I agree with the others that there seems to be a few “cool kids” which garner all the attention. HOWEVER, this is due to the silence and passiveness of the Boulder tech community as a whole. The “cool kids” get the attention by default of the rest of the community's lack of engagement.

We all rely too much on our technology toys rather then good 'ol face to face introductions over a few beers.

I for one, would be down with meeting any of you over a beer or coffee. Hit me up on Twitter and I'll buy the first round. http://twitter.com/gmorris

Technology doesnt remove engagement, if anything it accelerates it.
some voices may be louder than others, but it all depends on what is
said, and who is saying it.

Are we clique-y? YES. Can you move among cliques? maybe.

I agree with the others that there seems to be a few “cool kids” which garner all the attention. HOWEVER, this is due to the silence and passiveness of the Boulder tech community as a whole. The “cool kids” get the attention by default of the rest of the community's lack of engagement.

We all rely too much on our technology toys rather then good 'ol face to face introductions over a few beers.

I for one, would be down with meeting any of you over a beer or coffee. Hit me up on Twitter and I'll buy the first round. http://twitter.com/gmorris

Technology doesnt remove engagement, if anything it accelerates it.
some voices may be louder than others, but it all depends on what is
said, and who is saying it.

Are we clique-y? YES. Can you move among cliques? maybe.

Personally, I think the Boulder scene is much more welcoming and open. Even just being up there last weekend when half of it was out in Vegas for the triple-threat week – the community was still open and welcoming.

How do you find a CTO in Denver? No idea. Denver doesn't really have a “scene” or “community” – it's very fragmented. Much easier to find one up in Boulder I'd guess. But don't discount those “1 hour events” – enough of them add up to a lot more exposure than you'd think. But honestly? I think just asking someone like you makes a heckuva difference Micah. I'd trust your “this guy is a good guy and knows what he's talking about” recommendation over the prettiest resume in the world.

Two years later, i decided i really needed to reach out to the community. I reached out to Micah and asked if we could go to coffee. I wasn't looking for a gig or selling him anything, just wanted to get more involved. We had an interesting conversation and he introduced me to others at lijit and in the boulder community. He was great — as have been all the others that I have made the effort to introduce myself — all taking time out of the schedules just to chat.

Similarly, i went to a denver tech alliance event sponsored in part by eBags. They happened to be a long time customer of mine. Just like there is a “friend of Brad” halo in Boulder there is definitely a “friend of Jon” effect in Denver. Got introduced to the ceo's of lot's of interesting companies — zappos, threadless, taaz and many of the techstar gang. had followup lunches w/ local denver vc, again, not pitching anything, just to get to know ppl. This is just something that would absolutely never happen in the Bay Area.

Now to Micah's original point/question re: cliques. of course there are cliques. these exist everywhere. And Micah don't fool yourself, you are definitely part of the “cool kids”. But i would have to say, there are more cliques amongst the parents on my son's pre-school than there are in the boulder tech scene. With that being said, its definitely a very strong and inviting community. One final example of this. In the couple of weeks, i went to a “dad's night out” here in Louisville/Superior. The guys that I met included developers from Rally, R&D from L3, and a math phD. then i went to the Boulder Drinks event this wk — wasn't going to go, but i had emailed jeremy tanner earlier in the day to get more details on the event and he personally called me as the group was leaving for the bar. we had never met/spoken before but he made the effort to call and invite me along. finally, last night, in Lafeyette, i took my family out for pizza and we ran into my wife's friend. turns out her husband is in mobile and goes to the monthly tech meetups.

My point of the long rambling msg is that the boulder community has really surprised me. it's much larger than the core inner circle of just the techstarts/brad feld world, but they are core in putting in the energy to not only sustain it, but to try and nurture and grow the community. Micah, we may not all be at Trident, but look at Super Joes or that Starbucks down the road, and you will find the rest of that “tech community” you are asking about.

I'd gotten to know a handful of Boulder tech people through blogs, attending Defrag and Brad. I'm planning a move so I wanted to find other interesting people on the scene. As a geek, I know technology is the answer to any question, even social dilemmas, so I took the twitter names of the people I knew and looked at who they talked to. I ended up publishing the list on http://bouldertwits.com along with some communications analysis graphs to understand who talked to who.

I think Derek's right. As much as it may feel like high school, the only way to get to know people is by turning up at events and getting involved online. It can be a bit intimidating at first when it feels like everyone knows everyone else and you're Billy No-Mates, but Boulder has done a good job of welcoming me.