Like so many of the people who attend it, Greenville’s Grok conference is not easy to categorize.
Yes, there are speakers addressing interesting topics and attendees have ample opportunity to network, but the event is aimed at something more fundamental, according to organizers Chris Merritt and Matt Cook.
Inspiration and connection
To get an idea of what Grok is all about, it’s important to understand the ground from which it sprang.
Cook and Merritt are also the brains behind Atlas Local, the co-working space in Brandon Mill in the Village of West Greenville. “AtLo” has become a magnet for tech-savvy creatives and motivated professionals who largely work remotely for companies not located in Greenville.
Cook said AtLo’s members consist of a core of technology and design professionals who may work in very different fields but share a willingness to try new things and explore new ideas.
What the co-working space brings to members other than physical proximity — itself no small thing — are intentional, curated opportunities to share ideas and enthusiasms.
The result is a tight-knit community of people doing interesting things in disparate fields. Seeing that alchemy play out daily within AtLo prompted Cook and Merritt to launch Grok in hopes of recreating the experience for a much wider group of people.
“The conference as a whole is going to draw on the same kind of human we want at our coworking space,” Cook said.
Started in 2011, Grok and Atlas Local pioneered building communities of collaboration before such concepts became buzzwords in the tech world, Cook said.
Grok Conference Expectations
In putting together each conference, Merritt said they look for speakers who have deep expertise in their respective fields, but more importantly, can communicate their passion and vision for what they’re doing.
“I’m looking for speakers that different types of our attendees can look at them and say,’ Oh, that’s me,’” Cook said.
The speakers at this past October’s conference — the first since the pandemic — came from engineering, design and AI backgrounds.
The other defining aspect of Grok is a significant amount of time is devoted to discussions driven by attendees. These sessions, called 10/20s, can be on any topic and are bound only by strict 10- or 20-minute time limits.
The speakers and the 10/20s are all designed to encourage attendees to connect to the people and ideas that inspire them, Cook and Merritt said.
All of this makes Grok a tricky sell to potential sponsors and employers.
“[As a CEO] you have to believe deep down in your soul that your employees need to be this kind of person in order to pay for them to come to this,” Cook said. “We’re not just saying buzzwords to sell tickets.”
Even though AtLo and Grok may be hard to categorize or describe to CEOs, both attract the critical component of any successful enterprise, especially startups: talented and motivated people.
“You can’t have startups without having the fuel that makes them grow,” Cook said.
With overwhelming positive responses, Cook and Merritt said they plan to make Grok an annual event and are planning for the 2024 conference this fall.
What’s in a word?
Grok means to intuitively and thoroughly understand something. It is a word
coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his book, “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
Source: Interview with Chris Merritt in a video with Carolina Code Cast host Barry Jones.
