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,
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Wow. Tough Crowd.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Jason Calacanis was the last speaker of the day on Friday. His presentation was billed as a discussion on spam, SEO's, and the pitiful state of both. It quickly turned into a Mahalo pitch and a demo. The thing is, this was no surprise.But the crowd didn't take kindly to it at all. At one point early in the presentation, Winer jumped up yelling "conference spam" and informed Jason that he didn't appreciate the Mahalo pitch as a Gnomedex presentation.
The push back from Dave and others seemed to take Jason a little off guard, but he pressed on and finished the Mahalo demo. Its a good thing no one had any tomatoes - I really think they would have been thrown.
UPDATE: Winer's first comment, Jason's, and then Winer again.
The fact is, the Mahalo presentation wasn't very "Gnomedex" - it was a pitch. Its odd though that those seen as the greatest thought leaders in our industry aren't leaders.
Labels: gnomedex7, jason calacanis, mahalo
posted by Russell @ 7:24 AM,
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Darren Barefoot
Friday, August 10, 2007
Darren's on stage now and this is a really interesting presentation on charity on the web and in virtual worlds. I think I'll stick around... He is equating effort to "Stacies" (what it takes to buy a homeless girl a hot dog back home) and shows how the same effort can result in a tremendous amount of Stacies depending on where its focused.
Labels: gnomedex7
posted by Russell @ 12:49 PM,
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Robert Steele Opens Gnomedex
Wow. So Robert Steele opened Gnomedex today and what an opening. I had no idea Gnomedex was a political meetup and this guy is just plain nuts. I really think I want my money back...Labels: gnomedex7
posted by Russell @ 11:33 AM,
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Safe and Sound in Seattle
Well, my 12:45 flight finally took off at 3:00 yesterday, but it was an uneventful flight and I made it to Seattle for Gnomedex safe and sound. The reception last night was a blast, and I'm really looking forward for things to kick off today. I didn't take my camera to the reception (I forgot) but I did take an interesting shot of some forest fires we flew over yesterday.
Labels: gnomedex7
posted by Russell @ 10:05 AM,
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