Taking the stage this week at our weekly 1 Million Cups event, all the way from Napa, CA, is Chris Bledsoe, the Senior Director of Evangelism and Partner Solutions at Bluescape.
Bluescape is a cloud-based platform that provides real-time collaboration on giant touchscreens. We’re talking 160 acres worth of touchscreen. In 2013 it was featured in Bloomberg magazine in an article titled “Bluescape, the touchscreen that covers a wall.” (Here’s an uncut video of a guy using the Bluescape wall. Pretty neat.)
What Chris does is promote the use of visual collaboration and work with 3rd party developers to build more software solutions for Bluescape. He also helped build the Apple store during his 10+ years working for Apple, calls himself a “technology evangelist,” and is a husband, father, philosophy enthusiast, and Star Trek fan.
We asked Chris to tell us a little more about Bluescape, himself, and where he sees the future of tech. Check it!
Chris Bledsoe: The Tech Evangelist
1. What’s the most unique thing about Bluescape’s platform? What makes it different?
We enable teams to work together collaboratively using a large touch screen. Think an iPad the size of a wall. Typically, when a team meets together to solve a problem, create a product or manage a project, they meet in a room and leverage a white board to present, write on and talk about what they are working on. When the meeting is over, someone takes a picture and then distributes that content.
With Bluescape we provide a canvas that is 160 acres in size, that means you will never run out of space, you can put thousands and thousands of sticky notes within the workspace and share it with anyone local or across the world. Because you can directly touch the content in the workspace, you can make it bigger, smaller move it around or even fling it towards another person within the workspace.
2. Kirk or Picard?
Kirk, who else would a 8 year boy want to be when he grows up!
3. iOS or Android?
iOS of course!
4. Who is one philosopher that inspires you and why?
Albert Einstein – “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
He had a passion for understanding how the universe works, and he questioned conventional thinking. It inspires me to never accept that what we have in front of us is how it will always be, but that we can make our own destiny if we seek to understand how people and the world works.
5. Tell us a bit about your family.
My bride Leela and I have 4 kids – twin girls and 2 boys. Two are married, one engaged and my youngest wants to move to New Zealand when he graduates from school to become an underwater welder. My wife and I live in Napa and love drinking wine and meeting new people. She is also an artist who paints, sews, sculpts, designs interior spaces.
6. What is one of the coolest places you’ve ever traveled?
Stonehenge England…it is astounding to think that ancient men (and women) were able to erect those stones. It has an almost magical quality about it when you stand within the stone circle and imagine what it is like to be there during either the winter or summer solstice.
7. As a self-proclaimed “technology evangelist” what do you see as some of the most promising cutting edge tech out today?
Without a doubt the “Internet of Things” is going to dramatically change the way we manage our society and “stuff.” As more things become Internet aware and become able to communicate, we will not only be able to turn a light “on” or “off” but save energy, become more productive, more efficient and safe. Also, I believe that touch technology will continue to evolve to the point that we will expect it within all our of everyday objects, imagine not just a touch watch, phone or laptop, but all aspects of your home, your car, your desk, your TV.
Thanks for sharing, Chris! Don’t miss him at 1 Million Cups, tomorrow at 9:15 AM at the Stage at Island Park. He’ll be joined on stage by John Sweeney from Cork, Ireland, founder of Suspended Coffees: a global movement to warm communities and inspire hope through the goodwill of sharing coffee.
Oh, and don’t forget to bring a mug for free coffee. See you there!
Photos courtesy of Chris Bledsoe
