Comments on 2nd Annual O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

jan j. — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

well done. what a beautiful report.

Neil — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

Its interesting to hear you guys speak of the distracted audience at ETCon 2003. It reminds me of the reasons the concert overture was invented.

Attendees at a classical concert two hundred years ago would often talk at regular volume throughout an entire performance (unheard of today), and the composers/performers naturally became a bit fed up with this. The overture (introduction) to a symphony/opera/concerto etc was written as an attention-grabber to make people pipe down and pay attention.

I wonder if the next generation of keynote speakers will come up with anything similar ?

Of course, attendees could just have the good grace to simply learn some manners…

Bob Baxley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

Glad you both enjoyed the review. Couldn’t agree more with Seth’s point. I definitely bore witness to the effects of pervasive wireless access and I have to admit to a bit of uneasiness about it.

It often seemed like the speakers were having to compete for the audience’s attention on a second by second basis. The moment their cadence slowed, the laptops lit up as the attendees shifted to the Web, chat sessions, or email. In general there was so much typing going on it sounded like rain—lots of rain.

With all that said however, it was definitely something to experience and, as you note in your entry at CheeseBikini, an experience that is destined to become commonplace.

sean@cheesebikini.com — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:23 GMT

RE: ”...technology has reached a point where users—actual real people—are the defining element of the human/computer relationship.”

Right on! That’s what I loved about this conference too. Finally the technologists who are actually building things, are really considering uses and effects of their creations beyond their circle of geek friends.

But another point you didn’t touch on: ETCon 2003 provided a great opportunity to observe the effects of pervasive wireless computing on the behavior of conference attendees:

http://www.cheesebikini.com/blog/archives/000245.html