Geodog

Headed back to Supernova again next week

I had told myself no more geek and/or digerati conferences this year. Too much money spent (and too little coming in) already. Also, I sometimes find being at the conferences difficult because, unlike so many other people there, I don't have anything to sell. I don't have an idea or product that I am trying to promote. I just like to learn. In addition, I'm pretty shy -- I've sat next to Esther Dyson, sat behind John Gilmore, and had lunch sitting next to David Weinberger, all people I admire tremendously, and barely exchanged a word with them.

However, when the opportunity to do a little work for Mike Masnick of Techdirt at Supernova 2004 came up, I jumped at the chance. Reporting is a role I am very comfortable with, and something I enjoy doing. Plus, Supernova 2002 was the first tech future conference I ever went to, and it was one of the best. Kevin Werbach has a pretty good finger on the pulse of technology, and he is very well connected. In the depths of the tech recession, he brought together a lot of very smart and interesting people to talk about the future of technology, and there were some great moments. Certainly a lot of the themes that were discussed at that first conference have blossomed since - decentralization, citizen journalism, (lousy, IMHO) social software, and a world of pervasive connection to the internet (it was the first conference that I went to besides the Wireless Planet conference that had Wi-Fi, or 802.11b as we called it back then). Supernova was also the place where for the first time I got to see in person a lot of the people whose writing I had been reading for years, which was fun. It was where, in spite of my shyness, I made friends with two of the nicest journalists in technology, Mike Masnick and Glenn Fleishman, and met one of the most prominent journalists, if not the cheeriest, Dan Gillmor.

It looks like this time Kevin has assembled another interesting group of smart people as speakers, and looking at the wiki, I imagine that Supernova 2004 will be a reunion of sorts, as well as an opportunity to see and hear a bunch of new people. I'm looking forward to it, to seeing some of you again, and to learning and reporting back on what I learn to those who aren't there.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the grief I'm going to catch from some of my online friends who haven't been afforted this opportunity.