Since 2001, we have been producing Gnomedex, a conference that brought to the stage hundreds of thought leaders and many influencers before they were influential. We started Gnomedex 10 years ago in Iowa, and the conference has since grown to one of the premier tech conferences in the nation. After last year’s event, I announced it would be the last Gnomedex – but we’re now bringing it out of retirement (if only for a day) to join the Seattle Interactive Conference on November 2, 2011 in Seattle (naturally).

As always, this year we will continue to feature even more exciting and innovative speakers, including John Wilbanks, Kent Nichols, Michael Haley, Christopher Burgess and Pascal Schuback. Granted, this will be more of a Gnomedex Lite, considering we are working within the construct of another conference for just a single day.

If you think we’re excited to bring back Gnomedex, we can’t wait for you to see what we’re doing this year. Tickets for the event are available via the Seattle Interactive Conference site, but we’ve got a way for you to get two FREE passes to this year’s Gnomedex. All you have to do is enter the giveaway below for a chance to win a pair of tickets to Gnomedex. The rules are simple – just follow me personally on Twitter at @ChrisPirillo as well as the LockerGnome Twitter account at @LockerGnome. You can also earn an extra entry by “Liking” the LockerGnome Facebook page, too. Don’t worry, you’ll see more from us on Facebook soon.

The giveaway is open now and will run through 12:01 a.m. next Monday, 10/24/11 (EST). We’ll announce the winner on Monday – and may even have a special offer for everyone else who enters the giveaway, too. And if you don’t like giveaways, you can always register for Gnomedex and the Seattle Interactive Conference outright.

Enter below for a chance to win a free pair of tickets to Gnomedex on November 2, 2011!

Can You Get Gnomedex Tickets for Free? Maybe!

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Conferences are a fantastic way to educate yourself and make new connections with people. They’re also a great way to network at after-parties and gain a little weight. Let’s face it: most conference parties offer food which is full of carbs, sugars and other icky substances. Even though it tastes fantastic, our bodies may not thank us for partaking in the morning. What’s a geek to do to stay in shape while spending so much time attending events? Jake met up with Tim Ferriss – author of The 4-Hour Body – to find out.

Sticking with proteins and veggies can be done at SXSW and any other event you may be traveling to. Don’t feel you have to sample all of the food offered to you during conference lunches and dinner or during parties thrown for attendees. Additionally, if you feel you must drink alcohol, try ordering a NorCal Margarita. This is comprised of soda water, high-grade tequila and the juice from at least four limes. These drinks are the “lesser of many evils” according to Tim, since many types of booze contains a lot of calories.

Exercising in a hotel room can be tricky, and you usually don’t quite feel up to going for a morning run during conference days. Tim has a few ideas to help Jake out there, as well. Packing a few mini bands allows you to quickly do your resistance exercises. You can also adapt several normal types of exercise to give you more of a workout: try doing one-armed pushups against a desk at an angle. Do your squats with one leg raised. Make sure you aren’t a klutz like me before attempting any of these things, though.

If you don’t have any weights in your suitcase or hotel room to help with your workout, try making your exercises much slower than usual. If you’re performing squats, go down slowly at a count of five and come back up at a count of five. The same goes for many other types of stretches and lunges.

Lastly, Tim recommends looking into doing an intense workout the day before traveling which requires giving your body 5-7 days to recover before doing another. This sort of covers you for the days you are gone and cannot work your body to its usual pace.

How to Diet and Exercise When You Travel

This is a guest post written by Imei Hsu as a follow-up to her MacWorld 2011 – Best of All post.

When I do something wrong, I apologize. Making errors can be embarrassing, which probably has something to do with why I’ve taken so long to share with the community my Macworld Expo 2011 Worst of All post, a.ka. face palm edition. I don’t like people to feel ashamed for what might be experienced as anything between, “WTF?” to “I don’t get it.” But here are my thoughts on this year’s MacWorld “Worst of All” picks.

Worst of All

iFusion – OK, I get that for those who work in an office space with more than ten employees who have iPhones, being able to turn your iPhone into a desk phone via Bluetooth using the iFusion could be a viable solution. I do not understand how a business owner would justify paying $169 per unit so you as an employee could enjoy a charging station and your music over the speaker without getting a neck cramp. Nor could I understand that the unit is only for iPhone, and not for other kinds of mobile phones, because what is the likelihood you’ll know what employees have iPhones (unless you bought them yourself)?

I also could not see the home market taking off with this either. I hardly know anyone who uses their landlines much. I could see a much older market finding this product useful, but I was left scratching my head. The handset phone market is dying, isn’t it? Do we really have use for the iFusion? Call it iConfusion.

Yet one more iPad case with a strap. – Anyone who has used an iPad and tried standing or walking with it immediately discovers that typing with one hand while holding it steady with the other takes a little practice. If I recall, that might have been what caused Chris Pirillo to drop my first iPad [BTW, I may already have a buyer for that one when I get the iPad2, hee hee]. However, at Macword Expo 2011, there were quite a few vendors specializing in iPad accessories dedicated to that strap issue. How many iPad case strap vendors does it take to cover a conference? Really?

I’ll admit there were just as many iPhone case vendors as well, but to their credit, quite a few of them had some interesting offerings, including one that made your iPhone look like an old cassette tape, and another that put more bling bling on your iPhone than Zsa Zsa Gabor and Queen Elizabeth combined. At least they were interesting. No picture here. To include one would be flog you with the one corner of the Expo I didn’t wish to revisit.

HatTV. – Or is it TV Hat? Apparently, they are one and the same! Debuting in 2009, the 2011 version comes in all black, converting outdoor mobile phone movie watching and gaming into a mildly pervy, voyeuristic, claustraphobic, and definitely morbid (a la guillotine hood) experience. Inside the hat is a magnifying custom lens and a mobile device holder; outside, the dark material keeps out the sun so you can watch your porn anywhere. But now, the vendor will suggest you to watch your porn while fondling your mate in bed in a seamless user experience. It was declared one of the weirdest products at CES 2010. When the vendor suggested one could cut a hole in the front so the camera could be used to film others for up to six hours of uninterrupted use (yes, he actually did say that in front of me), I laughed so hard I thought I might just throw up. Strangely, I imagine this product would do well in an elephant gift exchange or as a novelty gift in a Mac-centric adult toy store.

Spotty wireless coverage. – The two times I mentioned the spotty wireless coverage (you can get on for a few seconds, but like a speedy merry-go-round, everyone eventually falls off), my friends shrugged their shoulders and smiled. Apparently, this problem isn’t going to be fixed any time soon. But if you wanted to try out that new app you just downloaded, better remember to increase your data plan before attending MacWorld 2011, or it’ll cost you.

Thought: couldn’t vendors raffle away free wireless coverage for the day through their routers if we stood on our heads or flapped our lips about how much we LOVED their product?

Unimaginative booths with even less function. – My parents took us to some conventions back in the early 1980’s, and booths look about as boring then as they do now. I don’t need to remind you how much these spaces cost, and what great lengths some companies go to in order to build ceiling banners and structures to make their booths stand out. Problem: to make a temporary structure not look so temporary. Solution: be creative.

Rather than show you example after example of really plain and sometimes downright ugly presentations of booths, I’ll show you the one that did it “right”. Pictured here is the backside of the structure Gelaskins built. It reminded me of an urban street corner with planned art, and the front side looked like a bar where you could slide up and select from a menu of devices and designs. The fact that Violet Blue and Ben Metcafe are standing in front of it just makes it all that much more attractive.

Gelaskins got it totally right at the conference. At least no one dared to cover their entire vending space with brown paper and leave crayons behind (I won’t tell you what conference I saw that offering in).

The mini kioks were nice, but I had wished the entire thing was arranged a bit more like Disneyland and a bit less like a backyard carnival. Kudos to the small business owners who prepared for purchases by using Square. Boo to those who resorted to carbon-copy receipts (are you kidding? really?).

No road signs and no escorts

The big “face palm” of the Expo isn’t what you’d expect. Isn’t the live demos, panels, and presentations supposed to be the crowd gatherers? Didn’t we come here to learn something new? Instead, I heard some disappointing feedback about the workshops and presentations. Some complained how the presentations barely scratched the surface of the subject, lacking depth or direction. Some were in rooms tucked away from the main floor and poorly advertised. While the MacWorld App had up-to-date information on the locations and times of presentations and panels, I would have missed the best if people hadn’t grabbed me to come along.

I admit I missed a demo that sounded interesting. Some time ago, I had downloaded MorphWiz on my iPad, but I never really used it all that much. The app seemed to draw more “mehs” from other casual users. A man sitting next to me during a music demo started asking me a lot of questions, and the flirt-dork that I am, it took me a few moments to register that he was hitting on me. He wanted me to check out a presentation about to start in another room. I said no, simply because I was uncomfortable. Later, he returned to where I was still seated, saying, “You missed a really good presentation.You should have come,” and he walked away.

That evening, several attendees mentioned they had sat in on a “fascinating” music demonstration by the one of the creators behind the MorphWiz app, Jordan Rudess. Oops. That was the presentation the man had wanted me to attend with him! While I might not be a fan of MorphWiz because I am simply not familiar with the potential of the app, I am smart enough to know that you always start with the inventor if you really want to know the soul of an application. [Ladies: do not ask me if the man was cute. It’s a room full of geeks. They’re ALL cute.] Now, if there had been an indicator of what the actual presentation was going to be, I might have made a different decision. Redemption: I pulled out the app for the ladies and let them play on my iPad, which they had only seen in the demonstration. Score!

Will any of these things in the Face Palm edition of Macworld Worst Of All keep me from attending next year? Doubtful. But I hope next year’s offering continues to inspire, improve, and wow us in the same way as the Apple products themselves. While Macworld doesn’t have the kind of money Apple does, I am confident that Macheads the world over will think of ways to make it work. I am counting on it as a newbie to the world of all things Apple. If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t have changed my brand motto to got iMei?

B. iMei Hsu is a nurse psychotherapist, performance artist, guest blogger on Lockergnome, and writer for Lockergnome’s Psycho Nurse as well as her own webblog Hips For Hire. Her visit to MacWorld 2011 included a field trip to the Mothership, where she ended up coming home with a Mac-mini and a second iPad for Dj’ing. When she’s not playing Battlestar Galactica reruns for her Applehead iCat Siamese Charles-Monet, she’s heating up the dance floor and pouring the red wine in her art loft in Seattle, WA.

MacWorld Expo 2011 – Worst of All

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Sprechen Sie Geek? I’m brushing up on the handful of German words I already know because I’m headed there this week to speak at ceBIT. If you’ve never heard of this conference, then you certainly need to have your geek card taken away. ceBIT is billed as “the digital industry’s biggest, most international event. Thanks to its unique combination of exhibition, conferences, keynotes, corporate events and lounges, CeBIT represents an unrivaled tool for doing business and sealing deals.”

Thousands of attendees are expected to grace the conference and exhibit halls with their presence throughout this week. I will be but one lone man navigating my way through the maze of gadgets, gizmos and Germans! If you’re going to be there, be sure to look me up and say hello.

The only device I’m really planning to take with me is my iPhone 4. I’m paying the extra twenty-five bucks in order to use up to 20MB of data while I’m in International territory. However, I plan to connect to the ‘net via WiFi as much as possible. My phone takes fantastic videos and photos, so there’s really no need to pack a lot of extraneous gadgets.

If I see anything interesting – or meet really cool people – I plan to take several videos to share with all of you. So if you know of a particular vendor that you feel would make for an interesting video, then let me know!

The subject of my keynote deals with connecting communities using various technologies available to us. As much as I find the commentary on YouTube difficult to swallow at times, it IS a large part of the communication that goes on within our little corner of the Internet. Yes, I get agitated at times. But hey – I’m human, just like you. Many of us have different facets to our lives. In my mind, that’s what makes a community grow and evolve.

My keynote will be live-streamed. Keep an eye on my Facebook page and my Twitter stream this week. I’ll let you know when the live stream is going and whenever (and wherever!) my keynote may appear.

Vorsicht!

Will You be at ceBIT This Week?

This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

The Zumobi Network is the creator of several free mobile applications across multiple platforms. Because of their creation of rich mobile apps, they’ve been able to partner with brands such as HP, MSNBC, Southwest Airlines, and Mercedes-Benz to acquire premium ad sponsorships.

The idea is simple. Create great consumer mobile apps that draw lots of downloads, and partner with big-named brands to provide guaranteed and exclusive advertisement placement within the app. These ads are often rich in media themselves and Zumobi likes to call the term an “app-within-an-app.” An example of this is Mercedes-Benz having exclusive ad placement in the MOTOR TREND app, created by Zumobi. This proprietary technology is called BrandBlast.

Having 12 apps in the top 10 on iTunes of their respective category, it’s not surprising companies with lot’s of money to spend on advertising flock to the Zumobi Network. The company has proven they can create well-designed mobile applications that draw lots of interest and hits/uses per day. Their app portfolio includes the official apps for MSNBC, the Today Show, MOTOR TREND, Inside Xbox 360, TLC, and REI. Recently, Zumobi was featured in Fast Company magazine to highlight the reasons to choose a premium mobile app network such as them.

If you’re a developer, you should check out Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

Zumobi Network Brings App Within App Ads

This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

A Seattle Startup located in historic Pioneer Square is looking to change the way you compete for the best price in vacationing. Off & Away is a hotel auctioning site that puts a little twist on things and truly promotes staring at the screen and watching the timer count down to zero.

At this auction site, hotel packages are offered and the bidding begins. Every bid made costs $1 to the bidder, and adds 10 cents and 20 seconds to the current bid price and time. If you’re the lucky one to bid last and have the timer run down to zero, you win! Since most people will bid towards the end of the time limit, the price will usually go up during that time. But, the savings are huge if you work for it! And you must work, since every bid adds 20 seconds and only adds $0.10, it really comes down to who can outlast the other at the computer. Their very first auction was 2 nights in the Tata Suite Pierre in New York… listed for $40,000 and finally sold for $938! Can you say, DEAL? That’s typically what you can expect from the website. Classy hotel stays usually worth a few thousand dollars are able to be sold in for only hundreds.

So what if you lose? What happens to all your one-dollar bills? Don’t worry if you lose an auction and just blew $300 trying to lock in your dream vacation, Off & Away makes sure you get your monies worth. Any money you “lose” from bidding is reusable via the site’s Book Now section. Just like other hotel booking sites, you can book at over 100,000 hotels worldwide using your credit. But pay attention to the rules, the credit is only valid 30 days after the auction.

Off & Away has a good strategy and lots of potential. Madrona Venture Group, who also backed Amazon and Farecast, and have an advisory board that includes top executives from Orbitz.com and Alaska Airlines, backs them.

If you’re a developer, you should check out Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

Prepare Your Eyedrops for a Travel Bidding War

On Tuesday, November 16, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (PT) in Seattle, WA, local IT pros should come to RetroDex 2010 (and use code “LockerGnome” for 25% off the already-low price of $38.00)! I will be on stage throughout the event as the emcee with Larry Walsh speaking.

IT professionals, service providers, vendors, bloggers, and media come together to hear predictions from leading technology industry thinkers and discuss the present and future with their technology industry peers. During 2010 virtualization and tele-presence made their mark and Comdex returned to a virtual Las Vegas. RetroDex 2010 is the perfect place to meet real live technology people whether or not you are participating virtually in Comdex.

Leading up to the event we will be conducting a One Question survey of IT decision makers where we ask: What one technology product changed your business computing the most in 2010? And what do you think it will be in 2011? We will be presenting the results of this survey at the RetroDex 2010 events. RetroDex 2010 events are being held simultaneously at incredible venues across the country on the evening of November 16th, 2010.

Register for RetroDex 2010 (and remember to use code LockerGnome for 25% off)!

Seattle IT Pros Should Head to RetroDex

This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

If you ask most people the question, “Do you get paid enough?” You’ll most certainly always be answered with a NO. Salary is a top concern and there’s always that certain number that will make you a happy worker. Fortunately, there’s a Seattle Startup to let you know what you should be making after all.

PayScale has a service that determines how well you are being paid compared to others who have a similar job. The service is free in a limited fashion, but your scale is determined based on many factors including work environment, education, your professional experience, company size, etc. This is all information you must provide. Some of it is optional, but the more you provide, the more accurate PayScale will be in determining how well you’re being compensated. In the end, you receive a report and graph that shows where you are in relation to other people who’ve reported. The report is anonymous, so don’t worry about your co-worker giving you dirty looks because he found out you’re making much much more than him.

You can also upgrade to their premium service for $19.95. By doing so, you’ll gain insight to a lot more information that you could leverage to get that raise you know you deserve! With the largest online employee salary database according to PayScale, I’m pretty sure you can confident your scale of pay will be compared accurately.

If you’re a developer, you should check out Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

How Much Are You Worth?

This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

Are you in to scrapbooking? Do you like to make decorative web cards to celebrate the birth of a baby? Does the thought of making a high school prom collage online to share with your Facebook and Twitter friends excite you? Well, don’t worry about taking out the heavy-duty scissors and craft glue. The online service, Smilebox, was created solely for the purpose of creating fancy photo crafts.

The Redmond-based startup has developed an online platform around the popular homemakers craft of scrapbooking. The website offers hundreds of designs to use to create scrapbooks, collages, greetings cards, or photo albums. The tool itself is not web-based, it’s a native application you must download and install onto your Mac or Windows machine. But the unique service itself is worth trying if this craft is your passion.

Smilebox is still a very small startup, but they are growing a fast pace and recently moved to a new, bigger office this year to accommodate the growth. They are gaining lots of traction even though their product is niche, but the fact that they don’t have too many competitors in their market will help them to expand products and make business quick.

Smilebox will be featured at Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

Smilebox Makes Scrapbooking Easy

If you’re not a power-shopper, then I’m betting you’ve gotten lost in your local mall a time or twelve. All of those twists, turns, stairways and hallways can be daunting to any of us who don’t make mall-walking a daily habit. The mall is a scary place, but FastMall wants to make life much easier for us all. It is the world’s first TRUE turn-by-turn navigation app – even showing you where to find stairways, elevators and bathrooms!

Samuel Feuer, CEO of Fastmall creator MindSmack, is one of those guys you just want to hang out with. He’s full of jokes and laughter, but he’s also very dedicated to the work he’s doing. His enthusiasm is contagious – the service is beyond awesome. It was easy for my assistant Kat to be convinced to download this app herself during her meeting with Samuel last week in New York. Kat is picky and doesn’t download many apps. However, she assures me that this is one she will be using on a regular basis.

The beautiful thing about FastMall is that it’s not only for malls: the service can be used to create navigational apps for pretty much any place you can think of… hospitals, theme parks and even convention centers. Anyone can request a customized app simply by talking with Samuel and his team. The idea originally came from Sam’s wife, Amie, who was completely fed up with static mall directories and the overall lack of restroom guidance when she was pregnant. Sam and his partner Marcelo took a chance and created a startup that I feel is going to become extremely important in the very near future.

Some of the features of the app include:

• Shake your iPhone for the nearest restroom.
• Tell FastMall where you parked and it will remember for you. Feel free to use this voice recorder as a shopping list too!
• Turn-by-turn guidance inside the mall, from store to store, without using GPS!
• Sync your status on Facebook as well as Twitter.
• Add reviews of restrooms, restaurants and stores.
• Make a wish list of things you must have.
• Find a deal and save money.
• Add data to FastMall to make it a better experience for everyone.

Think of what this could mean, folks. Let’s say you’re about to attend SXSW – and you know you’re going to be lost as usual. How great would it be if the powers-that-be behind the conference contacted FastMall to create an app you can use to guide you through the experience? The same could happen with any major hospitals… large corporation complexes… and so much more. The possibilities are literally almost endless here. I’m excited to see what the future brings for Sam and his team.

Find Your Way Around the Mall with FastMall

I’m launching a new conference with the folks over at Seattle 2.0 called Deploy – Today’s Technology for Tomorrow’s Apps. It will be held Monday, November 8th from 9AM – 5PM at the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Deploy is a conference for technology builders and geeks. New languages, frameworks, storage systems, methodologies and devices are creating entirely new opportunities. Deploy 2010 is a “Show and Tell” conference where speakers will discuss hot new topics and show what can be done – and how. Topics will include NoSQL, Mobile and Tablet, Game Mechanics, Open Source, Location and more.

We have a great lineup of speakers including:

• Doug Cutting, creator of Hadoop, Lucene and Nutch
• Andre Charland, creator of PhoneGap – the open source cross-platform mobile technology
• Brian Fling, founder of Pinch/Zoom and creator of the NY Times iPad app
• Poornima Vijayashanker, first engineering lead at Mint and bizeebee creator
• Bob Walsh, author of “MicroISV: From Vision to Reality and the Web Startup Success Guide

Deploy 2010 will be a technology conference focused on software development. It’s perfect for developers of all backgrounds, whether you are still in college or are an industry veteran . It’s also valuable to managers and executives who have technologists in their organizations.

As an added bonus, we are reserving eight spots for show and tell. For three minutes, up to 8 lucky winners, will be able to get up on stage and either speak about or demonstrate their technology. During the morning session, we’ll collect entries from attendees who want to present their technology during the Tech Demo segment. At 1:30 PM, after the lunch break, we’ll draw the entries from a hat. The lucky winner has three minutes to get up on stage and present his or her technology.

If you are a developer or hard-core tech enthusiast, I hope you will join us for join us for Deploy.

Deploy – A New Seattle Conference for Developers

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Michael Foley is one of those people that everyone loves to stop and talk with. We’re very grateful for that fact, since he managed to interview many of the movers and shakers who attended Gnomedex last month. Michael was kind enough to give us his raw footage, and Uncle John worked his magic to stitch it all together. Ladies and germs, meet the people of Gnomedex!

• Tac Anderson – “The most diverse and coolest group of speakers anywhere.”
• Steve Sorbo – “Gnomedex is about education in the world of social media.”
• Christopher Burgess – “I come to Gnomedex because out of hundreds of conferences I attend, this is the best .It’s the most humanitarian and technological event of its kind. When you leave here, you feel as though you can change the world.”
• Kristen Mitchell – “Gnomedex was the first conference I ever attended in association with my online identity. I was happy to feel as though I was amongst family.”
• Kat Armstrong – “It’s impossible to put into words what Gnomedex is like. Being here – being a part of this – WILL change your life in some way.”
• Brian Eisenberg – “I come to Gnomedex to meet people and have amazing conversations.”
• Kenji Onozawa – “Gnomedex has great content, but I love the conversation in the hallways the most. This event attracts an awesome array of people.”
• Jeff Shuey – “There are incredible people involved in this event, from speakers to volunteers to attendees.”
• Jeris JC Miller – “Chris has done an amazing job at curating who I feel are some of the most innovative speakers in technology and the social media space.”
• Pete Voss – “This was my first Gnomedex. A lot of past attendees recommended I be here, so here I am!”
• Veronica Wei Sopher – “I come here to get outside of my own thinking. I love to see what others are doing and learning. It gives me fresh perspective in my world.”
• Jamie Nelson – “I come here to find out what’s going on in the geek world, and get an idea as to what is coming over the horizon.”
• David Hoang – “This was my first time attending Gnomedex. I wanted to be here, because I heard it’s a great place to meet innovative thinkers.”
• Lacy Kemp – “This conference has a very cool crowd. It’s very different from other conferences – it’s more human. The content is different. It’s less focused on narcissism and more focused on how to create a better you.”
• Michelle Gamboa – “I volunteer at this event because it’s one of the places that I can meet amazing people and hear about the best ideas you’ll find anywhere.”
• Richard Wood – “This was my first Gnomedex. I’ve been to a lot of events surrounding this event in the past few years. There’s always such a high amount of energy to the people involved in this conference. I wanted to be a part of that, and their ideas.”
• Melissa Tizon – “I work with Swedish Hospital here in Seattle. We’re a non-profit hospital which loves technology. We’re using that to improve health care in the greater Seattle area.”
• Kevin Urie – “I come to Gnomedex because the people are great and the topics are all over the place. It’s always interesting, and I learn something from everyone.”
• Jen Joyce – “I come to Gnomedex because there are interesting people who attend. I love to learn new ideas from everyone.”
• Heather Fernandez – “I’m here because I’ve never been. I’ve heard a lot of great things about this conference, so I knew I had to be here.”
• Willow Brugh – “This was my first Gnomedex, and it’s been exciting. It’s not focused on one topic, and this is where true innovation lies.”
• Joe Pirillo – “I’m Chris’ Dad, so I’m here to help out behind the scenes, but I also really just enjoy being here.”
• Karianne Stinson – “Gnomedex is a conference where people talk about what they’re actually DOING, versus people telling about their grand ideas.”
• Shauna Causey – “I love to hang out with geeks because I am a wannabe geek. Gnomedex rocks for that.”
• Greg Young – “Television is moving more online every day. I like to keep up with current trends to see how new things can be incorporated into video and television.”
• Liana Shanes – “I volunteer with Gnomedex because Chris always brings amazing content which helps me learn about things I would never have thought of before.”
• Maya Bisineer – “The people here are brilliant, and the presentations are all intelligent.”
• Ken Yeung – “There are a lot of friends here at Gnomedex.”
• Chris Pirillo – “I come here because my face is on all of the badges! I put this conference on because it started out as just a way for my community to get together. This is a chance, though, to inspire others no matter what type of work they do, or where their passions lie. The idea of Human Circuitry is that our humanity is further influenced by the proliferation of technology.”

Thank you again to Michael and Uncle John for all of their hard work putting this together. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNyovl1haPg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNyovl1haPg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

The People of Gnomedex

With this year’s Gnomedex behind us, we’re starting to see the feedback from those of you who were with us. It’s important to remember that while no two people have the exact same experience when attending a conference, you all take something away that enriches your life. Take the time to read what others have to say about the event – you might learn something new.

• The Sense of a Gnomedex
• All About Gnomedex 10 – How Volunteering, Tech & Great Women Inspired Tech Mavens (VIDEO)
• Reflections on a Decade of Gnomedex
• Gnomedex 10 Recap
• My All-Time Favorite Learning Event
• The Cool (and Not so Cool) From Gnomedex
• Gnomedex 10
• A Fond Farewell: Five Reasons Gnomedex Will be Missed
• Scenes From Gnomedex 10
• Gnomedex Update
• In With the New
• Gnomedex
• Gnomedex Day 1 Overview
• Microsoft Surface at Gnomedex
• All About Gnomedex 10
• After a Decade of Human Circuitry, Gnomedex Calls it Quits
• Gnomedex Day 1 – Morning
• Gnomedex Day 1 – Afternoon

If we happened to miss your post, please let us know and we’ll be happy to include a link to your thoughts.

Thank you once again to everyone who helped make this conference possible. From all accounts, this was the best of the series and we couldn’t have done it without you.

Gnomedex Conference Reviews

According to nearly everyone in attendance, Gnomedex 10 was a huge success. Many are even touting it as the best of the series. While it’s nice to hear these things, we know that the success is directly related to the excellent lineup of presenters we watched on our stage. This year, the amount of talent and creativity inside of Bell Harbor was unparalleled. The subjects presented may have been vastly different from each other. However, the passion, inspiration and dedication of each presenter was the common theme that brought it all home.

Photo Credit to Jean-Luc David

We asked our speakers what Gnomedex meant to them, and a few have already responded with glowing praise. We will update this post with input from other presenters as we receive it.

Amy Karlson told us that “Gnomedex gave me my twitter “ah-ha”. Most of us HCI researchers haven’t caught on, but I now “get it” and am forever changed. I have even considered writing an opinion piece for our major conference entitled “Why researchers must use twitter”. I was amazed at what a strong sense of community it is able to create instantaneously and how effective it is for filtering the fire hose of information we all struggle to keep on top of. This epiphany may alter the course of my research!”

Willow Brugh says that Gnomedex was “Authentic: The core group are honest, kind, and no-bullshit. This means the rest of the conference follows suit. And holy crap, but that is nice. Accepting: As someone who is often the exception to the rules – whether due to hair, or gender, or interests, or whatever – I really appreciate this. Everyone expressed admiration of my hair; and everyone was up to talk about anything. Interesting: You have to have people who are interested in order for things to be interesting. It seemed that everyone had invested a lot of time and energy into their passions, but part of that was still interacting with the world. And that’s fucking brilliant.”

Trish Milines-Dziko made my little Geek heart sing when she told us “This was my first experience at Gnomedex and it far surpassed anything I thought it would be. My colleagues attended last year and didn’t really give a description that matched what I saw when I walked in the door, so I felt like I was looking through fresh eyes.

Chris is extremely personable and was really hands on – unlike some other conference hosts who think they’re just too good for the little people. Every single person involved with the conference was upbeat and knew how to treat folks.”

Larry Wu echoes the sentiment I keep hearing from attendees when he says: “I have never been to a conference where the atmosphere is about collaboration instead of competition. I was impressed with the openness and friendliness of the attendees, and the broad range of super high quality presentations.”

What did YOU take home in your heart from Gnomedex this year? Leave us a comment and share your story with us.

What Do Presenters Have to Say About Gnomedex?

Most events suck – symposia, conventions, expos, summits, et al. Still, I keep going to them to support various causes and organizations. When originally faced with the opportunity to create my own experience, I was bright-eyed and hellbent to raise people’s expectations. Our first “Gnomedex” was originally planned in Des Moines, Iowa for the ill-fated weekend of September 13th, 2001.

Despite eventually having an amazing event at a later point, our team realized that none of us were event planners or producers. Perhaps that’s what made the first one, and subsequent nine, so notable? No matter, we didn’t plan a second Gnomedex until Microsoft stepped up and offered budget for a sequel. Even then, we tried to convince them of other opportunities – but they wanted another spectacularly-hosted conference. The statement “I can’t do another Gnomedex” has been trickling from my lips going back almost a full decade – and I reversed that position every single time.

Before I continue, allow me to assert a truthful statistic: Mashable drove 0% of all attendance and attention to Gnomedex 2010; Gnomedex evangelists drove 100%. It pains me to have this fact in hand – an asset ALL conference producers covet – and yet…

I can’t do another Gnomedex.

The community wants it to continue – but I am faced with a barrage of nightmare-inducing responsibilities related to EVERYTHING a proper Gnomedex would require to meet or exceed my vision for it. People have generally attended a Gnomedex because they wanted to come – not because they were told they had to be there. And even if the latter were true, those people often walk away with the same spirit of community Gnomedex engenders. Still, that’s not enough to make another Gnomedex happen.

• Without a dedicated team of rock star organizers and directors, tasks slip through the cracks – and you often won’t realize this until the event happens. When someone’s attention is diverted to other projects, yours will not receive the attention it requires.
• Without editorial control, vendors and sponsors will demand to be placed on stage (often, to bore the shit out of people with relatively-pointless garbage). You wind up facing a cavalcade of panels spilling over with self-important windbags who drone on and on over how their company does it. YOU, AS A PAYING CONFERENCE ATTENDEE, SHOULD NEVER TOLERATE THIS.
• Without the ability to drive massive amounts of eyeballs, partners are lukewarm to supporting your endeavor. They don’t always understand how influence works – and that bigger is not always better in this space. IF YOU, AS A PAYING CONFERENCE ATTENDEE, ARE NOT TREATED LIKE A VIP, START DEMANDING IT.
• Without a modest ticket price, every other bozo will walk through the door and dilute the experience. AND IF YOU THINK A FREE EVENT IS ALWAYS JUST AS GOOD AS ONE THAT REQUIRES A CASH OUTLAY, I DON’T VALUE YOUR JUDGEMENT OR BUSINESS ETHIC.
• Without a well-executed communications strategy, the Web site and online marketing efforts will falter. You need someone constantly connecting dots for you – everywhere. Volunteers are wonderful, but they often have other responsibilities. Don’t put the future of your endeavor into the hands of people who don’t treat it as though their life depended on it.

Oh, but this short list is but the tip of the “requirements” iceberg.

I have big dreams for what Gnomedex could be in the right hands. There’s no reason a TED experience couldn’t be made more accessible. I’ve been trying to pull it off for years! And before another person suggests it, TEDx is absolutely the wrong model for me (and it’s already being done). If I hear one more person falling over themselves for what they’re doing, I’ll cry. Seriously. When you have a near-unlimited budget, you can do near-unlimited things.

We’ve offered Gnomedex to various event production companies, but none of them are interested (for whatever reason). They have their own brands to manage, and my brand doesn’t treat people like cattle. Or, they want a six-figure outlay from you – just to get started. Get the picture? Yeah. No.

This has been an uphill battle, and I decided to go out on top.

It’s not just getting colossal sponsorship, its finding and managing it. It’s not just locating a workable venue, it’s ensuring we’re not getting screwed on the contract. It’s not just marketing the experience, it’s finding strong partnerships to truly extend the reach. It’s not just finding good content, it’s making sure they match the audience’s expectations.

There are too many balls to juggle – and I’ve dropped more than my fair share in the pursuit of a perfect event.

• I believe in a single-track experience. I don’t wanna pack the speakers in and split the audience’s attention. This is key to giving rise to the power of community, to eschew the loneliness of typical event
• I believe every piece of swag should be conversation-worthy. I’ve always wanted to give people goodie bags like the celebrities get. Sadly, this never happens; we are very lucky (and grateful) to get stickers, and blown away when we get something of absolute value.
• I believe the complimentary conference apparel should not turn you into a NASCAR vehicle, and be very comfortable to boot.
• I believe the expo floor should be filled with interactive booths operated by people who understand the product or service they are representing. I also believe this could be managed in conjunction with the conference (to allow others to traipse through at a lower admission price).
• I believe there should be a free, live video feed that is produced better than some television shows are. This isn’t easy to manage, but it’s essential for what I’m trying to do – and that’s producing a conference people should be fighting to get into.
• I believe in adding a personal touch. I really want to meet every single paying person there. I remember impressing Mike Arrington before TechCrunch even launched – and now he treats me worse than the gum on the bottom of his shoe. Still, I treat EVERYBODY as though they were someone perceivably influential.
• I believe in giving every attendee free WiFi and a power outlet, too. My GOD, there are actually conferences that force their communities to go without? Uncivilized.
• I do not believe in press passes. Assigned reporters seldom “get” it, publish thoughts long after the event could use it most, and… armed with “social media” tools, I believe everybody has the potential to be more powerful than traditional press. There have been very rare exceptions.
• I dislike comping tickets to anybody other than sponsors. The value of a free ticket is… nothing. I’ve ruined friendships because I didn’t offer a free pass to one person or another. Look: you are ALL my friends.
• I believe all parties should be all-access, filled with drinks and food. I also believe you should not have to struggle to maintain a conversation with someone two inches from you. No (loud) music! I also believe in venues which are conversation starters, themselves.
• I don’t believe in price-gouging the attendee – especially if you haven’t already set the stage for absolute value.
• I believe presenters should have their travel expenses covered. In all ten years of Gnomedex, I did not once pay for a speaker. Not because they weren’t worth it, but because my budgetary constraints would not allow me the privilege. Some years, we couldn’t even afford to cover travel. I love finding the “unknowns,” though. Big names in tech don’t drive as much awareness as you’d think.
• I believe that name badges should show a person’s first name in BIG, BOLD LETTERS – and if you’re going to hang a badge on a lanyard, make sure the name is visible on either side. This is a small detail most organizers forget, but it makes all the difference in the world when you’re meeting someone for the first time, or when you know someone’s face but can’t place the name or awkwardly flip their badge over.
• I believe that industry announcements can drive attention, but product pitches have enormous potential to plunge a gigantic wedge between the presenter and the audience. Sponsors and partners should know their place and stop elbowing their way onto the mic unless specifically invited to do so.

Maybe I’ve been too picky?

(cc) Kenneth Yeung – www.snapfoc.us

I do believe, however, that a Gnomedex-style model could be applied to any industry, any topic – not just relegated to surfacing general trends in technology. I’d loved to have produced a Gnomedex focused on YouTube, one related to the world of gaming, one specifically for fellow Apple enthusiasts, one for Microsoft Windows fanatics, one for fellow gadget freaks, another for “how to make money online,” and… the list would go on-and-on.

In a few days, weeks, months, years… everyone will forget. That is, until they attend another event and realize just how far we went to spoil them silly.

The Future of Gnomedex