noteworthy wrote:
Jonathan Harris:

Millions of dollars are spent each year at conferences that people attend to be inspired, to learn the latest memes and speak the latest jargon. They stand around in hotel lobbies, drinking bottled water and swapping business cards. They look at what everyone else is doing, and try to figure out how to apply what they see to their own particular endeavor. These conferences lead to what I call "city ideas".

City ideas have to do with a particular moment in time, a scene, a movement, other people's work, what critics say, or what's happening in the zeitgeist. City ideas tend to be slick, sexy, smart, and savvy, like the people who live in cities. City ideas are often incremental improvements -- small steps forward, usually in response to what your neighbor is doing or what you just read in the paper. City ideas, like cities, are fashionable. But fashions change quickly, so city ideas live and die on short cycles.

The opposite of city ideas are "natural ideas", which account for the big leaps forward and often appear to come from nowhere. These ideas come from nature, solitude, and meditation. They're less concerned with how the world is, and more with how the world could and should be.

David Lynch:

Ideas are like fish. Originality is just the ideas you caught.

I would disagree with this a bit. For sure, there are a lot of cons that are exactly as you describe. Especially industry cons (HIMSS for example) where people just go to keep up with the Joneses by looking at what everyone else is doing.

But I think a lot of cons are more about inspiration and recombination. Health 2.0 for example. Or TED. Or any of the HealthCamps. A lot of un-conferences are good this way, although lately, they just feel like parties for zombified unemployed people.

Jonathan Harris:

Millions of dollars are spent each year at conferences that people attend to be inspired, to learn the latest memes and speak the latest jargon. They stand around in hotel lobbies, drinking bottled water and swapping business cards. They look at what everyone else is doing, and try to figure out how to apply what they see to their own particular endeavor. These conferences lead to what I call "city ideas". City ideas, like cities, are fashionable. But fashions change quickly, so city ideas live and die on short cycles.

flynn23 wrote:

I would disagree with this a bit. For sure, there are a lot of cons that are exactly as you describe. Especially industry cons (HIMSS for example) where people just go to keep up with the Joneses by looking at what everyone else is doing.

But I think a lot of cons are more about inspiration and recombination. Health 2.0 for example. Or TED. Or any of the HealthCamps. A lot of un-conferences are good this way, although lately, they just feel like parties for zombified unemployed people.

As a TED presenter, Jonathan Harris would no doubt agree with your distinction between industry cons and things like TED and PopTech.