What a trip my first Gnomedex was — I think I’m hooked. It’s Chris’s happening, baby, and it freaks him out! (Think he can be convinced to dress up full-Austin next time? I did notice a bit of a shiny-jacket trend in the crowd.)
Lots of people have done roundups, so I’m mostly going to be lazy and point to Beth Kanter‘s, which gives a great sense of the breadth, the depth, the value, and the occasional silliness of this event. I was very glad to meet Beth and to see her demonstrate, right in front of our eyes, the principles she was teaching. Really, the two-plus days were a virtual parade of interesting people, compelling stories, and cool tech.
Speaking of virtual… Gnomedex’s sheer level of online+meatspace social connectedness was something new for me. The 8.0 community feeling started early, with the @gnomedex Twitter feed. It continued with the conference badges that came with a social network. It got really strong while several hundred people watched the conference from home on the video feed (archive) and hung out on Twitter or in Chris’s chat room. (I daresay this feeling wouldn’t have been possible without the single-track setup.) And it continues even now. I mean, I tweet, and I speak at conferences, but I’ve never before sat down after giving a talk to find that dozens of people — some in the same room and others a world away — have just started following me. Delighted to meet you all! (Admittedly, I also exchanged business cards with some folks during coffee breaks, the old-fashioned way.)
I’ll post some thoughts later about my talk on online data-sharing relationships. But, staying “meta” for now, I’ll just send you to one more roundup, Micah Baldwin’s 3 Rules of Gnomedex 8.0, which I think nicely captures what made it special. Quoting will just spoil it, so just go ye and read…
Thanks for the ping and enjoyed meeting you and chatting with you at the dinner.
I loved the analogy of one-night stand in your presentation. I’ve used that analogy in terms of engagement and interaction design for FB
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/01/is-fb-causes-in.html
Eve – Meeting you, listening to your discussion about VRM and sharing lunch with you and your husband served as major highlights of Gnomedex this year. You also added so much to the Gnomedex magic bus. Thanks for joining us on the ride. :-)
I will be looking far more deeply into VRM. Thanks for giving it form and hope that there are better ways for people and commerce to interact.
Hi folks– Thanks for the comments and the opportunity to meet you both, and I look forward to continued interesting conversations in future!
Beth, your post about one-night stands is great. I’d been thinking of shortening the “back end” of the relationship most of all (I’ve got a post brewing about the VRM implications of this), and your post additionally discusses the “front-end” implications. There are interesting trust questions here. When you look at atom-based methods of person-to-person trust-building, it’s a much more gradual process than the abrupt “Click the ‘I Agree’ Button” process for accepting site terms of use — it’s sort of like the crudest bar pick-up line imaginable, but you end up saying yes anyway…
Thanks