Gnomedex 8.0 Day 1 - Highlights of the Friday Afternoon Sessions
August 27, 2008 :: Steve FisherAfter an amazing lunch (Gnomedex has the best food) we are ready to start the afternoon sessions.
Boomer Generation Meets Generation Y
First up was a session on Gen Y and Mark Bao is a 16 year old entrepreneur who has built a company and when Chris inquired that he already sold a Facebook app, he responded “actually, I have sold three”. The audience roared with laughter and applause. Interviewing him was Francine Hardaway who is a PhD with tons of industry experience and she was funny because she wore her old job business outfit (a suit) and stripped on stage into her new business suit (jeans and a t-shirt). She had an awesome slide because she started her first business when in 1980 and it had all the things she grew up without - Google, Internet, FedEx, Fax Machines, Cell Phones, Facebook.
They talked about education and he looks at it a good place to network where he perspective was that it was necessary to get any kind of white collar job. Things sure have changed. They are seeing that people are feeling entitled to the technology they have access at work that they should have at home. This was the best talk yet this year.
Social Media is For Good Causes Too
Next we had Beth Kanter talk about Using Social Media for Good Causes. She used Facebook to create the group “Causes” and raised thousands of dollars for a non-profit helping Cambodia. Her work was so good that she won an additional $50,000 prize for her non-profit. She posed an interesting question - Does personality scale? It is about the ladder of engagement of those that are happy bystander all the way through instigators that create the involvement in a cause. She used her birthday to get 135 people to pledge money to her cause by giving her a birthday present.
So what’s next? She was able to raise more money for other causes to send kids to college with the help of social media friends and tools like Twitter. She then asked everyone in the room (250 people) to donate $10 each to send three kids to college. Chris Pirillo came up and jumpstarted it with $100 and people ran up and started giving her $10 bills overwhelming her. By the end of the presentation $1800 was raised on the web site - IN LESS THAN 30 MINUTES. Amazing.
If you want to donate to a great cause, check out her blog, find her on twitter and Facebook to connect with the charity and do some good. This was an amazing use of social media to do amazing small things to do one great big thing collectively.
UPDATE: At the end of the conference $3700!!! was raised online and passing the hat around. Pretty powerful show of social media used to do good.
Salaam Garage and Telling a Story with Photography
Amanda Koster is a professional photographer and she recently put together a site called Salaam Garage. She started her career as an anthropologist but took some photography classes and was hooked. She was backpacking East Africa with a friend and the only two words she understood were “Salaam Garage” and the word stuck with her.
She started her presentation by saying “Hi, my name is Amanda Koster, and I do not have an iPhone” which got everyone laughing. She likes taking pictures that tell a story. She calls her technique “drive by shooting” and over time has built a collection from all parts of the world.
Koster officially founded SalaamGarage in Jan. 2007 in response to years of countless requests, “Can I Come With You” regarding her international projects. As she saw people traveling, creating content, publishing and connecting through social media, she thought why not harness all this activity to cause positive change through sharing intentional content.
Salaam Garage connects media savvy travelers and enthusiasts with international Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs). Travelers commit to creating and sharing unique, independent social media that raises awareness and causes positive change. The rest of the adventure is spent touring around the region, experiencing and exploring the culture and environment with an entirely new context.
Amanda’s photography site: www.amandakoster.com
Learning about what a Serial Cyborg is with Nathan Wade
Maybe its just me but when I think of Cyborgs I think of the Borg from Star Trek or that really bad movie from Jean Claude Van Damme. Nathan Wade of Serial Cyborg which he defines as “Serial Cyborg is a DICOM Voxel Based MRI wood sculpture, cut by an industrial CNC mill. The sculpture explores persistent physical distortion through a simple gestural movement; a serialization of human interplay with particle reality as machine visualizable data and re-instantiation of these streams into physical space. This artwork also aims to explore the notion of the modern human as Cyborg, augmented and abstracted through technology while engaging hybrid human definition. The synthesis of digital revealing and informing the physical, irrevocably altering both as extension of the other.”
Yeah, that was a mouthful. It is really about how we evolved the term of what interfacing man with machine. Originally in the 1960’s a cyborg was thought to be an astronaut. In the 1980’s it was thought to be a destruction of race, sex, religion and the ambiguity to become whatever we wanted. Fast forward to the present and Nathan is studying how technology is an extension of human evolution.
Interestingly enough was an informal poll of the audience and 90% of the audience said they would take electronic implants if they were available. Take that for what you will but it is compelling considering how much we do use and interface with technology these days to communicate and do business.
Highlight of Ignite Seattle - Where the Hell is Matt?
The Ignite Session are a mix of two-minute how-to’s, performance art, and comedy. Ignite is from O’Reilly and has been in select cities and now rolling across the country.
All of the sessions were great but the one I thought was worth mentioning was the one done by Matt Harding on The Making of Where the Hell is Matt?
One time when Matt Harding was in Hanoi, Vietnam, his friend told him to stand over by the curb and do his stupid dance. Now he is famous on the internet for being that guy who does that stupid dance all over the world. It’s his job. When he’s not doing his job, he mostly just sits around the house reading comic books and playing videogames, so things worked out pretty well for Matt.
After he did his presentation, I along with a few others yelled “Dance for us!”, he started the music and told everyone to come up. Almost everyone did. Check out this video to see how much we all had.
Tomorrow we will cover sessions that include Sarah Lacy, Dave Mathews (not the singer), CEO of Boxee, Scott Maxwell who drives the Mars Rover (here on earth).
For now, we are getting ready for the big Gnomedex party at the ShowBox. It is a Seattle landmark and with free drink tickets and cameras to catch all the action, it should not disappoint.
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