Defrag Blog

The opening keynote at Defrag will be given by Alex Wright. I’ve been emailing back and forth with Alex a bit about the topic, title, etc — and thought I’d share

The Deep History of Oral Culture and Social Networks

As the Internet continues to evolve into a global real-time conversation, we are witnessing the emergence of a new kind of “oral” culture online. Untold millions of people are starting to use the written word in ways that bear less and less resemblance to traditional literate modes of expression, and sound more and more like “talking.” This new oral culture is about more than just people mimicking speech online, however. We are starting to see the emergence of subtler - and far more interesting - patterns of interaction rooted in ancient pre-literate modes of cultural engagement. To understand what’s really happening, we need to broaden our gaze beyond the present moment and consider the deep history of human information consumption.

Today’s the last day for Defrag Early Bird pricing, and you should really hop on this train! Invariably, someone will email me (or Brad) next week and ask for a code to discount things down to early bird prices, so let me just give you the answer now — sorry, no. The reason (which I’ve laid out in detail before) is simple: we have conference planning down to a science, and if we want to give our attendees the best experience possible, there are cut-off dates after which goods/services get more expensive. It’s just simple economics — so do it now.

Why, you ask? Oh, that’s an easy one:

Esther Dyson, Paul Kedrosky, Alex Wright, Jeff Ma, Jeff Jonas, David Weinberger, Scott Porad, Maggie, Fox, Laura Merling, Chris Shipley, JP Rangaswami, Jeff Dachis, Vinnie Mirchandani, and about 50 other INCREDIBLE speakers.

But beyond them, sponsors like blekko, Yolink, Alcatel-Lucent, Meshin, MarkLogic, Connect2Field, Gist, Lyzasoft, Brainpark, and about 20 other AMAZING companies.

But beyond that, an atmosphere that’s welcoming and intimate; that fosters discussion and innovation; that ensures that you’ll make new connections and get your synapses firing.

Throw in power strips, awesome wifi, and a setting (the Omni Interlocken Resort) that’s not in the valley and you’re in for 2 days of pure inspiration. For the record: I’m dead serious about the “not in the valley” setting — anymore, conferences in the valley have “drive by attendees” — as it’s too easy for too many people to check-in and then head back to the office. Not us. Our attendees come to give Defrag their full attention; to hold up for two days and devote themselves to deep discussions. It’s probably of note that more than 70% of Defrag’s attendees come from outside of the state of Colorado.

If you’ve been in the past, come see us blow away all of the past year’s experiences. If you haven’t been, what in the hell are you waiting for?

Bottom-line: I’m a sales guy (promoter) at heart, but I’m also honest to a fault - and I mean it when I say I’ll put us up against ANYTHING else running this fall. Yes, I think Defrag 2011 is going to be *that* good.

You owe it to yourself to come see if I’m right.