The Other Reason Why I Won't Be Going Back to Gnomedex
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
**Edit: It was suggesed to me that the original title of this post was misleading, and after reading it again I can see that point of view, so I have changed it. If you receive this again in your news reader I apologize - its the same post.
Dave Winer posted the second half of his review of Gnomedex 2007 today and I agree with a lot of what he's said over all. Gnomedex is somewhat unique in the sense that we're all paying to be there. Steel and the presentation on Open Money were disasters. Many of the presentations seemed "off topic" and inefficient use of time left many questions unasked.
Where I disagree (and the other 1/2 of why I'm not going back next year) has to do with Winer's take on Calacanis' presentation:
BTW, people who weren't there think Calacanis was the star of GD2007, because in the post-show flamage, he hogged the attention. In reality, he gave a lackluster talk, an obvious ad. Most people zoned out after an attempt to discuss it with him. Only now are we able to begin to have a discussion about the conference itself. His MO is obvious, he picks Internet fights to draw attention to himself.Jason's presentation was on the schedule and presumably reviewed by someone at Gnomedex. If you follow Jason then I don't see how you could think it wouldn't be about Mahalo. I would expect those who didn't want to hear the information to do what I did when Steele went off the deep end, or the open source power guy started talking about zero-point energy modules (or when Bad Sinatra took the stage): take a break and get a cup of coffee or something.
I feel that it was Dave, not Jason, that tried to hog the attention. This was an fight that Dave picked. Jason wasn't 1/3 of the way through his deck when Winer began to heckle him from the crowd.
Was his talk lackluster? Yes. I however write that off to being attacked on stage (which Winer failed to unleash on Steele or any other presenter).
I zoned out during the "discussion" because I didn't feel that questions like "so what are you going to do when you run out of investment money to waist" were unproductive and purposely antagonistic.
I had paid to be there. I wanted to hear what Jason had to say. I didn't appreciate Dave Winer ruining that for me just because he didn't like what he was seeing - and I say "seeing" because Winer's first heckle was about the fact that there was a Mahalo logo on the screen; Jason hadn't even begun his pitch ;)
Labels: dave winer, gnomedex7, jason calacanis
posted by Russell @ 3:55 PM,
3 Comments:
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At 7:08 PM,
said...
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Sorry, I must have been unclear, I was talking about Jason sucking all the air out of the post-conference discourse, not the impact of his presentation at the show, which was nothing special. Also I wasn't the only person talking there, I've spent so much time reiterating this over and over (a thousand times more time that the event itself) so his placing the blame on me was a rhetorical thing, not factual (being polite).
Anyway you've done a lot of inference here, and the headline of your post which claims to be quoting me is just plain wrong.
You're kind of doing the same thing Jason did, seems to me. Deliberately over-stating the case to attract attention?
Please leave me out of your flow-building campaigns. -
At 8:45 PM,
Russell said...
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Perhaps it was a little unclear, but I'm certain that it was your voice I heard first yell out to the stage when JC was on. There were others, but it seemed to me that they took your lead.
There were few presentations listed that I truly wanted to see, and his was a factor in my decision to attend this year. The fact that other attendees would disregard everyone else with their actions is why I've decided not to go back. Will I be missed? Certainly not.
But the point here was not to cause interference, and I see your point about the headline and have changed that.
The fact that you feel this post is all about "flow-building" and attracting attention by writing about your actions (rather than how those actions effected me and others in the audience, which is what its about) kinda proves my point.
I choose to no longer hang out in the ego-chamber. I want to be more productive than that.
Again, will I be missed? Certainly not. But thank you for the feedback. -
At 9:08 PM,
said...
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I did speak, but I was hardly the only one, and definitely not the first. But it was over and done with in less than a minute, and the presentation continued without a hitch. Why such a big deal is made of this is just plain obvious, and that was the point of today's post.
Anyway, thanks for clearing up the title.
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