Supernova
Was I the only blogger not attending Supernova 2002, which ended yesterday in Palo Alto? Exploring the distributed future was the theme of the conference. Intelligence is moving to the edges, say the organizers.
Three cheers for Kevin Werbach, editor of Esther Dyson's legendary Release 1.0, and the driving force behind Supernova. Look at the list of speakers he lined up: Google co-founder Sergey Brin, pundit Clay Shirky, visionary Howard Rheingold. The agenda featured everything from the critical challenges of collaborative business to the promise and peril of Web services and the conflicts over digital media. Lots of the technologies being talked about — WiFi wireless LANs, streaming video, Weblogs — were employed during the discussions.
Speaking of Weblogs, for all those unable to attend the conference the Supernova Gloup Blog, running on Moveable Type, provided live coverage of the event. This blog is now the "official" report on Supernova. Here's an excerpt:
"Howard Rheingold starts by observing how kids pass notes via SMS on mobile phones... How will the world look with 1000 times more mobile phones, each with 1000 times more bandwidth and 1000 times more storage and 1000 times more processing and display power??The power of collective action should breed new types of behavior. Self governance. Distributed problem solving. Reputation checking to meet strangers. New market (buyer/seller) behaviors. Just in time and along the way job search?
?A 15-20 year old cohort around the world is the first texting generation. They share a zeitgeist. Values about being constantly connected. Some audience questions about the dangers of mob rule..."
The bottom line from the organizers: "As bad as the market outlook may be, can you afford not to have a strategy? Somewhere between yesterday's irrational exuberance and today's reactionary pessimism lies tomorrow's strategic wisdom."
