Tag Archives: Gnomedex

Gnomedex 2006

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Vacation SuitcaseFive days. 120 hours. And then I’m on vacation. Sort of. On Wednesday Roger Gardner and I head for Seattle and three days (for me…RG will probably get geek toxic after a day or so) of Gnomedex. I’ll get back just in time for the long 4th of July weekend. I’ll rest up a few days after that and then it’s off to Destin with the lovely Barb where we gather with her clan for a week. While I won’t be completely off the grid, I will be away from the office and I’m really looking forward to it.

Hope to see my pal Jim Mathies, who lives in Destin. Search for some open wi-fi. And try to get better acquainted with the Mac Book. I feel like the guy that’s due to be released from prison in three or four days and is afraid to leave his cell for fear of getting shanked so close to freedom.

The Unconference

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How many conferences have you been to where one (or all) of the sessions went something like this:

The moderator gets up and welcomes everyone to the session…provides a brief overview of the session topic…and introduces the panelists. Each of the panelists gets up and does a little presentation which may or may not have anything to do with the stated subject of the session. And, as a bonus, these are often self-serving pitches for the panelists’ company, product or service. Each of the panelists runs over their alloted time so the last guy gets screwed. If there is any time left, the panel fields questions from the audience. Most of these are usually off-topic and self-serving as well.

In recent years, something called an “unconference” has gained some popularity. Dave Winer is a big proponent of this format and they’re employing it at Gnomedex later this month. Dave does a nice job of explaining the concept:

We don’t have speakers, panels or an audience. We do have discussions and sessions, and each session has a discussion leader. Think of the discussion leader as a reporter who is creating a story with quotes from the people in the room. So, instead of having a panel with an audience we just have people. We feel this more accurately reflects what’s going on. It’s not uncommon for the audience at a conference to have more expertise than the people who are speaking. The discussion leader is also the editor, so if he or she feels that a point has been made they must move on to the next point quickly. No droning, no filibusters, no repeating an idea over and over.

Gnomedex 6.0 will be my first “unconference” and I’m looking forward to it.

Keeping customer data secure

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Some dumb-ass working for the government takes a laptop full of veterans’ records home and it gets stolen. Naw, that doesn’t surprise me. Big accounting firm like Ernst & Young pulls a similar stunt and loses 230,000 records belonging to one of their big clients. Okay, that’s a little hard to imagine… but it happened. Could it happen at a company like Amazon? Not if we can belive Werner Vogels, the company’s chief technology officer:

“…to get to Amazon customer credit cards you will need a small army of Marines. Although recently we have been discussing (how) to place physical and electronic booby-traps such that the servers will self-destruct when compromised, to deal with such full physically attack …”

Now that’s what I call contingency planning. I always to try buy from/through Amazon. Mr. Vogels is one of the discussion leaders at Gnomedex.

Gnomedex 6.0

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I am tingly with anticipation of Gnomedex 6.0, a three-day geek-fest in Seattle at the end of June. I’m just a geek wannabe but my money’s good so they let me in. I won’t even try to describe Gnomedex except to say everyone will be talking about all of the things I find interesting/important. The format of this year’s event is a little different but the line-up of “discussion leaders” is A-List all the way. And this year’s trip will be even a little more fun with Learfield COO Roger Gardner along for the ride. I believe they stream the entire conference live and I’ll try to find/post a link as we get closer.

Couch Change: 02.19.06

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Single-digit revenue gains for commercial radio (US) forecast for 2006 (iloveradio.org) … Friday was Rick Sellers’ last day on the the air at KMRY, Cedar Rapids, IA. I knew Rick during his WMT days. Rick owns and manages KMRY … Hadn’t checked on the Frappr map for a few weeks but delighted to see that didgeridoodler Jamie Nelson (Larkspur, CA) has made it coast-to-coast. Looking forward to seeing Jamie (and all the rest) at Gnomedex 6.0 in late June … Jim Mathies is developing a feed reader. I don’t pretend to understand what he’s doing but I can tell you that he’s a clever boy and likely to come up with something wonderful. Stay tuned … Andy Rooney wonders if we should be honoring all presidents. Me too.

Chimps and Geeks

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If you also missed the careerbuilder.com chimp ads in the Super Bowl, you can see them here. I’d pay a hundred bucks to spend the day watching those commercials being made. Nothing on god’s green earth is funnier than a chimp in a coat and tie.

Did I mention I’m all registered, booked and reserved for Gnomedex 6.0? It’s five months away and I can hardly wait. For three days I won’t have to explain or defend blogging and podcasting and RSS and all the rest. I will be be among believers. Not just believers, but those who are creating and applying these revolutionary technologies. I have no idea who the speakers will be or what they’ll be talking about. But everyone in the room will have a clue.

Don’t need no stinkin’ press release

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I only go to one technology conference a year: Gnomedex. It’s small, as such events go. Just 300 attendees and sort of a tough ticket. I’ve been going since Chris Pirillo started holding them in Des Moines back in the late 90’s. I’ve gushed about it here so I won’t bore you with why I love this conference. This year Chris is doing something unheard of: No press release.

This year’s conference has sold one-third of its available seats since opening registration a mere week ago. Despite having not yet unveiled speakers or sponsors, the conference is well on its way to being sold out for the second year in a row.

If you’re planning on attending, let me know.

Gnomedex 5 wrap-up

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We’re standing here on the upper deck, sailing away from Gnomedex 5.0, and tossing our lei into the digital ocean. If it floats back to Gnomedex, we will one day return. I’ve been attending assorted conferences (most of them broadcasting related) for 30 years and I have *never* been to one that I found more interesting…more relevant…more important. That might just be the geek wannabe in me but I don’t think so. A new Web is bubbling out of the magma and it’s molten mix of syndication/subscription and podcasting and personal media. And I believe it is becoming a digital tsunami. And the first waves have already started to come ashore here on Radio Island. And I think the waves will get bigger.

I wish I could tell you everything I heard or saw at Gnomedex and why I think it’s so important. But it’s like… like “trying to tell stranger about rock and roll.” If you’re really interested, all or most of the sessions will be online (audio for sure, maybe video). I urge you to listen. I’ll post links and assorted “after-thoughts” as they become available.

Gnomedex: Day One.

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You’ve heard the old joke about the guy that robs a bus full of Japanese tourists but the police catch the guy within 10 minutes because they had more than 500 photos of the thief. That was the first day of Gnomedex 5.0. Almost 400 people in attendance. All online, blogging every word.

But not smays. My Thinkpad wireless refused to work which might have been a good thing since I could pay attention and not worry about blogging the event. Pretty big announcement by Microsoft on how they’re integrating RSS in IE 7 and Longhorn. Looked pretty cool to me.