Month: August 2007

The Good the bad and the weird of Gnomedex

The Good:

  1. The Derek Miller interview – well done and very touching
  2. Guy Kawasaki – he was the real keynote of the show
  3. The Ignite Speakers – provided a much needed spark to day 2.

The Bad:

  1. The internet – the first day was really bad but did improve
  2. The hecklers – most attendees come to listen to the speaker, not people yelling at the speakers.
  3. To pitch or not to pitch? – After Calacanis got blasted by Winer, several speakers didn’t know if it was ok to talk about their product or not and this left everyone uncomfortable.

The Weird

  1. One of the speakers telling us about his favorite “open source spam product”.
  2. Another panelist asking the audience if everyone has heard of Newsvine and WordPress. That answer would be yes, we have. Many times.
  3. Scoble not getting fired – At the very end of arguably the best session of the event where Chris interviewed Derek Miller and the audience gave him a very touching standing ovation, Scoble was standing near the stage. When people sat down, he yelled out to Chris on stage that he wasn’t fired as was being reported in Valleywag. The timing was so bad that people were talking about it in the chat room hours later. In Roberts defense, he spent most of the event out in the hall so maybe he came in late and didn’t understand the circumstances of his remark.

All things considered, Chris and gang pulled off a fantastic event.

My top 10 suggestions for improving Gnomedex

Admittedly, this was the first Gnomedex I’ve attended. I’m told it was very different from past years. Overall the event was a lot of fun and several of the speakers were fantastic. But, like anything, it can be improved. Here are my suggestions for improving Gnomedex 2008 which I hope is held again in Seattle.

  1. Reduce the number of breaks – Three a day is too many in addition to the lunch break. The nature of Gnomedex is casual enough that when I needed to use the restroom or grab a drink I could leave my seat and return within a couple of minutes. I usually went out during the Q&A sessions. Each break means more noise and distractions get invited to the session. I’d line up talks to lunch and maybe throw in one break in the later afternoon.
  2. Wire the room – The wireless internet ranged from unusable to OK by the 2nd day. As good as the food was, I’d rather have a few less choices in the buffet line but a fast, stable connection.
  3. Stop the Hecklers – The speakers have carved out time in their schedule to speak to us. Many have traveled to Seattle and hopefully spent some time preparing a suitable speech. The very least they should have our attention and respect. As much as I agree with Dave Winer calling out Calacanis, he should have held off until the Q&A. People yelling, “RIGGED” and “PUT THE SHOE ON THE HEAD” stopped being funny about 5 seconds into the joke.
  4. What’s the point? – I still have no idea what the “open money” or “energy” guy were trying to get across. A clear opening statement from every speaker would help such as, “Here is what I’d like to get across to you….”
  5. More from Chris and Ponzi – I know Chris and Ponzi run the show but I was looking forward to hearing from them both and was disappointed when that didn’t happen. I follow Chris because I find his views on technology interesting and I’m certain I’m not the only one. I would have traded half the sessions just to hear Chris and Ponzi talk about whatever they wanted. When I attend a Microsoft or Apple event I expect to hear from Gates or Jobs. The same thing goes for Chris. He’s the man, he’s the brand.
  6. Simplify the Giveaways – Today was a lot better than yesterday but there’s got to be a better way to hand out the prizes. Collect the business card beforehand, put them in a large bowl and have your dad pull them out one after another. What took 30 minutes the first day should take 5.
  7. Less is More – Cut the session talks down to 20 minutes. Several of the speakers could barely fill 20 minutes yet were scheduled for 45. Watching the Justin.TV guy was painful. For the speakers to deliver a crisper, quicker, more concise speech by putting a limit on the number of slides and cutting back each talk to 20 minutes. Did you notice how much more engaged the attendees were during the 5 minute Ignite talks? Guy Kawasaki and the opening keynote are excluded.
  8. There’s no need to hand out pads of paper and pencils – I didn’t see a single person use either and they just got in the way.
  9. Put up a Twitter screen – Unless your Engadget, live blogging is dead. Attendees tend to Twitter during the talks and wait till later in the evening to blog. I know this is a limitation of Twitter but I would have enjoyed an easy way to track my fellow attendees via Twitter. How about a Gnomedex Twitter widget just for this purpose?
  10. Find the hot, behind the scenes story and call it out – The elephant in the room this year was the Winer vs. Calacanis feud. Everyone was talking about it on the Gnomedex IRC channel as well as on Twitter and the blogs. It overshadowed most sessions today, but it would have been fun for Chris to bring them both on stage and referee a debate. I’m sure both of those guys would have been up for it.

This years Gnomedex was though-provoking and very enjoyable. Chris and Ponzi pulled off a great event.

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Derek Miller steals the show at Gnomedex 2007

Paris and Nicole have had a number of  public spats. Clemens tossed a broken bat at Piazza and a feud began. Even Gates and McNealy took jabs at each other for many years.

And now Gnomedex has a feud to call their own: Winer vs. Calacanis. I expected the two friends to patch things up over a beer last night, but that was expecting too much. Instead Calacanis fired at Winer this morning. Winer fired back and this fight continued to get nasty into the afternoon.

I find the whole spat kind of funny yet pathetic. It’s a good thing that Chris Pirillo pulled off a touching hour with Derek Miller this afternoon or the Winer/Calacanis fight would have overwhelmed Gnomedex which is not how it’s supposed to work out.

I knew nothing of Derek until today. Because he recently underwent major cancer surgery the interview was done via video conferencing. It’s hard to explain why it worked but it did. Chris and others were graceful while asking questions. Derek seems like an amazing human being. He was funny, smart and self-effacing. He seems like a genuinely nice person. He mentioned how someone came to visit him in the hospital after the surgery and asked, “Aside from this (cancer) how are things going?” Derek replied, “There is no aside from this right now“.

At the end of the interview, every attendee gave Derek a standing ovation while Chris positioned the camera so he could see everyone. It was clear he was touched by the gesture and so were most attendees. Guy Kawasaki was the star on day one. Derek Miller was the star on day two. Huge props to Chris and Ponzi for making this happen. You created an experience those in attendance will not forget.

Something tells me that Derek would be embarrassed to hear this, but he stole the show today.

Here is a picture of Derek as it looked on the big screen today.

Gnomedex 2007 first day

I just returned from my first day at Gnomedex. This is the first time I’ve attended this event and it was a lot of fun. My favorite speaker of the day at Guy Kawasaki (picture below) who spoke about evangelism. He was so good that he should have been the keynote speaker. He was by far the most polished speaker yet also had the most interesting content. I loved his story of how he turned down the chance to interview for the Yahoo CEO position because it would have meant a 2 hours commute. He put his family first which was cool even though it may have cost him an estimated $2 billion had he landed the job.

guyThe theme I will remember most about his talk is that when growing your business it’s best to talk to your most loyal customers and ask them what you can do better instead of spending time asking those who don’t buy your product or service.  “It’s very hard to convert an atheist”

The most confusing talk of the day was given by Jason Calacanis. It’s not so much that his talk wasn’t interesting because it was. It’s that I was looking forward to his talk more than any others, and he showed up with what amounted to a 45 minute infomercial for his new company called Mahalo. I reviewed Mahalo a few weeks ago and believe he could be on to something. But it’s old news and I wish Jason would have talked about another topic because he’s such an interesting character and is so smart. Maybe my expectations were too high? 

When Jason asked the audience a question about spam Dave Winer yelled out, “What do you think about conference spam?”. No doubt many others in attendance were thinking the same thing. Jason seemed a bit dejected after this happened and didn’t have as much energy. Jason brought up many valid points about spam and the need for better search results. But I was disappointed that each point he made felt like a tailor-made opportunity to mention Mahalo. I think Winer was right to call him out.

chrisI came to Gnomedex expecting to to experience a much different conference than what I’m accustomed to. Most conferences I’ve attended have been as a Microsoft employee or vendor and most had thousands of attendees. They are big and impersonal. But I found out today that Gnomedex has many of the same problems you’ll find at larger conferences such as technical issues, starting on time and keeping people on topic. And there’s got to be a better way of drawing for prizes.

But overall, Chris and Ponzi did a great job of selecting speakers who are thought-provoking and interesting. And sometimes controversial.

Random things I noticed:

  • Lots of action at the back of the room
  • Men outnumbered women 40 to 1
  • Lots of Apple laptops and iPhones
  • The attendees are older than I expected
  • Google was hardly mentioned. Microsoft even less.
  • Chris facilitates rather than leads the discussion

Overall, the first day was well worth the price of admission. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

–Link to Gnomedex pictures on Flickr

Guy Kawasaki picture taken by KK
Chris Pirillo picture taken by Mr Noded

Refusing to Cooperate

It’s impossible to take a good picture of my two youngest kids. They pull faces, stick their tongues and won’t stand still. I think I give up.

DSC_0705

Lincoln and Anna Lynn. Both showing off goofy faces and new haircuts.

Apple does it again with new keyboards

I wish the new Apple keyboards would work on a PC. I thought there was a chance they would but the requirements are as follows:

  • Mac computer with available USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port
  • Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later
  • Keyboard software update

These make my Microsoft keyboard look like junk, but I wonder how comfortable they are in use.

Just gorgeous design though yet again from Apple. applekeyboard

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Ignite Seattle

Here’s my mini review of Ignite Seattle that I attended tonight. I was so tired I only stayed for the first half of talks. I’ll have to catch the 2nd half when the videos are posted online.

Scotto Moore – “Make art not content” Scott was fantastic. His slides didn’t overwhelm and his preparation impeccable. But it was his delivery that really set him apart from the others. He moved through his slides at a very fast pace but every one was interesting. There was no filler. Probably the best of the night that I saw.

Deepak Singh – “Small medicine: Nanotechnology and biology” Maybe it’s because I was sitting near the back of the room, but I had a tough time understanding Scott. Others seemed to enjoy his talk a lot. He started right into his topic and I knew nothing about nanotechnology so I was lost right from the start. I’d like to see this one again.

Maegan Ashworth – “No, not skin: Epidemiology for the layman” I really enjoyed Maegan’s talk. The slides got a way from her a bit but her content was fascinating. I’d like to see her do this again and I hope that she’s chosen to present at Gnomedex. I won’t soon forget her slide showing the glass of alcohol and the damaged lung. The crowd loved her. Very fascinating talk.

Rob Gruhl – “How to buy a new car” I think this might go down as the most popular talk of the night. Rob was so prepared and so concise that his delivery was perfectly suited to the medium. He was funny yet provided very valuable information such as selling your car instead of trading at the dealer, secure your own financing and walking out of the deal the minute they jerk you around. This is the talk I will remember a month from now.

HB Siegel – “Werewolf Strategy” Have you been in the middle of a conversation when someone starts talking about World of Warcraft or other complex game you’ve never played and you have no idea what they are talking about? That’s how I felt listening to this talk. Siegel was well-prepared and had interesting slides. But I could not figure out the rules to this crazy game for the life of me. It sounded me to me that the goal of the game was to get 13 to 17 people around the table and yell at each other.

Dave McClure – “Startup metrics for Pirates: AARRR!” Although his slides were a mess at times Dave is one of the best public speakers I’ve seen. His delivery was fantastic. Much of his content was over my head but his explanations helped me understand what entrepreneurs should focus on. Does Dave do this for a living? He seemed like a pro.  

Shawn Murphy – “Hacking Chocolate” I had no idea what to expect from Shawn. The content seemed out of place when I heard the topic but turned out to be great for this event. He started out slow but really hit his stride after a minute into his talk. You could tell that Shawn really loves chocolate! I loved his list of spices and other foods that go well with chocolate such as cinnamon and exotic fruits. His slides were great and he had a good grasp of his content. Excellent.

–Randy Stewart also covered the evening and has a good number of links

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The 25 best opening lyrics

Spinner has an interesting list with samples of the best 25 opening lyrics. I thought most were quite good, although I thought their choice for #1 had more to do with singer’s personal life than the song. Still, a pretty good list.

Here are a few of my favorites that didn’t make Spinner’s list:

“Well I think it’s fine building jumbo planes”

Cat Steven – Where do the Children Play – Click to listen

“Jane says I’m done with Sergio”

Jane’s Addiction – Jane Says – Click for You Tube clip

“Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying”

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On – Click for You Tube clip

“Summertime and the livin’s easy”

Sublime – Doin’ Time – Click to listen

“I read the news today, oh boy”

The Beatles – A Day in the Life – Click to listen

“Crossroads, seem to come and go, yeah”

Allman Brother Band – Melissa – Click for You Tube clip

“So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell”

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here – Click to listen