’s employed by the Downtown Streets Team, in fact he’s helping to manage one of the teams. And he’s doing great - and we’re thrilled. Those are the kinds of moments when you realize that is what you’re doing this for.

So it seems like the local news is always talking about the economic and financial woes of San Jose. Why would someone want to live here if our city is broke?

This is a tale of two cities in many ways. We recognize City Hall is having its troubles. But we continue to be a wealthy city and not just economically. Our residents are very affluent by any measure, and we have an extraordinary wealth of human talent here, too ... human capital. That’s really what sets us apart, and it’s going to drive innovation and prosperity for many years to come.

Ok, not quite. But close. What happened in the last 18 months? What’s going on?

Yes, the rate is quite a bit higher than in the 80’s and early 90’s. Homicides are tough to figure out. There’s no question we have fewer police, and that’s hurting us. But the reality is that no matter how many officers we put out there on the street, it’s not likely to have a huge impact on the homicide rate.

I’m particularly concerned about the lower level violence we’re seeing in some of the more gang-torn areas of our city. We’re seeing more and more involvement among 14 and 15 yearolds in the kinds of activities that we didn’t see folks get involved in until they were quite a bit older. I think that’s where we need to focus because that’s where we can do some prevention and have some real impact.

How do we focus on that?

You went to Bellarmine back in the day. Did you ever think you’d be leading the city you grew up in?

I don’t think I ever figured I’d end up in this position. I always thought I’d like to get into politics one way or another, but I didn’t think it would be in City Hall, running day to day operations — everything from involving myself in parks to streets to police.

Talk to me about baseball. Will we ever get a baseball team here?

Not only will we get a baseball team here, but I’ve already reserved season tickets for 2015 -- I’ve got row 7, seats 49 and 48.

You mentioned you’re a recovering lawyer. So, you left a career in law to go into politics. Why would you do that?

I was actually, unlike most lawyers, enjoying my time in the law. I was a criminal prosecutor, a trial attorney. And it’s a lot of fun standing in front of a jury and being engaged in issues you’re passionate about. I was prosecuting cases in the sexual assault unit.

Certainly there were trying and difficult times there, particularly emotionally. A lot of my victims were child victims, and so that wears on you over time. As much as I was passionate about it, I also recognized it wasn’t something I could do forever.

What drives you crazy about your job at City Hall?

(Long pause) What drives me crazy are people who aren’t passionate. This is a time ... facing the challenges we face ... that we ought to care deeply about what we’re doing, particularly if we’re in the public sector. And what I find most frustrating is those occasions when you trip across folks who really don’t care one way or another. By contrast, what I find to be very uplifting is when I find great examples of folks in the world who are deeply engaged and passionate about what they’re doing.

In the Washington/Guadalupe community, which is probably one of the most gang-torn communities in my district, we’re working with predominantly Spanish-speaking residents to form walking groups among parents.

They formed a group called Washington Camina Contigo. For an hour in the morning and another in the afternoon, a dozen parents get together and walk around with safety vests on, whistles, and just put more ‘eyes’ on the street.

These very simple tasks of community building try to follow on the ‘Broken Window’ approach - where any sign of disorder can tend to lead to greater kinds of instability in a community.

Ok - we don’t want to beat around the bush here.

At Content Magazine, we are all about San Jose and everything that’s going on here. But we want to hear it straight from you. Why are you excited about San Jose? Why should people be looking to live and engage here rather than higher up the peninsula?

(Dramatic pause) San Jose is the home of fruit cocktail! San Jose is the place where the Eggo waffle was developed. San Jose is quirky and unique and extraordinary in ways that is often not apparent on the surface. And people who live here, who get it, recognize what an extraordinary place this is, because we’re creative, we’re innovative, we’re diverse. We don’t try to be all those other cities.

Video interview with Sam Liccardo at: content-magazine.com

Have you been to see these programs in action yourself?

For Washington Camina Contigo, we went out there and started the program with many of the residents. We went out there for several mornings, talked to the parents. We leveraged some resources with the school to help them get vests, walkie talkies, and flashlights so they could be out there and feel safe. And we’ve been out there walking with them. This is an effort that’s a partnership, and we recognize we’re putting a lot of burden on our communities right now because we don’t have the needed resources. We’ve got to find ways to do it together.

Sam Liccardo - District 3

How do you define success in your role and what is your personal mission?

baseballsanjose.comp

What I enjoy are those opportunities to build partnerships in a community in innovative ways that help us accomplish goals we all care passionately about.

A recent example: we have some serious challenges with our homeless population here in the city. We launched an effort about a year and a half ago to see if we could bring the homeless out of the creeks through the Downtown Streets Team, a great nonprofit that engages homeless residents and gives them a chance to work in order to earn permanent

sanjoseca.gov/district3 Downtown Streets Team streetsteam.org Fruit Cocktail historysanjose.org Baseball San Jose

Baseball San Jose baseballsanjose.com 41

Interview by Stacy Ernst Photography by Daniel Garcia

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“I think we will use technology to break down the barriers and grow the audience for comic books.”

How did SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery start publishing comics?

I’ve been writing and editing comics for 25 years. I was going to school and needed to figure out what else I was going to do with my life. I owned a comic book store on Bascom Avenue and decided I wanted to write a comic. After I published my first story, Samurai Penguin, people started coming to me and asking if I would publish their work.

It naturally progressed into publishing, and we are hitting our 25th anniversary this year.

Congratulations!

Yeah, well, it’s been a rough year. As with anything ink on paper or with books, it’s been rough. Borders going out of business took out a big chunk of our sales. Barnes & Noble is constricting, and these were big places where we sold our books. You have to have a vigorous online presence and direct your customers to Amazon and hope that it works.

How has technology affected comics?

SHAZAM! Anyone who knows their Dark Knight from

their Watchmen will want to beam into SLG Publishing’s Art Boutiki & Gallery on South Market Street. Smartlydressed crimefighters have recently been seen staking out the joint during South First Friday Art Walks. The quirky gallery offers the graphic novel connoisseur more than the standard dusty stack of comic books, it is also a thriving venue for all-ages music nights. Dan Vado, like most traditional print business owners, is riding the wave as SLG evolves from print to digital publishing.

The places you can sell physical books have evaporated as the cost of publishing print books has risen. There is a pressure to develop a new way to deliver content to people, and digital is truly it. Whether it will work or not, I don’t know. We are looking at what will be a good, low cost way to deliver content to our readers, and we are doing this through a variety of ways; whether it is through the iTunes store or through appsbased companies that sell comic readers. We are literally creating a new marketplace.

We are trying to get people to rethink their devotion to print. We are trying to win back the people who stopped buying print comics years ago; and we are trying to introduce comics to people who don’t even know what comics are.

“Can a lone hero boost the developing culture of the mighty San José?”

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You mentioned that you are creating a new marketplace. Would you say this creation is industry wide?

Definitely. There is a big paradigm shift in attitude. We have this marketplace for comics that has done nothing but shrink over the past 15 years, and there is a potentially larger, untapped marketplace. And publishers can benefit from it, whether you are a large publishing house or a small one like ours. The current process of ordering/ buying comics is too hard. Digital will help publishers break down the barrier between the marketing and purchasing of a comic book. I don’t think it will affect comic book stores because the people who frequent comic book stores are people who enjoy the physical copy. Most people who are big time comic book fans are saying that they won’t go to digital because they like the idea and feel of the physical book. But it is too small a pie and it is a pie that isn’t going to continue growing. I think we will use technology to break down the barriers and grow the audience for comic books.

So, there is a group of people who remain loyal to print?

Absolutely.

Do they take the idea of digitally expanding the marketplace seriously, or do they view it as selling out?

I don’t know. I know retailers can be emotional about it because they feel publishing

houses they have supported for years are undermining their business. But we can’t have comics be the lone holdout as we make a transition into a digital world. We can’t devote ourselves to a segment of the industry that has proven unable to grow itself over the years.

How has San Jose responded to the comic book scene?

You know, for a long time San Jose was really a hot bed of comics. Back when I was a kid, there were four comic book stores in downtown San Jose. We used to run comic book conventions here, too. It was a real hotbed.

It has declined over the years, but so has the whole business, and we are the only ones left in downtown San Jose.

How has the city of San Jose helped you as a business?

I enjoy a nice relationship with the San Jose Downtown Association. They are a non-profit that is not actually associated with the city of San Jose but we work together on events such as the Zombie-O-Rama. We haven’t gotten much more than moral support from the city itself. We don’t get money from the city for our sidewalks because this part of the street is technically a part of a state highway.

Plus, there really is no money in San Jose and businesses are on their own. I think it’s good because it’s teaching businesses how to be businesses again.

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Do you see the potential for comics to become a hot market in San Jose again?

Maybe. I think the comics out right now are not very good, and I think this has something to do with the fact that the audience has somewhat deserted comics. That is part of the reason we are looking at ourselves as a more event-driven business. We’ve done small comic book conventions in here, we’ve done classes in here, and we host concerts several times a month.

There’s so much more to SLG Publishing’s Art Boutiki & Gallery than meets the eye.

Dan Vado has not only built a successful publishing house, he’s on a mission to foster the development of San Jose’s culture, while creating a new marketplace for comics in a digital word. Fight on, Dan. You are truly San Jose’s very own Comic Book Hero!

SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery 577 S. Market Street San Jose, CA 95112 1-408-971-8929 artboutiki.com

Excerpt from

SANCTUARY

BY Stephen Coughlin

Intro by Dan Vado

Stephen Coughlin is

brand new to comics but not to illustration

having worked as an illustrator for Highights Magazine for a number of years. I first became familiar with his work when he attended one of our comics workshops at the Art Boutiki. He stood out as someone with a lot of interesting things to say and stories to tell.

Sanctuary is an interesting series and a really strong piece of work from a newcomer.

Our favorite review sums the series up perfectly; that it is like going to a Disney animated film only to discover that it has been directed by Hitchcock. The cute animals cover a dark and mysterious story and it is a compelling read, really not for kids.

Sanctuary is also part of our digital first publishing initiative where comics are serialized as downloadable books in a variety of formats prior to going to print.

Sanctuary can be downloaded from the SLG website (lgcomic.com) or through the iBookstore for reading on your iPad.

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Cultivator’s Notes tech 4.0

For Content Magazine’s print launch, we start with what is most unique to San Jose--TECH. Our recent history is filled with stories of the journey from garages to gadgets. But technology is more than computers. It is about tools and craftsmanship. The root of the Greek word speaks of this: Tekhne means “art or craft.” And, behind all of the technology is creativity, imagination and innovation.

In this issue we feature innovators that have merged their craft and tools to express a unique presence in our city, as well as the world. The people you will find in this issue demonstrate the creative and innovative spirit that has been captured in our area as it has been dubded “SIlicon Valley.” Content is proud to be a part of that tradition and not only offering stories of our city with the latest avenues of “technology” but also with the ultimate “user-experience”: PRINT. I also want to take this time to thank the many supporters who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign. You have encouraged us in our mission and play a important part in bringing a quality publication to San Jose. Thank you!

CULTIVATOR Daniel Garcia daniel@content-magazine.com

COVER IMAGE photography_Daniel Garcia___Make-up/Hair_Asal Fard model_Katrina, HMM___Styling_Sobrina Tung assistant_Victoria Felicity___clothes__from The Usuals

Contributors ARNEL CAYABYAB Arnel Cayabyab is a graduate of UC Davis with a degree in Economics and Technocultural studies. He has worked with several bay area musicians and fellow artists with creativity and originality in mind. In his spare time, he takes a high interest in economic policies and consumer electronics.

DIANE SOLOMON Diane produces and hosts a weekly public affairs program on Radio KKUP, 91.5 fm, and writes freelance for Content and Metro, Silicon Valley’s weekly newspaper. She’s also a big time San Jose Bike Partier, Willow Glen neighborhoodie and Silicon Valley wage slave.

PETER LINDSEY Peter Lindsey runs and operates Image Seven Productions. His love for film/video began during a brief stint in Portland in attempt to become a professional snowboarder. Shooting his friends in the backcountry it was soon evident that his talent was not on a snowboard, but behind the camera. This led him back to his roots in San Jose where he studied Film/TV at SJSU and birthed an addiction to storytelling. You can contact Peter at peter@i7productions.com GILLIAN CLAUS Gillian has a thing for words. Both Shakespearean sonnets and snappy witticisms scrawled in a stall make her smile. Born in the UK, downtown San Jose has been her home for the last thirteen years. She has worked for very big theatre companies and very small nonprofits.

JENNIFER FEY Jennifer comes to the Bay Area as a transplant from Boston, though she’s lived everywhere from Honolulu to London, with a brief stint in Moscow. Jennifer joins us from the Bay Area News Group after a wild year of ‘Adventure Reporting’ with the TapIn iPad app. Jennifer is a writer, reporter, producer and video editor, and has worked for such wide ranging institutions as Harvard University, Google, the Anti-defamation League, Worldcom, and NRI Magazine. Jennifer and her husband, Nick Fey, have been married for 12 years and have one five year old son named Ethan. Nick, a Londoner with a ‘charming accent’, now works as the UX Lead for Mobile Search at Google. Ethan - well, he’s just unbelievably awesome, especially with a light sabre (or, rather, a light SAVER).

C

Thank You This issue that you are holding in your hands, printed on paper, in our new size, is here because of a generous and supportive group of donors. In September of 2011, we launched a Kickstarter campaign, we shared our vision, and people responded. With this successfully funded “kickstart,” we are able to print this “launch” issue and use it to further our reach. We at CONTENT know that behind all the things we love in San Jose, there is always a person, or a group of people, that make those things great. Our donors, our readers, our contributors…they are the thing that makes Content great.

And we couldn’t be more thankful.

So, take this print issue. Display it on your coffee table.

Carry it to your favorite coffee shop. Open it and share with friends. Get to know your city, and all the people that make San Jose a great place to live.

A special thanks to our VIP donors Art & Sofia Garcia Barry Rodenberg Bonnie Montgomery Brett Smith Chris & Pilar Aguero-Esparza Denise Hale Jeremy Castillo Jim Williams Joshua Santos Karl Schramm Kim Ernst Larry & Anitra Laurel Villar Mary Hale MC PureMatter Robyn Navarro Photography Sobrina Tung The Sakelsons Tim Davis Zack & Rachel Fanning

“tOtEM is an incredible show . . .

One of the most magical Cirque du Soleil ® productions in years” TM

– San Jose Mercury News

Written and directed by robert lepage

GEt yOur tickEtS tOday! cirquedusoleil.com OPENS March 2

at taylor Street bridge in San joSe For preFerred Seating, aSK For tHe Tapis Rouge ™ Vip eXperience group SaleS and X : 1-800-450-1480 oFFicial SponSorS

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