Founding Mixer — Team Ops

Then the room opens: chips get placed, the Stuck Wall fills, testimonial camera runs. Michael's close reads the tally — “Let's see where the chips landed.”

Spoken, one breath each.

Michael“I'm Michael — I started this. I'll be the guy who won't shut up about why this city needed a room like this. Fair warning.”

Eric Goodman (Strategic Advisor, Programming)“Eric runs The AI Nation and the AI Clarity Challenge — if you're drowning in AI noise and want a path through it, he's your guy.”

Matt Aponte“Matt handles what we actually build. Find him if you want to argue about which of those four comes first — he enjoys it.”

Marcial B. Dumlao (Chapter Organizer, Strategy & Ops)“Marcial makes the thing run. If your question is ‘okay, but how does this actually work,' that's a Marcial conversation.”

Andrea Palten (Marketing Committee Lead)“Andrea's the reason anyone outside this room will ever hear about us. Find her if you want to help people find this.”

Karrie Pittman (ACA Marketing Partner)“Karrie's ACA, and she knows everyone in this building and most of the city. She's your shortcut to whoever you're looking for.”

Matt Watkins / “Chewie” (Chapter Organizer — self-intros from the crowd)“Somewhere in this room, six-foot-five with a camera, is Chewie — he runs Cinegraph and he's the reason any of this gets filmed. Chewie, wave. Find him if you want to make something with AI instead of just talking about it.”

• Frame (Eric): “You keep hearing the word agents. Here are three headlines — and what's actually true underneath.”
• HL1 (Eric): “40% of agent projects get scrapped by 2027” (Gartner) → not agents failing — people deploying with no guardrails or measurement. A maturation signal, same as ERP and cloud. Hands off: “Matt — take the two that matter.”
• HL2 (Matt): “95% of enterprise AI pilots show no measurable impact” (MIT GenAI Divide) → the 5% that worked picked one narrow job wired into real systems; the rest built isolated demos.
• HL3 (Matt): “Agents will replace your team” → reality ~67% automation vs. a promised 90%. They augment — pick the repetitive slice.
• Mic-drop (Matt): of thousands of vendors claiming “agentic AI,” Gartner says ~130 are real — the rest is “agent washing.” Translation: most of what you're pitched is a chatbot in a trench coat.
• Chip tee-up (Matt, close): “Every one of these is someone who read the headline instead of touching the thing. That's the whole reason this chapter exists — and the whole reason there are four jars by the door. You got a chip on your way in. Go bet it on the one you want us to build first. That's how the 2027 calendar gets built — not by me, not by Eric. By where the chips land.”

• Four Buckets — jars: Policy / Build Workshops / Done-With-You / Build-a-thons. Topper card: “Place your bet. Which one do we build first?” Right past the door. Greeter demos the first drop for the opening 20 min.
• Color layer — chip color = who you are, flat, no ranking: White = haven't started / curious · Green = business owner · Blue = builder / engineer · Red = tinkerer / hobbyist. Check-in sign: “Grab the chip that's most like you.” If anyone asks “which is worth more?” → “none — that's the point.” The jar vote survives even if the color sort gets sloppy.
• Stuck Wall — mid-room, sticky notes + sharpies at the wall (not at check-in). Header card: “The thing I'm stuck on is… Write it. Stick it. Odds are three other people wrote the same thing.”

• Door + greeters: 2 people — name tags, warm welcome, hand out chips (color = who you are) and opt-out photo dots (orange dot = don't publish me). Demo the first chip drop.
• Steven Lucks: our honored ACA elder. Keep him good company, let him talk shop one-on-one, make sure he never stands alone. Scott or Karrie are natural anchors. No mic.
• Beginner welcome: greeters keep an eye on the newer folks (see Host Map) so the builders don't swallow them.
• Capture: Watkins — stills + testimonial station once the room opens. Needs a helper to run the station. (See Shot List.)
• Stuck Wall + chips: someone owns restocking sticky notes and nudging people to place a chip before they leave.
• Name capture at close: someone owns the list. That list is the chapter.
• N.P. Dawson: if he demos, handle access — he's deaf; quiet corner, visual cues.

Say it warm, twice — top nod + full close.

“Two thank-yous, and I mean both. This room exists because the ACA opened its doors — Scott, you've been in our corner since before there was an ‘our.' And the beer in your hand is courtesy of Red Leg Brewing — Colorado Springs taking care of Colorado Springs. Raise it to both.”

Our honored ACA elder. Give him real attention, let him talk shop one-on-one, make sure he's never left standing alone. Scott or Karrie are natural anchors. No mic.

Justin Bergen (Five3) · Mike Rowe · Andrew Lints (RevFlow) · R. Dale Brunet (“the AI whisperer”) · Amanda Hall · (Keara Vega-Hernandez — also a beginner, below).

All offered to host, sponsor, or find a venue. This is the open sponsor gap closing itself. Goal: a real talk + “let's connect next week.”

Jack McKechnie · Jen Loder · Amanda Herber · Matt Curdy · Michael Schuette · Keara Vega-Hernandez.

The actual mission. Make them feel chosen, not lost. Herber & Curdy named real pains (too many tools, no time, privacy) — “that's exactly why we exist.”

Paul Parson · Jason Antalek · Nathan Harmon (Diffio) · db cooper · Dev Kumar · Rachel Wood (PhD) · Ruben Sanchez · Colin Woods · Rick Helvey · Keith Sumner · Donnie Williams (NexGen AI) · N.P. Dawson (handle access — may demo his 7-agent setup).

Level 4–5 who offered to teach or demo. Your leadership pipeline. Goal: “would you run or teach a session?”

John Scaggs (C12) · Stephen Whitten (Logos) · John Rougeux (Flag & Frontier) · David Kurtenbach · Shane Jones · Robert Atkins · Jeremy Millar · Jarret Rodgers · Mendi Mullett · Uriah Kimmig · Brian & Robb Erickson (King Grizzly — brothers).

These are your policy-minded voters — point them hard at the Policy jar so that lane's vote reflects the real appetite.

• Jen Loder ↔ Shannon Pulsipher — both in the AI-for-wellness orbit. Natural pair.
• Brian ↔ Robb Erickson — same company; make sure they meet people outside their pair.
• N.P. Dawson ↔ Nathan Harmon / Jason Antalek — builders who'll geek out on his agent setup.
• Cluster the policy crowd (Scaggs, Whitten, Rougeux, Kurtenbach) near the Policy jar.

The rest → zone coverage: Marsh door-side, Aponte center, Eric + Michael roaming. Warm hello, “who are you, what do you do.”

One folder for everything — members' phone clips and Chewie's footage both land in the same place.

• Name your file with your first name so we can credit you.
• Uploading = you're OK with us using it on our site + socials. Not comfortable? Just don't upload it (and grab an orange dot for photos).

• Cam 1 — Chewie, testimonial station: tight on faces, with the busy room alive behind them. That background movement is the point — it reads as a scene, not a posed clip.
• Cam 2 — room capture: wide and ambient. Jars filling, chips dropping, the Stuck Wall, people moving. This is the B-roll for the recap and the Axios story.
• Cam 2 doesn't need to be precious — lock a wide angle, catch the movement, reframe every few minutes. Needs a warm body to own it.

Ask folks to grab at least 2 quick selfie clips while they're here — 15 seconds each, room alive behind them. Greeters and hosts seed it: “grab two hellos before you go.”

One prompt per clip:

• “What excites you about AI right now?”
• “What scares you about AI right now?”

Then upload to the folder above. Low bar, high energy — this is the layer that makes the recap feel like a movement, not a meeting.

• Scout the testimonial corner: quiet-ish, clean background, decent light, away from speakers and bar noise.
• Camera on a tripod there. Test audio — the room gets loud; get close or use a lav.
• Grab the clean shots you only get once: empty room, signage, the four jars + chips, the Stuck Wall, Red Leg cans, name-tag detail. The crowd ruins these after 5:30.

• One wide HERO — full room, warm, mid-conversation or a stage beat. Landscape.
• 3–4 candids of small-group talk — different ages/faces, real laughter, someone showing a screen.
• 2–3 connection close-ups — two people talking, a handshake, someone lighting up.
• The stations in use — a hand dropping a chip in a jar, someone writing on the Stuck Wall. These tell the whole story in one frame.
• Michael on the mic + the relay — Eric and Matt during the headlines beat.
• Details — name tags, chips by color, Red Leg cans, chapter signage, the ACA room.
• One group shot near the end — gold for recap and the page.

Aim ~30–40 keepers. Variety beats volume.

• Pull willing folks aside, 15–30 sec each. Aim for 8–12 clips; we need 3 great ones for the page.
• On camera, open with: “Mind if we use this on our site and socials?” — a verbal yes is your release.
• Prompt (pick one, one answer): “Why'd you come tonight?” · “What do you hope this chapter becomes?” · “Finish this: AI for the rest of us means…”
• Get a spread: a builder, a beginner, an ACA member, a woman-owned business, someone who drove in.
• Shoot vertical (9:16) first for socials; horizontal too if easy.

• Everything's already in the shared Drive — members' phone clips, both cameras, stills. Confirm it's all up that night or next morning.
• Flag the 3 best testimonial clips + top 10 stills + a handful of excites/scares hellos for Michael → landing-page swap, recap post, and the Axios story kit.