What I’m finding most interesting about Gnomedex as a whole is the lack of suits and the presence of families. Families at a technology conference; imagine that. We’ve come a long way since the Comdex porno wars.
To my mind, today’s lineup of speakers—
Leo
—is going to be far more interesting than yesterday’s.Before we get rolling today, I spent some time trawling the weblogs. Doc’s got a gem started in “
An adult’s garden of clues
,” but my jaw dropped when I read the second half of it. While I absolutely agree that what Doc calls “that harrumphy editorial style” is over, displaced by the journalism 3.0 practiced by the webloggers, we desperately need to find sustainable business models.People are informing themselves instead of just consuming, like baby birds, what the entertainment industry and their pet news divisions spit up, but it’s not enough. Doc’s right when he says “the big periodical publishers can’t do a damn thing about it” [the grassroots journalism 3.0 phenomenon], but he’s mistaken about the big publishers never having an intent to become blockbuster stars.
Like book publishers, periodical publishers crave the hit-maker. They tolerate “mid-listers” for only so long and are always looking to document—or better, create—the Next Big Thing. The difference is that publishing still tries to maintain this a contrived air of gentlemanly composure behind mahogany and leather. It was always a façade, as phony and obvious as a bad hairpiece, but it’s still there. The record business, on the other hand, never bothered to even try to be anything other than shills and carney barkers. In some ways they’re much more honest. Or maybe it’s that their dishonesty is so much more transparent.
In much the same way as weblogging has changed journalism forever, I think conferences like Gnomedex are changing the way technology conferences work.
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