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.

RE: Ideas