Mike Maney

Tag: norlin

  • Two Brain-Pounding Conferences: Defrag + Monktoberfest

    Defrag 2011It’s now just under two weeks until the 5th annual Defrag. No tech conference gets me more excited. Defrag is held each November on the outskirts of Denver, bringing 300 of the technology industry’s smartest thinkers together for a unique and intense mix of keynotes and hallway interaction. This will be my fourth Defrag and I suspect this one will make my brain hurt just as much as the previous ones. Agendas honestly don’t get any better than the ones that hatch from organizer Eric Norlin’s sun-soaked head.

    Alcatel-Lucent is one of the lead sponsors of Defrag and we have some special surprises in store for this year’s anniversary edition (we are also the Community Underwriter of Eric’s other kickass conference centered around APIs and cloud computing, Gluecon). The conference is nearly sold-out (Eric is capping attendees at 325), so if you can make it out to Denver, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to get some of that sweet sponsor discount moving your way.

    Keeping to the cool conference theme, I also attended a great Defrag precursor the other week: Monktoberfest. How do you top a conference that began with a simple tweet:

    Monktoberfest: The tweet that started it all

     

     

     

     

     

    Check out Stephen’s post on the official background story.

    As the name implies, yes, there was beer involved. Good beer. Very, very good beer. And lobster rolls. Can’t believe I almost forgot about the lobster rolls. But the food and beer were secondary to the content the gang at Redmonk pulled together for the 150 or so attendees. It was a killer lineup of speakers exploring “how technology is impacting the way we socialize and how the way we socialize is influencing the way we build and use technology.” The exclusive conference was high on brains and low on douchebags, something not terribly common in conferences focused on social. Monktoberfest is without a doubt on my must-attend for 2012 (provided my liver recovers in time).

  • The Blur(con)ing of Human Computer Interaction

    blurcon

    I’ve never made any excuses for being a big fan and supporter of the conferences organized by Eric and Kim Norlin (and their dedicated group of pool hustlers family and friends who make the events run smoothly). I still have a brainache from my first Defrag. And Alcatel-Lucent (my employer) is putting serious weight behind Gluecon this year, a conference that has become *the* must-attend gathering for developers working with the APIs and the cloud.

    This year Eric and Kim also introduced a new conference. It’s called Blurcon. And I am highly bummed I’m not going to make it (crazy travel schedule). What is Blurcon? Let’s let Eric describe it in his own words:

    …we stand on the verge of a major revolution in the models of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). A revolution that will fly right past academic and into a world of retail, medical, gaming, military, public event, sporting, personal and marketing applications. From multi-touch to motion capture to spatial operating environments, over the next 10 years, everything we know about HCI will change.

    Take a look at the agenda for day one. If you can get to the Orlando area in February and you’d like to stretch the gray matter in your head to the point of breaking, get yourself registered for Blurcon.