Thursday, August 18, 2005

5PM Pacific: Arrived safely in San Francisco. 

Pictures: Self-portrait wearing a Blojosxm t-shirt. 

Can't get this song out of my head.  

File this under unconfirmed but curious factoids. I heard, in a Toronto coffee shop, that mild coffee actually has more caffeine than the strong stuff. The barista said they roast the beans longer to make the coffee stronger, and in doing so, boil off a bunch of the jolt. I don't know if it's true or not, but I've been getting the milder stuff since and enjoying it more.  

My comment spam keys file is getting pretty big. You're welcome to use it in your filtering of comment spam.  

Peter Forret: "What's so great about a photofeed?" 

Ed Cone: "You can blast away at Sheehan all you want, it doesn't silence the questions she has come to represent." 

Tim O'Reilly: "Why we can’t invite everyone..."  

Scoble: "Tim O'Reilly taught me to live the Foocamp life and for that I will forever be grateful." 

Me: I think Foocamp is a bad idea, esp now that we know that everyone has a veto, and if you dare complain you won't get an invite. That sounds like Stalinist Russia, or Animal Farm, not a free and open exchange of ideas. It's too much about pleasing one very quixotic and sensitive person. I'd like to see a list of people who are too outspoken to get an invite -- that would make a good group of people for an open retreat. Another problem is that they try to do open standards work at an invite-only event. Can't work. Forget it. It's like Davos, only much smaller and cheaper. In the end it's only as good as the guy who picks the people. If he lacks guts, the meeting is all about Gee whiz look who's here! And not about doing stuff. My opinion only. Of course I'll never get an invite, but if I did, I wouldn't go, as a matter of principle. I think if you go you're a tool. Hi Tim.  

BTW, I have done three conferences that were open to everyone, and the most interesting people were the people I didn't know and therefore would never have thought to invite. Seriously. The stars of each BloggerCon were new people, to me. Of course some of the people we sought out were pretty great too! My philosophy is open the doors wide and see who walks in. Exact opposite of the exclusive invite-only format. Come to the OPML Roadshow on Saturday for an idea of how that works.