eTech Wrap Up – a Rant and Rave

It has been about a week since I returned from Oreilly’s eTech Conference in San Diego. I figured now is a good a time as any to give a brief round up of the conference for those that weren’t in attendance. Well, it’s not so much a “round up” as it is a mix of my personal rants and raves.

1. First, to all the product vendors out there: AJAX is NOT an “emerging technology” anymore. It has emerged. Therefore, companies please stop talking about Ajax like its new, exciting or in any way is a differentiator for you. Enough said.
2. The theme of the conference was a tad ironic. Talking to this crowd about “Attenuation” and “Attention Management” is like preaching to a pack of hungry wolves about vegetarianism. At any given time you could look around and see 80% of the crowd flat out not paying attention to the guy talking about how to be more effective at focusing your attention (with rare exception). There they would all be obsessively typing away at the bazillion things competing for their attention: “what’s new on the wiki?”, “oh my god I haven’t checked my email in 30 seconds!”, “what are they saying on the IRC channel? Anything funny? No. How about now? No. And now?”, not to mention the million IM chat windows: “what session are you going to next? What session are you in right now?” So, attendees, next time you go to a session about attention management: try closing your laptop and disconnecting for just a couple minutes. If nothing else, its just polite.
3. Now for a little “wisdom.” Don’t get caught up in the surf, follow the under currents. Attenuation is honestly kind of lame, and no one really needs new calendaring software, or an email client. Even if it does have tags or uses Ajax. No, really, you don’t. So skip all the product demos and hang out in the hallways. Saddle up next to someone – anyone – and talk. Everything in the sessions has already emerged, or else the presenters would not have had time to prepare. The “emerging” part of the conference is taking place in the hallways. So don’t be shy: get out there.
   
   For me, I found that the most interesting undercurrent to be the application of game mechanics to product design. Discuss.
4. Identity is frick’n hard. Dick Hardt gave a great keynote (certainly one of the most entertaining) about SXIP, identity and trust; but the bottom line is this: solving this problem is almost as difficult as trying to explain it to someone. I spent more time drawing protocol diagrams, trying to explain the difference between authentication and authorization, and showing that, yes, a URL can be used as the basis for identity, than I did actually engaged in conversations about how we are going to solve the problem. Good luck to anyone trying to build a business in this space. You will need it. Seriously, good luck, because the solution is desparately needed.
5. More Werewolf! More Werewolf! Major props to Artur (also known as “that guy with the segway”) and Jane for hosting Werewolf – a game of deductive reasoning, lying, finger pointing, logic, debate and “Brrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiinsssss” (you would have to have been there).
6. Oh yeah: Holy crap.

But if I seem at all sour, it is only because I am being dramatic and attempting in my lame way to be funny. eTech was actually a lot of fun, and a conference I hope I have the privilege of attending frequently.