The Speakers

Step right up! The IB8 speaker list is out.  Talks marked with an (*) were chosen by YOUR votes!

Thank You for Calling Tech Support… I love you.*

by Bradley Kindall

I’ve been working and training tech support employees for the past 5 years. I’ve seen everything customers can do to be special. I’ve always wanted to “vent” a little bit about customers in an atmosphere where I can also give a few pointers. I know a lot of the attendees and sponsors can really relate in one way or another.  It’ll be tasteful and funny. It’s what every call center rep wants to scream to the world but can’t.

Passion For Action: Scholarships for Foster Kids*

by Dana Longpre

Having moved eleven times in three and a half years in the foster care system in Alaska, I lacked the funds I needed to pursue my musical dreams.  I am now developing a scholarship for foster youth that will help support their passions, and help their futures.

Sharing the Road*

by Brooke Oswald

Sharing the road is not as controversial topic as it should be. As a homeowner of a house on Hill Road, and the owner of both a vehicle and a bicycle, it’s about time someone brings up the real dispute at hand. Cyclists (as a generality) have taken advantage of the term “sharing” the road. Boiled down, sharing is something we all have to learn at some point in our lives. For most, that time is the elementary age. For the rest, that time is now.

Life as a Toddler in Traffic*

by John Baisch

Life as a single male in the middle age is much diffferent than it was early in life.  After being married for 20+ and recently divorced, life is not like it used to be.  I’ve experienced the ups and downs of dating and found that after 25+ years of not dating, things have changed completely.  Every date is an adventure in itself and after going the rounds I’m finding that I’m like a toddler in traffic and have no clue how to date in the 21st century.  I’ve dated stalkers, controlling, compassionate, crazy and wonderful women.  But I still don’t get it sometimes.  So in to traffic I go again…  No names will be given and no identiies will be disclosed to not only protect the not so innocent, but myself….

How To Properly Navigate The Four-Way Stop

by Tim Milburn

Ada County has its fair share of intersections with four-way stops. Unfortunately, most people aren’t properly trained to navigate this traffic crossroads. This tongue-in-cheek presentation will focus on traditional four-way faux-pas and tips/ideas when one encounters a 2C license plate staring at them from the other side of the intersection.

Sasquatch and the Art of Empathy

by Alan Heathcock

As an author, I choose what I write to explore the things in the world that make me curious, that confound and scare me.  Sasquatch, for example.  Eventually, I find my way into writing through a character who is not me (aka, writing through the empathetic experience).  The greatest purpose of art, of literature, is to allow us to see ourselves, though in a way that’s bearable.  Through empathy, understanding a character who is not me, understanding why Sasquatch is afraid of us, or why a sheriff hides a murder from her fellow citizens, or how a preacher mourns the death of his soldier son, I face myself, I know myself clearer, deeper.  It also make me live the adage that one must not judge another until they’ve walked a mile in their shoes–a story, in essence, is a narrative allowing someone to walk a mile of someone else’s shoes.  Therefore, I pose if that if everyone wrote stories we’d be a nation of deep thinking people, who knew themselves well, and were willing to understanding someone who was not them while withholding judgement.  If this happened, we’d clearly be a better nation and Sasquatch might not be so afraid of us and maybe, just maybe, would finally show himself (the later is just a theory).

The Overview Effect

by JP Chastain

Living everyday on this planet, we lack the perspective of where we are in the universe. Using astronomy, interviews from astronauts, and MRI scans from Apollo crew members we examine and recreate the sense of Carl Sagan’s famed parable, “the pale blue dot”.

What Your Brain, Puppies & World Peace Have in Common

by Michelle Crosby Michaud

Neuroscience all boils down to this:  Feelings are stronger than thoughts.  Fight, Flight, Food and Fornication are the most basic of human and canine drives and they all begin in the center of your brain.  In this talk we will explore the insights of neuroscience and how it can help us train our puppy brains so that we can become super human in resolving conflict, changing bad habits and creating world peace.

Evolution, Philosophy and the New York Giants

by Lane Packwood

Some people believe in evolution, some people don’t.  But if you do allow yourself to accept that we evolved, it changes everything about a great number of ideas that our species simply takes for granted.  And not in creepy, nihilistic, social darwinist ways either!  An evolutionary perspective might go a long way in helping us all live peacefully together on this planet.

Bowling Alone

by Eric Leaman

I want to talk about the case of decreasing social activity since the mid-20th century and how it has very little to do with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It’s something much more ubiquitous, the television. In five minutes, I will touch on the importance of civic and social activities, and when coupled with today’s social networking platforms, gives  our world a tremendous advantage in determining our life’s trajectory.

Who’s your Neighbor?

by Jake Lee

Boise is a city with growing diversity, BUT it’s lacking integration. I work with the Somali, Nepali, Karen, Iraqi and other refugee communities, but I’m missing a whole lot of white people.

High Fructose Click Bait, Fox News, and that preachy loudmouth on Facebook: Healthy Information Consumption

by Levi Dayley

Information, like food, is vital to our survival as a civilization. Our nation was founded with the expectation that its citizenry be informed, and mind-boggling advances in information technology allow everybody who wants it to have access to educational material and news. However, like our diets, we are plagued the over-abundance of unhealthily processed information that merely seeks to affirm us in exchange for eyeballs to sell to an advertiser. It has never been more difficult (or more critical!) to be a conscious consumer of information and be aware of how our media consumption habits impact our well-being and the health of our society.

What’s in a chair?

by Kirsten Grove

Interior Design can be viewed as stuffy and or predictable.  Middle America has defined design as doilies and lazy boys.  There is a world of design waiting to be tapped into.  I would love to share my perspective on Interior Design, in a modern and fresh way.

Ah Crap, Not this Again

by Julie Hart

The roots and origins of female on female cattiness, why it’t pervasive and how it impacts social situations.

Accepting the Big Ass: How to Be Fat, Fit and Flabulous

by Amy Pence-Brown

For the past 40 years, the American civil rights movement has pushed the envelope of acceptance on humans of all types, except fat ones. The Fat Acceptance and Health At Every Size movements haven’t been able to gain much momentum due to the prevelance of fat shaming and the diet culture in our country. I say, no more! It is possible to be fit, fat and flabulous – I’m living proof. Here’s to loving our bodies as they are today and accepting ourselves and others, no matter what size we may be.