Steve and Shashi are heading to Gnomedex 2008 this week

August 21, 2008 :: Steve Fisher

That title sounds like the makings of a comedy movie and probably by Sunday there will be amusing stories to share. For those of you who don’t know what Gnomedex is I would say that it is like a mini-TED conference without the large cost and is focused on the social media community with a mix of speakers that present cutting edge ideas and products.

It is put on by, Chris Pirillo, the Original Gnome or “OG” as I like to call him and his wife Ponzi in the beautiful city of Seattle. I have been to many conferences in the past and I have to say this is one of the best out there. Little things like working wi-fi for everyone, power in every seat to make your liveblogging acheiveable and awesome food that you would find at really expensive conferences.

Like many conferences, the best conversations are usually in the hallways and this conference is one par with SXSW in that vein. Chris limits attendance to around 350-400 which makes it possible to meet almost everyone if you work hard and he really leverages web tools to connect people and employs backchannels like IRC and Twitter live to show what people are thinking as the presenter is speaking. He also does a live video feed for fans who can’t be there.

To check out who will be there in addition to Shashi and me, here is the attendee list (another great thing that most conferences don’t do) and the agenda which is going to be entertaining and educational.

We will be blogging from the conference every day (Thursday-Saturday) and capturing lots of interviews that should be rolling off the presses for publishing next week and into September.

If you want to follow the happenings at the conference check out the twitter and friendfeeds which should be quite busy starting Thursday evening.

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