] Just some of the themes you'll find reflected in this
] year's ETech program are: The grand vision of web
] services is morphing into the more useful--and
] profitable--goals of providing alternate interfaces to
] data and services. Social networking services are groping
] for more dimensions of value. Wireless meshes made of
] small devices continue to accelerate decentralization.
] Mobile devices of many forms and functions now inhabit
] desktops, pockets, and cars. Hackers have discovered the
] joys of cracking open devices to prod and mod, using
] cheap, off-the-shelf technology.

Conference Schedule for E-Tech 2005. I am really loooking forward to several talks, and reconnecting with people that I met at FOO Camp. I will be presenting during the Maker's Faire Wednesday Night.

However I am more and more confused about this conference the more I think about it. I've talked with Decius and we both agree: This conference seems to have an identity crisis. Who is their target audience? I'm not sure I know. With an extremely heavy price tag ($1250 for early-bird special), it is out of reach to all except people sent by their companies. My feel is the conference is aimed at getting corporate support/adoption of new waves in technology. Certainly putting together a showcase of possible "the next thing"s and presenting them is one way. But you alienate all your small/Hobbyist OSS programmers/researchers who *are* developing the next thing. If you are running a conference on "Emerging technology," who do you want as your audience? Hackers or Suits (or hackers with a picture of a suit printed on a black T-shirt)?

Take Blogging for example. It is largely a grassroots effort. IBM didn't embrace social networking and help drive it into the mainstream. While corporate support can certainly drive technological adoption of practices or standards, it is not required. In fact the road to hell is paved with corporate pushed bullshit "technologies." So I guess the question isn't who is the conference aimed at, but rather what do the organizers hope to accomplish?

If the point is to make money, this will certainly do it. However, having met and talked with several O'Reilly folks, my impression is profit doesn't drive all their actions (which is probably why I like them so much and want to do more with them in the future). They are recognized leaders in the publishing/media space, and I doubt this conference provides a massive amount of revenue for them (At least in my understanding, which is limited).

So what is the point? Major adoption of a technology by a corporation isn't necessary, and in fact can have the opposit effect. In my experience (and I have never really worked for a large company), large companies (certainly the ones that will drop $1200+ to send an employee somewhere) don't jump on the bandwagon of a technology, especially a OSS technology they didn't develope, over... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]