NetSquared was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in years. I kept having experiences that were so interesting I wanted to blog about them but the coolness didn’t stop and I was torn between doing cool stuff and blogging about it. (Yes I am a geek!)
There were just as many cool people as at other conferences, but less chaff. One of the most radical transformations for me: I have now joined the world of Second Life. Gotta go have some experiences…
Tim Bishop (aka Geodog) took some great Notes from the Activism session at NetSquared on Tuesday. I think our session “Activism: when emailing your congressperson doesn’t quite feel like enough…” went well, but after attending “Gender and the social web: new tools, same…stuff?” I think it could have been organized much better to have more audience particiption better conversation.
Susan Mernit, who led the gender session, had each speaker give a brief intro to the topic and then threw some focused questions out to the entire room. It was a really interesting and insightful conversation, but it seems Lisa Stone is still measuring the success of BlogHer by it’s acceptance by the male-dominated blogerati!
Here are my notes and conversation (typos and all) from the gender session in the hallway. I have edited out the comments that were simultaneous form other sessions…
This morning’s NetSquared panel is three white guys in suits talking about their corporate Business Model Revolution. They even said “monetize” – the death knell of any panel as far I’m concerned. Finally I’ll get a chance to catch up on my e-mail. (I also want post some notes from yesterday, but some of them have to get extracted from the ‘hallway’ archive.)
Last night at the NetSquared reception I met Tantek Celik, who is the Chief Technologist at Technorati – in other words, a leading global thinker in the field of how blogs can talk to each other and to the world. We had a spirited discussion about gender online and whether there are still “barriers to entry” for women in the blogosphere. Happily we both came to the conclusion that there is sexism IRL which repeats itself online, but that new techologies are making it easier for women and minority groups (of which women are not one, of course) to gain more power, credibility, platforms for speaking out, etc.
Tantek mentioned that he has worked a lot on microformats, which he thinks are gaining popularity without support by the typical “a-list” bloggers. I haven’t followed the spread, although I have been interested in microformats since I learned about them last year. I mentioned to Tantek that I was sporting my microformats t-shirt when I was splashed across a full page in the Independent’s recent article about political blogging. I showed him the picture on the Indy’s website which he enjoyed very much.
Tantek also introduced me to Technorati Principal Engineer Kevin Marks who I promptly bothered about a persistent tagging problem I’ve been having here. Within an hour, Kevin wrote me to say he had fixed it! So the true purpose of this entire blog entry is to see whether my tagged blog entries are showing up correctly over at Technorati. And the answer is…
Some conferences will allow participants to get online by providing a wireless network. Sometimes you can get that wifi to work, sometimes you can get power for your laptop. Another way that NetSquared is different from most conferences is that as we checked in we were given a personalized access key for the secure wifi, which works very well. Every table in the main hall has a powerstrip on it! The message is clear: this event doesn’t just allow us to blog it, they want us to blog it (and flickr it, chat about it, tag about it, etc.)!
They also are hosting a chat room (or “hallway”) for people who are participating in person and/or online. Another great way to follow what’s going on here is to read the blogs of everyone posting on the NetSquared website.
So I’m in San Jose now, and this is my first time in Silicon Valley. I landed at the airport and caught a free shuttle bus to the nearest light rail station where I caught a train that took me within a block of my hotel. I’ve also noticed that a different line could take me to the Cisco campus where the conference will be.
I’m very interested in how Silicon Valley compares with the Research Triangle Park area in NC. Especially in the land use/transit/sprawl department, since so many of our regional neighbors in the Triangle seem so certain than transit will never work there. I’m sure SV is much larger, but it might also be newer – at least as a research/tech region. RTP was founded in the 50’s.
For the flight to San Jose for NetSquared I borowed this book from Brian, who borrowed it from Justin. I think this is the book that The Wisdom of Crowds wanted to be.
For those who are keeping track, I wil be away tomorrow through Thursday at the groundbreaking NetSquared conference in Silicon Valley.
Continue reading “Call me square”
Not Democratic Senators: “A 78-15 Senate vote gives a broad bipartisan endorsement to the architect of National Security Agency’s domestic spying program” (Washington Post: Senate Confirms Hayden As CIA Director).
Just so you know who’s working for you in DC… and who’s not. This would be a good occasion to drop a few bucks in the ACLU‘s direction.
I spent yesterday at a class by information design guru Edward Tufte. The guy is brilliant, I recommend checking out his website if you’re interested in learning about effective quantitiative communication or especially in presentations.
