Defrag Blog

I’m pleased to announce Defrag’s advisory board for the 2008 conference: Esther Dyson, Paul Kedrosky, Chris Shipley and Clay Shirky.

At least that’s how it stands for now (these things are rarely ever “complete” - and additions are always possible).

Nonetheless, I’m loving this lineup — here’s what we’ve got:

Esther: internet guru and court jester, and the organizer of the old PC Forum shows (which you’ve all me heard drone on about wrt “greatness”).

Paul: VC, media personality, finance expert and all-around really smart guy (Paul and I rarely get to interact, so thankfully he’s on CNBC regularly).

Clay: Was an expert on “social software” before social software existed (and he’s got a new book coming out).

Chris: probably the world’s foremost authority on startups and launches, and the organizer of DEMO.

Not bad, eh? Let’s just say I’m feeling like we’re starting off with a good foundation.

Steve Larsen was the first guy to pay me to work on a conference. At the time, Steve was running marketing for Net Perceptions - and he signed me up (via Chris Locke) to work on personalization.com and their accompanying conferences. I came into that position incredibly green (really only on the strength of Locke saying - “hire eric”), and Steve was nice enough to pick up the role of mentor and teach me a bunch about tech marketing and conferences.

In the process of all of that, Steve and Chris introduced me to all of their friends — people like Esther Dyson, Ann Winblad, Martha Rogers, and countless others. And if you want to get a sense of just how deep Steve’s network of connections goes — go read his post about the meeting that took place in June of 1996 (afterwards dubbed, “Jerry’s Kids”).

Quoting a short bit from that:
The sessions begin the next day with a most welcome edge of childishness. There are scatterings of toys to play with, miniature slinkys, puzzles, silly putty. No agenda –we make up the rules.

Jerry leads the group in making a determination on what we want to talk about, where do we wish to focus our energy and then he moderates. It’s a wild group and while I first get the feeling that Jerry’s task is somewhat akin to herding cats but after a time he appears more like Coach Pat Riley coaching the Los Angeles Lakers in their prime. Some people go off and prepare, then come back and present to the group, others present with little to no preparation.

So, why, you ask, am I bringing all of this up?

Well, the other day, Steve dropped me a note to tell me that Defrag looked “like something special” and he wanted to do anything he could to help (I accepted). That was nice. But even better was realizing that I have Jerry (see above) signed up to lead some open space stuff, Esther coming to lead us on a wild ride, and now Steve will be there……I wasn’t at the June ‘96 meeting, but it almost seems like we’re “putting the band back together.”

Is it possible that the magic from that meeting carries over? There’s only one way to find out….and this week is actually your best way to find out. Use the code “Norlin12″ to receive $100 off of the early bird pricing — a *this week* only deal that expires on Friday, so don’t delay.

(sidenote: Steve is now CEO and co-founder of the code-search engine Krugle.)

Lou Paglia, who I found through a comment on this blog, is now on-board as a speaker at Defrag. If you don’t know Lou, check out his blog.

And while you’re checking out things, check out the most recent agenda. Yes, it is still *very* rough, but it should start to give you an idea of where our head’s at.

One last note: Elizabeth Churchill has joined the advisory board (we’re still getting a pic and bio up).

And the hits just keep on coming…

Just off of a great call with Jerry Michalski — discussing the myriad things he sees floating in and around Defrag.

On the “tagline” problem: Jerry’s suggesting “social intelligence.”

He also brought up visualization as a major area of work to be done in the Defrag space (specifically the ability to represent threads of discussion through linkable, widgetized visualization thingies — that’s a technical term ;-).

Jerry’s breadth and depth of knowledge around these topics is immediately apparent. We’re lucky to have him on the advisory board.

Hang on tight folks - when this advisory board sets their mind to putting the right people on stage, I have a feeling we’re all gonna be amazed.

other notes from jerry:
1. let’s get some interns and a wiki and document the things we figure out a Defrag.
2. let’s put a projector on a side wall of the room, so that people can add context to what’s being spoken about.
3. let’s work through jerry’s acronym — “MADA” — memory, analytics, discourse and action.