Gnotes from Gnomedex Gnine

posted at 3:13 pm
on Aug. 22, 2009

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I’m at Gnomedex in Seattle.  It’s a two-day conference that ... well ... um ... that’s part of the problem. The tagline is “Human Circuitry: a Technology Conference of Inspiration and Influence” but I have a hard time explaining what Gnomedex is all about.

However, I’ve heard great things about it for ages from colleagues who have attended, so I wanted to go and see what the event was about.

And now that I’m here, I’m more unsure than before.

First of all, it’s a very well-run conference.  Things ran well, there was good wifi, food, flow, scheduling, parties, name tags, etc.  (Name tags had twitter names on them but not company names.  I think both would have been useful.)

But the lifeblood of a conference, the sessions, were scattered, and though some of the sessions were really well done, others were simplistic or pedantic or just a bit dull.  And they were almost all a bit too long.

The sessions have covered: tax law affecting online affiliate sales; life extension technologies; 3D printers that extrude plastic; how to interview people well (i.e. for an article); fund-raising for cancer research social-network-ly; activism for homelessness; what skepticism is all about; viral videos turning to 3rd world music charity; show and tell of cool apps and web sites; a guide to nerds and the crafts they do… and more!  (See, I told you there wasn’t really a pattern)

It’s a single track conference, so when there’s a dull stretch, you can head out to the hallway and enjoy discussion and the vendor booths.  There’s enough schwag to keep me in T-shirts for a week, and some of the people I met included the folks behind Ping.fm, folks from Microsoft Surface, folks from Amazon,.... and more if I was in a more extroverted mood—see below.

I saw a lot of gadgets and devices here, but not as much new stuff and diversity as I’d have thought.  It’s *all* iPhones and *mostly* Macs and there isn’t as much in the way of GPS or fancy cameras or video game devices etc. etc. as I’ve seen at other tech fests.

I don’t think I’ve been as good about meeting new people here as I’ve been at other conferences, and that might be because I already know a pretty large number of folks here—posse blindness, I suppose.  Or it could be because there just aren’t as many chances to idly strike up conversations here.  There aren’t long lines, there aren’t shuttles, there are many other things in town to do and the hotels are spread out a bit. I don’t feel particularly extroverted this weekend, but I’m not feeling like I want back into my cave, either.

There are a whole lot of new people this year—more than half, definitely.  And many, many of the people are from Seattle area, not from far away. It’s possible that these local folks might be arriving late, leaving early, or being a little less committed to mixing and mingling. Dunno.

So overall, is Gnomedex worth the money? When you look at the conference cost itself, sure. When you think about the day off work, the travel and hotel, maybe not.  And it could also be that this just isn’t quite the conference for me.

It’s been around for 9 years, and it’s evolved and changed, and it could be I really would have liked Gnomedex 6, or that I’ll like Gnomedex 11.

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