Shaping the Future with DENT: A Decade of Connection and Inspiration

Welcome to a special episode of MØTLEYKRÜG, the cyberpunk symphony that dares to rewrite the rules.

In this episode, host Kris Krüg takes you on a decade-long journey with DENT, a gathering that transcends the ordinary and unites innovators, artists, and leaders.

Discover DENT's unique community, where creativity meets the future, and ideas flourish among kindred spirits.

From sharing tables with astronauts to engaging with inspired inventors, this is a story about shaping the future, finding your tribe, and becoming part of an extraordinary movement.

Tune in and explore the behind-the-scenes insights, personal connections, and transformative impact of an event that's more than a conference – it's a canvas of change.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay, okay, okay. Hey, what's up, Internet? It's Chris Krug. And baby Jesus hogging the screen there and

(00:07):
checking in from Hornby Island.
Thanks for checking out the podcast and the video blogs lately. I've been trying to get this thing going as
as many of you know.
So today I'm gonna start you off with a little personal tale
and then I want to talk to you a little bit about the Dent the Future Conference that's coming up in September in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
As it relates this whole journey I'm on with tech and AI and

(00:32):
voice cloning in the future. Hey, baby Jesus, take it easy there, buddy.
Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
You know, I live on Hornby Island here, which is this tiny little island off the coast of Vancouver.
It takes three ferries to get here from Vancouver. You got a ferry to Nanaimo,

(00:54):
drive from Nanaimo up to Buckley Bay,
take the ferry from Buckley Bay over to Denman Island and then take the ferry from Denman Island to Hornby Island.
So that's where I live. It is literally the edge of the world.
And
the internet barely reaches here.
We do recently have Starlink available, though I haven't been able to line that up quite yet. So I have

(01:20):
the worst network cobbled together that barely has any throughput. It's amazing
I'm able to participate in internet culture at all.
These videos sometimes take hours or even days to upload.
It's really, really brutal and I have to really like do only one thing at a time.

(01:41):
So I'll like set a video up to upload and then I'll have to go fuck off and do something in the garden.
Or outside or in my truck or something like that, you know.
And as many of you know who've been communicating with me on meetings or calls,
I can literally only do like one thing at a time on the internet.
So if you if you're talking to me and then you send me a photo it crashes out our call.

(02:06):
So anyway, I
some of you have heard I'm making some moves. I'm renting a place in Vancouver for September 1st, and I'm pretty excited about that.
It's gonna be good.
Do.
Fast internet, banks, shit like that as we kind of undertake this next chapter of life.

(02:27):
Yeah, so things will be getting better, but we're limping along here at the edge of civilization.
So thanks for putting up with the digital bullshit.
Thanks for putting up with the digital bullshit. Okay, so I'm involved with this cool event called Dent the Future.

(02:48):
Aka Dent. It comes from a Steve Jobs quote back in the day about something like everyone looking to put a dent in the universe or something like that.
And it's run by a couple buddies.
Jason Preston and Steve Brobeck. I've known these guys for more than a decade and maybe almost two.
They've been longtime contributors of the internet and and all around pretty awesome dudes. Convener of community for sure.

(03:16):
And guys focused on
equity and change and positivity and stuff. So it's a real pleasure to be a part of their community.
I've been the photographer for their event for you know, I don't know eight of the last ten years or something like that.
And I'll link to a bunch of the albums here in the blog posts and stuff.
It's a Ted style ideas event.

(03:39):
That has like a pretty unique recipe. There's a lot of like activities. People like teaching each other other things.
There's been a lockpicking workshop that I really enjoyed.
You know, there's been a lot of like outdoor activities. I've led several like photography workshops and photo walks where we
pick a cool spot in the area where the conference is going to be and head out as a group and just kind of like

(04:03):
hang out and do photography in a collaborative environment where we can teach each other and share gear and stuff like that.
I've been doing these photo walks for like 20 years now since like the beginning of the Web 2.0 revolution.
Back when my old buddy Stewart Butterfield launched Flickr 2003 in Vancouver back in the day.
So photo walks are one of my earliest ways of kind of convening community around photography.

(04:29):
And I'm happy to be doing one this year at Dent again. So I don't know. I've met a lot of awesome people there over the years.
I met Dan Shine. I met Mark and Evan.
Out in a recent blog post, they run the Future and Review Conference.
Russell Sparkman, Martina Welkoff. I've just met a real awesome cadre of folks.

(04:55):
It's a foodie event, a can of wine event. There's a fancy sommelier who brings his personal collection to the event.
Jason and Steve always make sure to have really, really nice host of dinners all around.
And you know, the result of this is that everyone really gets to know each other and bonds and stuff.
And we've got a really great group of alumni who stay in touch with each other and work together.

(05:21):
I'm thinking of my buddy Matt McKenna right now, who I've spent a lot of time with at Dent over the years and stuff.
And yeah, so this is just my plug. I'm saying I'm going to be at Dent in Santa Fe at the beginning of September.
I'll put some links and stuff down there.
If you're looking to, you know, get out of your home office environment or connect with some other people who are hanging out on the cutting edge of what's going on out there right now,

(05:49):
I recommend checking it out. And if you hit me up but you want to come, I'm sure I can give you some sort of like discount code or something like that.
So yeah, check it out. This isn't so much a sales pitch as like a chance to get in with something cool.
So yeah, that's my pitch on Dent for now.

(06:11):
Just after Dent, I'm going to be flying to New York and taking the train up to Connecticut.
There's this cool transportation focused hackathon that's taking place up there.
And I'm one of the mentors for the hackathon. So I'm helping people with content and community and AI related stuff as they build their transportation and transit focused apps and stuff.

(06:38):
So really, really excited about that. Laura Horak, thanks for getting me involved.
Wonder Merchant, someone I've known since the Hootsuite days through my old buddy Dave Olson.
And yeah, so I'm looking forward to a season of travel coming up here.
Santa Fe and New York. And then I got the future in review in Los Angeles in the fall.

(07:03):
And then, you know, Mark Cantor is working on a plan to get me and a couple of guys out to the old United Nations Climate Change Summit in Dubai,
where we're working on some media tracking utilities.
The premise is like, you know, politicians make a lot of bullshit promises at these events.
And wouldn't it be neat to hold them accountable, to hold them accountable for what they say and their progress against those goals and stuff.

(07:30):
And so we're brainstorming some ways to make that happen.
I've got a backlog of backload of backload of content coming your guys way as soon as soon as I can free up some of these Internet pipes.
And I'm just really excited to reach out and connect more.
So, yeah, anything else you want to say, baby Jesus? As we arrive here at the spark.

(07:58):
All right. Take in baby Jesus over and out.