Wilson’s Gnomedex Report Day 2: Bao Wow!

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
by Lamarr Wilson

As I leave the hotel and wait for a taxi cab, I run into some familiar faces from the party the night before.  It was the other scholarship winner, Robert Rosenfeld (aki jwire4 in the Pirillo chat room) and his father Stuart.  Robert is 12 years old and a big Pirillo fan. He also does a live stream on his blog and it’s impressive for someone as young as him.  His dad was super friendly, and after introducing myself, he says, “Want to share a cab?” Then, he pays for the cab and refuses to take my money.  What a nice guy.

Upon entering the upper floor of the conference center, I’m amazed at the nice layout and especially the breakfast food (hey, breakfast was free, so I was starving!).  After eating and visiting HP’s cool display of PC’s (including the HP Touchsmart), I entered the conference center, and wow, was it nice!  The Rosenfeld’s and I sat together and we had a ball.  There were plugs for your laptops, so everyone had laptops.  Why did I feel like I was the only one with Windows? The whole place was glowing with Macbook logos and ringing with the sound of iPhones.  My Sony laptop and my Treo were not happy at all…

After Chris opened up the conference, there was a great presentation from Kris Krug, a world renown photographer. I’m so glad they opened with him because it set the tone of the conference. He gave some great tips on how to take pictures, since MANY of us there had DSLR cameras, and the room’s lighting wasn’t exactly great for picture taking. He was funny, engaged the audience, and the tips really helped. He encouraged us to set the &*$%# white balance which was hilarious. Some of his awesome photography is here at Flickr. Another great thing: Day 3, he sat right next to me, so you
know I unloaded him with questions, and he was very gracious and really helped me. Thanks Kris!

Photo credit: penmachine

The presentation that was the highlight for me was Mark Bao, the young guy that I met on Day 1.  A shocker came as Chris introduced him…he was 16!!!  He seemed so mature for 16, but then, he owns his own business, he’s sold 3 Facebook apps, and is on the road to make a lot of money very soon.  His presentation was with Francine Hardaway and was entitled “Meet Generation Y”.  It was a discussion between Mark and Francine on the differences between Generation Y and Francine’s generation (I believe she was in her 50’s or 60’s).  It was a lively discussion, and I learned a lot about kids with his mindset and how they feel about school (it’s boring).  The whole educational system is archaic and needs to be reworked to benefit kids who are exposed to technology and want to pursue careers in it.  He stated that there are no business/finance classes and nothing is helping him towards his entrepreneurship and that struck me.  This was hist first ever presentation, and I thought he did a great job.  He wrote a column on things he learned from speaking at Gnomedex that was super practical.  Thanks Mark! Watch the presentation here.

There was another presentation from Beth Kanter about nonprofits using social media to raise money.  While I certainly enjoyed the message, her love for people, and the causes she supported, I didn’t like what the presentation turned into.  It started to sound like a church revival with her asking the audience for money, and a hat was passed around in the audience (not cool).  Don’t get me wrong, the cause was excellent and in the end they raised a lot of money, but I thought it was the wrong approach for a presenter at a conference like this. Watch the presentation here.

The conference ended with Ignite Seattle doing a great skit of presentations, and the finale of the day was great with nearly everyone on stage dancing. Watch the presentation here. The after party to me was boring.  It was at a lounge/club and I’m not into that scene so I left and just chilled at “home” watching the Olympics and eating pizza.  All in all a great day! Stay tuned for Day 3.

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