So another Gnomedex comes and goes. 3 days in beautiful Seattle (every year the weather is awesome – which is nuts because we are inside all day).

When I describe the conference to my coworkers and clients (representatives from both groups showed up this year), I usually say:

This is the only conference I will pay for out of my own pocket – every year
Hands-down the most fun tech conference I have ever attended
Cool people, fun discussions, engaged crowd, a little controversy and a lot of laughs.
Chris and Ponzi throw an amazing 3 day party every year

This year the speaker list was kinda thin compared to year’s past. There were a couple of standouts, a couple of Gnomedex regulars and a few new faces. Some were good. Some were so-so. I missed some and caught some.

The Great

I have heard Guy Kawasaki speak before – he was fun, smart, glib (as usual). No great declarations or “a-ha! moments” – except for the fact that I am going to try to beat his record for starting up and shipping Truemors 🙂

Darren Barefoot, Gnomedex Alumnus, did an amazing job of connecting with all of these entrepreneur/business/marketing/social media-types that attended and yet did NOT talk about technology or ways to make money – he brought the Staceys of the world into focus. You can find the video of his post here

Derek Miller touched everyone there with his amazing story of courage and survival while surprising us with his great sense of humor and class. In three years of Gnomedex, I haven’t seen a standing ovation yet – his was deserved. I hope I get to shake his hand at Gnomedex 2008.

Brady’s IGNITE Seattle was fun – 5 presenters with 5 minutes each to give a presentation. I missed the IGNITE event at the CHAC (thanks Kevin!) but it was great to see Dave McClure and Deb Schultz do their thing onstage at Gnomedex.

SOYLENT, um, er, GNOMEDEX IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!!!! The Hallway at Gnomedex, the Thursday Kickoff-Mixer, The Friday Cocktail Party, the Lunch Tables on Friday and Saturday. Gnomedex is an amazing event for meeting people. From discussing possible business, and meeting guys who you read every day, to finding amazing startups, Gnomedex is an incredible magnet for attracting cool people who GET SH!T DONE. Hanging out with Marc Canter from Broadband Mechanics, Robert Scoble from Podtech, David Geller from Eyejot, Nikolaj Nyholm from Polar Rose, Scott Rafer, Deb Schultz, Renee Blodgett, Mike Tan, the Sawickipedia, Dave Schappell from Teachstreet, Keith Teare, Angel Djambazov from PopShops.com, Adam MetzKarin K, Rachael Clarke, Shannon, the guys from Waggle Labs, Chris Brogan from Video on the Net,, Britt Raybould, Ed S, David Levitt, and a ton of others is really what makes Gnomedex special.

Michael Linton had a pretty interesting talk (for me), but lots of folks in Twitterland werent digging his talk. His slides on Open Money can be found here.

The Not So Great

Robert Steele – very entertaining early. As a fan of all things open (open source, open ID, open architecture, open hardware, etc) his talk started out fun. It went way long, the conversation kinda died (I dont think the Gnomedex crowd knew what to make of him). Someone asked him about aliens.

Sterling D. Allan – the energy guy. Was not a great speaker, had way too many slides, was all over the map, and didn’t really engage the crowd. Alt Energy and Eco-business are two topics I follow, and even I got bored with his presentation. Unlike Robert Steele (who had too many things for us to check out) Mr Allan didn’t really have something for the crowd to hang onto. We all kinda sat there waiting for the raffle for the Wii.

Mahalo Kerfuffle – Jason started off presenting a deck about pollution on the web and it turned into a pitch for his new Search Engine, Mahalo – which is where Dave Winer called foul. Now in the past Gnomedex has had presentations that crossed the line into pitches (specifically the Rubel Weatherbug commercial from a few years ago) and the crowd got rowdy. This is Gnomedex, sponsors don’t get speaking gigs for their money, pitches are kinda looked down on (not sure if they are banned). Was Jason or Dave wrong? I dunno. I was enjoying Jason’s presentation until he got into how Mahalo was going to solve the problem – he should have kept going, engaging the crowd in a dialog and closed with the Mahalo slide or a call for a BoF meeting in the side room to discuss.

The Wifi – it is never great at Gnomedex.

Final thoughts:
I missed a couple of sessions due to the great conversations I was having in the hallways, so I can’t give a complete report on every session like year’s past. This year was fun as usual (as opposed to business as usual). I have yet to go to any conference where everything is perfect, every session rocks, every mixer is fun. Gnomedex is more intimate, more personal, more interactive and Chris/Ponzi try really hard to mix things up. This year it didn’t work perfectly – but it was still great because of the people there.

Every year Chris starts the show with something to the effect of “you get out of Gnomedex what you put into it”. I got a lot out of it.

I have no doubt Chris and Ponzi will listen to the feedback from the crowd this year.

PureEnergySystems.com

Energy is IT

out there on the leading and bleeding edge of energy tech
we are on the lead and bleed of internet

what we can do – how we empower – the tech on the planet

things could be worse

Need for clean energy
global warming
grid vulnerability (one well placed bullet)
distributed energy
power to the people
applianc-local level

cost of energy – Oil vs Renewable
oil goes up, renewables decreasing
nexus where they are starting to match

competing with grid electricity

ny major renewable could power the planet itself

“the stone age didnt end because they ran out of stone”
new ways of doiung things

dont go to the time we run out before we look for solutions
oil industry bully on the block from technology side

Imagine Universal Prosperity
freeenergynow.net

every time he hears the word impossible “so what” – flight, space travel, medicine

Evolution of ideas – all truth passes through three stages
ridiculed
violently opposed
accepted as self evident

one step ahead of the crowd = genius
2 steps – crackpot

legit modalities with working prototypes

free energy – redefine the field
energy sources that are free
sun, wind, tide, cold fusion, magnet motors

not coming from nowhere – just because you cant see radio waves doesnt mean they arn’t there

dont shut them out because they seem impossible

efficiency and conservation is as important

Give Seattle more gravity
combo of radar and make

20 slides 15 seconds – 5 min each
7 ignite speakers
mozes voting system

Boston, NY, SF, Beijing,

igniteseattle.com

Scotto – Make Art Not Content
Art that relies on the net as its medium
wikinovel
webcinema
LOLcats as Art
Threadless – built around artists
money removes from artistic response
What will be the true Sgt Peppers of internet art

Dave McClure
ARRRR
Acquisition
activation
retention
referral
revenue

Qualitative
Quantivtative
Comparative

conversion criteria, measurement
conversion metrics

hypothesize what customer lifecycle looks like

Deb Schultz – Start Weaving!

Beth Goza – 3rd Screen
awesome deck
lockdown

Leo Dirac – VC – how to make millions and keep nothing for yourself
embracingchaos.com/business

Brian Dorsey – noonhat.com
change the world thru lunch

lunch with someone new every day
start with lunch
instead of voting for me, please blog for me

Elan Lee
Dont be bored
crusade against boredom
we should all be carrying around buckets

Shifting money

“Money Jim, but not as we know it”

Shift Happens

phase shift, paradigm shift

BarCamp seattle
first heard of gnomedex

nothis first public presentation – first use of powerpoint 🙂

theory of money – problems and solutions
proactice of money
core reorganization
next steps
projectsions
pshifting

pshift (paradigm shift) happens
in its own good times
whether you like it or not
sometimes you see it coming

sometime in the next few years, everyone will be using open money
give some idea of why it will happen

when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change – max planck

logs -> wheels
materials and mass -> function

are we still shifting logs in cyberspace
not talking about what money is

The Theory of Money
the general condition of money – pours in – pours out
commodity
issued in volume
in the position of negotiating a zero sum game
primary function of money is it moves

its (money) function is to come and go
when gone its gone
it doesnt come back
value of $ lies in money itself

trouble – sitting between a trickledown and a pour away
coming in thin and going out fast

local aspect of money
making the resources that facilitate the economy where they are needed

Virtual Barrels

level in barrel up and down phenomenon
in virt bank you have virt level
transaction is virtual between two accounts
becomes self managing closed network

size of the system – no information of how big these can get
in millions rather than thousands
smaller the system the higher the reflux, flowback, regeneration – but less variety

look for balance

measure in any unit – time, KhW, and type

rules as agreed – conceive like an email group – rules determined by initiator and those who choose to join

when someone does favor a variety of options
pay off (out)
pay back (stop)
pay forward (away) – gift exchange dissipates and dies – doesnt scale, go far
pay round round)

closed loop currencies – regenerating concept

quasi-tribal economy

1 then 2, 3, 4, 5

neo tribalists do it with requisite variety

DIVERSITY – not locked into one closed loop – multiple
we are in many
society thrives on it

DIstributed – Open Code (of course)
load factors, stability, security

community currencies –
not replacement or alternatives used with not instead of dollars
agnostic
apolitical
internet dumb at the center, smart at the edges
tax accountable where tax applies
open not public
not in competition with anything
not impeded or in conflict
business friendly, persistent loyalty, income not discount

loyalty baased on collab rather than compete

SMB adv. over LB, XLB, XXLB

Markets are COnversations
money is the medium

conventional money carries one way
open money carries in others

open money is to normal
as a laser is to a flashlight

when you spend CC$
and they come back
you keep $

Practice of Money – SOlutions and Problems
1983
practice practice practice
lets.net

LETSystems
phone message recorder account program
singulatiries

do the whole thing for .25 per transaction
no bricks, mortar, stuff, admin – collective timesharing

1985 – Open Source distro
3k startups of this idea worldwide

Singularities
comp with one program – not that exciting
multicurrencies was their plan
lots said “do one first” – they got stuck as a result

from 92 – multiple CCs by software
in general – open money

development – no cost, regionally and locally managed
community way
smart cards

variant on united way
community way

smart cards – they have smart cards
8k card, 15 currencies, comes from 270mil
stored value
$10k – entire dev cost
POS device – pocket to pocket transfer

Comox Valley – community way, – no coverage in the western world
nothing local – banks radio, no movement
happend in 98-99

Structure of Scientific revolutions
thomas kuhn

perceptioin is reality
no persistent local success
no software to reach long tail

not a lot of breakthrough – stuck, without software to take thru the localization

Core Reorganization
Identities
take accounts in namespaces
names grouped in domains/contexts
recursive to N levels
accounts exchanged

Open Money Ontology
Geof Cheshire, Eric Harris Brown
4 entities
accoutns currencies, flows contexts

mesh of lined URI

“churn for the mesh”

rubyom.openmoney.info
cloud of records
cloud of knowing – doesnt mean everyone knows everything – all out there on the internet and can access with relevant permission
relates communities of identity
identity – reputation space – dont piss in the middle of the room
self mgmt thru the hierarchy of domains
being being being

communtiies of action
trade interact, relate, doiung

behavior in currency is YOU – where you matter

Next Steps
waiting for software for 10 years
published spec in 1995

Open Season
USP – very positive
cost of service – next to nil

development funding from applications
cc fundraising models

cost of getting a business on – $100
transaction cost on cards – $0

propogating it can raise lg sums of money local and other
funds itself on the inside

Playing Games
virtual worlds enough and time
virtual worlds communities
“real” world games

LETSplay – the game everyone wins
-tupperware deal
send them to the online game
fundamentally boring

interested in van city – biggest credit union in canada

where it matters
food security
cOOcounting
3rd World Development
funding open works

variety to match the challenges

Open Money Development Group
virtually coop
would work faster
contributions welcome

Money – virtual or real
money is the most active social network
whenever we spend money we are voting – what are we voting for?

1970s – entire economy ran on paper endorsed checks for a year – Ireland?

bountyup.com – supporting projects collectively

changeeverything.ca