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Screw the seminars - there are three to five parties a night, with free food and alcohol and more music than you can shake an iPod at.
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Report 1
- this would have images to go with it if Windows 2000 didn't suck so badly...have video, but no way to capture until I get home
- delighted to see in the Attendee Directory, the name above mine is Steve Wozniak. Haven't run into him yet.
- also delighted to see all the eager young geeks and unlike the past, the population is about evenly divided male/female
- black is still the apparel color of choice
- someone has been branding our women! There is a "tattoo on the small of the back" phenomenon and I must get to the bottom of it, so to speak
- keynote address by Malcolm ("Tipping Point," "Blink") Gladwell was interesting, but his theory of putting criminal defendants behind a screen and only letting them answer questions via email (in hopes of more fairness) is full of holes. He obviously doesn't have children, and writes off body language, apparently, as inconsequential, but his points made points with the ultra-liberal audience. He did have some great anecdotes about how people make better decisions if you TAKE AWAY information
- attended an interesting talk entitled "How to Obtain Startup Funding: The Care and Feeding of Angel Investors" and heard from a lady who is about to sell her operation (Flickr - online photo sharing) to Yahoo. She said rapid prototyping and iterative development was more important than a business plan, which was echoed by one of the VCs on the panel who said that at best a business plan is a guess. They also said the benefit of the current environment is less noise, less competition for the money.
- surprisingly, Daniel Pink ("Free Agent Nation," "A Whole New Mind") recognized me from 1997 when I interviewed him at the Digital Storytelling Festival and gave me a copy of his new book. He talked about how the jobs of the future in the developed world will be more right brained since left brained stuff will be outsourced to Asia/India. This went over well with the overwhelmingly creative-type audience.
- the panel, "Humor on the Web" wasn't funny at all except the guy who ate a bar of soap.
- I'm about to watch a woman named Cox talk dirty ( www.wonkette.com ) Now HER writing is funny
- there are parties every night that last too long and I'm videotaping parts of them so I'll remember what the hell went on...I'm too old for this coming home at 3am crap. Delighted to discover my white silk suit glows brightly under black light - I look like a 6' 2" walking florescent light.
- Apple laptops are everywhere. I feel unwelcome and out of place when I boot my Windoze machine. (Hope I don't sit next to Steve Wozniak)
- if I hear the word "blog" one more time I will become violent
- a company from my home town of Louisville, KY is doing iPod broadcasting of some sort (www.podcast.net) but damned if I could figure out their business model. I'll talk to the president later on, but the sense I got from his partner is that they're setting it up for acquisition
- got a free lunch by sitting through a broadband presentation by a local provider, Grande. After it was over the CEO was glad-handing the place and I asked him, "What does MAN stand for." He said he didn't know but would find out. "It was in your presentation..." I pointed out. He dispatched an assistant. The assistant came back with the answer, (Multi-Area Network) and the CEO seemed content. And then I said, "Okay, what's FOB stand for then?" He didn't know. They couldn't figure that one out yesterday, but we did today. (The presentation had ten slides in it, and two elements in the bullet points the CEO didn't know about. Good lord. At least the lunch was free.)
- going to a private party for Austin's T3 tonight. The pretty girls in the booth told me to wear my white suit (to stand out). I hope there are black lights there
Report 2
Final Conference Report
- Sat through a panel on Flash video and asked the Macromedia guy why the player plug-in wasn't bundled with Firefox. "Good question," he said, "We missed the boat on that one."
- After the third attempt to get my eggs benedict poached hard, the manager simply gave me the breakfast with her apologies, and said it would be the subject of her "talk" the following week. Glad I could help.
- I ran into author Malcom Gladwell ("Blink") last night at a closed party sponsored by the Austin Chronicle that Trevor got me into ( www.trevordodd.com ). I challenged his premise about the criminal defendants being hidden from jurors and his answer was incredibly weak. I'll talk more about it at KT's.
- Spoke with the president of podcast.net. He seems to be groping for ways to make money. "Tell me you aren't going to insert advertising," I pleaded. "Well, we've been talking about that." I described how this approach helped to killed MusicNet with our young users. When I said I would try his service out with some of my own content he warned me it was difficult to use. (This from the president!) "I'm just guessing," I offered, "that in Louisville there aren't a lot of usability folks hanging around...and I guess you saved money--but you'll lose customers if the experience sucks." He added, "And you only lose 'em once." I promised him a report of whatever experience I had with it...the least a hometown boy can do.
- Tonight is a networking party marathon and I'll probably end up having Trevor the Flash Guru crash in my room... (I learned from his panel discussion that the video I shot of Anna Nicole Smith appeared on David Letterman.)
- I watched a blind woman surfing the Web using a touch panel ( http://www.go9media.com/access.htm ). She exclaimed, "Cool!" when the page loaded and did something to her fingertips. It kind of broke my heart 'n' stuff.
- Attended a recruitment party for Austin's T3 agency last night ( www.t-3.com ) because there was free food. The video they ran showing how cool it is to work there (bring your dog) was so badly done that I promised the HR director I'd send her the CaringFamily thing to show her what can be accomplished in four days. Geez...and they have 140 employees and some decent clients and they're trying to attract talent with a piece of crap.
- Just found out that Boulder's Mighty Fudge Studios is here for the film festival part - my friend Pat. ( www.mightyfudge.com ) It might be a long night.
- Had I known I was standing in front of Sandra Bullock's 5th St. loft (for when she parties too late) I might have set up camp
- standing at a light, waiting to cross the street, noticed a biker-type guy on the other side walking toward the hotel...he was big, bald, had a handlebar moustache and a leather jacket on....and a flowing dress with cowboy boots. "That's something you don't see everyday," I said to the guy next to me. "You do in Austin," he answerred.
dw
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Posted by: donwrege on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 01:25 PM
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