Geodog

Geek Conferences: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Is the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference elitist? This question seems to be stirring up the blogosphere, and causing lots of good people who I read and like to throw verbal bricks at each other. I thought that as someone who is clearly not a member of the blogging elite, I might have a useful perspective to offer.

Is the conference elitist? Of course it is - and no, it isn't. Both are true. It is elitist in the sense that it requires interest, knowing that the conference is going to happen, and being able to come up with the large amounts of time and money to attend. This rules out a very large proportion of the world. However, if someone is motivated and willing to rough it, it is possible to attend the conference for a lot less money than the standard cost of the conference and swanky hotel. In my case I found cheap late night flights on Southwest, stayed in a very cheap hostel (though not as cheap as the hacker loft crash pad), and got a free pass to the conference by writing and asking Tim O'Reilly nicely for one -- I saw other free passes being given away via the Wiki. So the money doesn't have to be the huge barrier it seems like at first, but attending does require a bit of luck and or chutzpah, geographical proximity, and being willing to stay in considerably less than stellar accommodations.

The conference can also feel elitist because so many of the people who attend know each other. Many of them have long-standing professional, technical and personal ties (and ongoing feuds). If, like me, you are somewhat reticent by nature, you don't have ties to lots of people at the conference, and you don't have any particular product or idea to promote, it can be easy to feel intimidated or like an outsider surrounded by insiders. For instance, one day of the conference I ran into Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls, Micah Sifry and Scott Rosenberg at a cafe next door to the conference. I read 3 out of 4 of them regularly, I respect their work a lot, and I would have enjoyed sitting at their lunch table and listening to them talk. Did they invite me to join them for lunch? Of course not, no more than I would invite a random stranger I saw on the streets of Berkeley to join me and three of my professional friends for lunch in Berkeley.

All that said, the conference wasn't elitist in the sense that everybody there, speakers, technologists, venture capitalists, journalists, young hackers and digerati, were approachable, even if you weren't a member of any elite. For example, I ended up being thrown together with 3 of the 4 above mentioned journalists at various meals and receptions and chatted with each of them, and attended two panels where some of them spoke. I met lots of people who I had never heard of before, and I ran into lots of people whose writing I had seen online and got to compare cyberspace and meatspace personas, bought a beer for the man who had helped me escape Radio, and got a chance to witness for myself the Rabelaisian appetites (and generosity) of Marc Cantor. The general approachability of the participants was best summarized in a comment by Helen Greiner, the overly criticized keynote speaker from iRobots, that I ran across today on Tom Coates' weblog, Plastic Bag:

Military - In case it wasn't clear, our robots deployed today are completely teleoperated - meaning every action is controlled by a soldier with a joystick. Very thoughtful comments and questions about the future. I stayed an extra day at Oreilly because I heard (and read) concerns. Yet hardly anyone came over to talk to me about it.

I suspect that some of the concerns about elitism are rooted in people's own insecurities -- I know that some of mine are. As Allen Karl pointed out, many people at ETech chose to interact online even when surrounded by other conference attendees in a social setting. Why? Shyness, I'd bet. I know that it is easier to be Geodog on IRC than to introduce myself in person as Tim Bishop to a stranger.

Lost in the hubbub and debate about elitist is the most important fact about the conference, at least for me. I learned more about new technologies, and had more thoughts stimulated from 4 days in the conference than I do in months of reading. I greatly enjoyed ETech 04, and plan on attending ETech 05 if at all possible.