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Copyright |
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©2005 Jason Cross
All Rights Reserved
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 Sunday, August 25, 2002 |
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This weekend was Gnomedex - the Lockergnome convention held annually. I have the pleasure of calling many of the Lockergnome staff my friends, so that, combined with the fact that we're doing a CrossPaths-Lockergnome partnership assured my being there.
Gnomedex is great.
I've been to a number of "computer conventions" and none of them compare. There were about 400 attendees, which makes it relatively small, but that's part of the charm because you actually meet people, recognize and get to know them. Chris Pirillo, the Lockergnome himself (and host of TechTV's Call for Help) brought in a great group of speakers. What's really cool about Gnomedex is that these speakers don't just talk and leave; instead they mingle in the crowd, attend the other talks, and chat with the people at the show. It's pretty amazing.
Highlights from the show for me were:
* Seeing Chris and Gretchen again for the first time since last year.
* Seeing Phil and Kacie again for the first time since last spring.
* Meeting Jennifer Goodenow from Spindustry finally!
* Getting a great positive response for the new CrossPaths Pay-As-You-Go plan and the Gnomies.com ISP.
* Getting up on stage with Chris and Lori to talk about the new Gnome ISP with CrossPaths, my cell phone ringing (in silent mode) and cutting out my microphone, and Lori attempting to answer my cell as I talked with it still attached to my belt clip.
* Meeting the sales people for MediaFour, the Des Moines-based company who creates MacDrive. Particularly the cute saleswoman.
* Being confused for someone else twice (two different people confusing me for two different people), one of who thought I went to Iowa State, another thought I was their friend's old roommate.
* Walking back into the Marriott lobby after booth teardown and finding Steve Gibson, Leo Laporte, and Mark Thompson just sitting together on some couches in a corner of the lobby just talking.
* Helping Jennifer sneak Chris' digital camcorder behind his back and recording people congratulating him about Gnomedex, including recording Steve Gibson, Leo Laporte, and the outstanding Megan Morrone, the latter two of who are actual TechTV celebs. It's just pretty cool thinking that I have actually filmed two TV personalities. It was really funny when I was prepping Megan with the "Ok, counting down from 3, 2, 1..." and she was like "Yeah, I get it, though they don't usually say '1'".
* Talking about blogs with Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger.
* Learning that there was a point in 2001 when Evan was the only Blogger employee, yet they came back from it and are arguably the most successful blogging company out there.
* Learning how Phil "Pud" Kaplan of FuckedCompany got his start and basically makes all this money from completely automated page systems he's created.
* Seeing Leo Laporte and David Lawrence sing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to each other during the karaoke session.
* Ms Gnomedex 2002 - Gnome-Girl's winning performance.
* Hearing Doc Searls talking about the fact that open-source and commercial software both have their place and that much innovation is due to commercial software - which is absolutely what I believe but was not expecting to hear.
* Standing right there next to Steve Gibson listening to Doc speak.
* Lori and her usual party antics!
* Finding out how much of a Gnome-geek Steve Mays from Learfield / RadioIowa is.
Oh, and there was so much more. Like I said, it was a great great time. Heck, meeting Evan Williams and Megan Morrone was worth it!
Pictures to come... |
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