It was the speakers which didn’t bring as much to the presentation that were burned alive. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Was it their fault or were they simply not the right speaker for the audience. I’m not sure. This was my first Gnomedex so i wasn’t sure what to expect.

Was it just me noticing that there was a huge difference between the quality of Guy’s presentation and Sterling Allan’s? (content aside, they talked about different things, but surely no one can say that Sterling had the delivery, poise and command of Kawasaki).

Hopefully I am not being mean spirited but on the whole I think the people who received criticism on twitter and irc generally deserved it. Thats my 2 cents.

It’s one thing to make a point of dissention, but quite another to brow beat it home to the point of distracted humiliation across the room.

Anybody who didn’t like the presentation was welcome to leave. That who’s-the-dominant-male piss on stage was the lowest point of the conference, IMO.

Is that good or bad? For the majority of attendees, I think it’s good.

The culture of Gnomedex is already set. I’d leave it alone and let it be what it is and not try to reel it in. I personally think that trying to open it up to a broader audience would be a mistake. What would likely happen is that newer segments won’t feel like they really fit in and established segments will resent the interlopers who are changing the culture.

I would try to get better speakers next year. Guy was great and the Stacies guy and JibJab guy were good, but otherwise, I was disappointed in the quality of the speakers, subject matter aside.

But I enjoyed the conference. It was interesting and I’m glad we went. Would I go back? I doubt it, but who knows?

I’m impressed at your level-headed synthesis of all the feedback so shortly after the event wrapped. I’ve been pondering myself, as a 3rd-time attendee, how the community you’ve built around Gnomedex might be more intentional in it’s work during the annual meat-space gathering (and therefore more rewarding from an attendee’s perspective).

If you’re open to exploring this, let’s chat (once the air in the echo chamber calms down and you’ve caught some sleep). I’ll put my notes aside until then.

Great job again this year, as I said to you at the Aquarium gig. You certainly had you’re work cut out balancing so many interests, and your team did a fine job.

Best,

Alex

I found it to be just the opposite. I can see where Twitter can be distracting but I feel it brings an element to the discussion that, up until now, has only existed in the chat rooms. Twitter allowed friends and coworkers who could not attend a glimpse into the conference seen through my eyes which is both good and bad.

Although most of the sessions were interesting, Twitter and the chat room at live.pirillo.com provided a much needed release during those sessions that failed to connect. Had Twitter not existed I would have likely been in the halls chatting it up like Scoble did most of the time.

I’m not sure what the alternative is. The enemy isn’t twitter. I’m not even sure it’s the ego-chamber. It seems to me everyone needs a large dose of Audience Awareness 101. There are lots of folks reading, and a lot of Dexers made very bad impressions on that audience.

It really is ALL about audience—the audience sitting in the seats in the room, the audience online at home, the audience reading 2nd and 3rd hand reports online. Maybe next year’s theme really ought to be audience, and instead of loud egoblasting, people could do some really close interrogation of the personas that we as bloggers construct and present to the world—as individuals, as cliques, and as a general group in the public eye. Follow that up with a strong revision that moves bloggers from who we are to what we can be if we really want to make an impact on society and maybe you’d have something that touched on EVERY attendee’s interests. After all, if they attend Gnomedex, they want to be heard, and if we want to be more than an annoying mosquito buzzing in people’s ears, it’s about time we think about what people actually hear when we talk and how we can make sure it’s a message we really want to promote.