Pop!Tech Recap

Posted by: Carl Smith on Monday November 10, 2008

Earlier this year we were contacted by the great people at Pop!Tech about helping them design a new concept they had in allowing their community to work together. They envisioned this new web space as a place for people working on the forefront of innovation to connect and collaborate with people who are working to make the world a better place. Months later we were proud to see the collaboration between nGen Works and Hashrocket spring to life as the Pop!Tech Hub.

One of the biggest benefits of connecting with Pop!Tech was the opportunity to go to their conference. Unlike most conferences, Pop!Tech is attended by an eclectic group of industry leaders, scientists, technologists, social change agents, artists, educators, press, bloggers, explorers (think North Pole), and thought-leaders who are absolutely changing our planet for the better. I could easily fill up two days writing about Pop!Tech, but instead I’ll hit our personal highlights and refer you to Pop!Tech for their conference overview.

Ben Zander

Ben Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and a member of the faculty at the New England Conservatory. His talk on the Art of Possibility was a hilarious eye-opener on how things change when we are willing to look at the possibilities and opportunities that surround us everyday instead of focusing on the world of the downward spiral. We were fortunate enough to speak with him later about the challenges we see with nGen Works and how we can approach them based on his insight.

Malcolm Gladwell

More than any other speaker at Pop!Tech I was excited to see Malcolm Gladwell. As he had with Tipping Point, he showed how seemingly unrelated items impacted each other and made us realize how easily we could change the world. As fate would have it, Travis and Desi from Dev Chix got to have lunch with Malcolm and his mom later that day. I wasn’t jealous at all, not of those jerks. Later I got to talk with Malcolm briefly about his new book Outliers. It looks like another must read.

Laura Waters-Hinson

As we were heading out to dinner one night with Obie and Desi of Hashrocket fame, a young woman in the lobby was in need of a ride to get food also. It turned out that she was Laura Waters-Hinson, the director and executive producer of As We Forgive. She shared with us the amazing story of how victims of a genocidal bloodbath in Rwanda had to try and forgive the killers who murdered their families as the government released the killers back into the community. We also found out through a weird twist of conversation that she went to Sunday School with members of Dread Clampitt, an obscure new grass band I like.

John McGah

At the speakers dinner we met John McGah, a fellow attendee that was saving the world as many of the Pop!Tech crowd seems prone to do. His project, Give Us Your Poor brings together the latest research, multimedia, celebrities, non-celebrities and homeless to try and end homelessness. What was particularly impressive about his efforts is a CD project that paired homeless musicians with superstars like Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Keb’ Mo’, Bonnie Raitt and Natalie Merchant. Hopefully we’ll find a way to help John in the months ahead.

Erin McKean

Erin McKean is a self-proclaimed word geek, and former editor of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, who is on a mission to debunk common misconceptions and elevate the use- and cool-factor of dictionaries. Her newest project is called Wordnik.

Wordnik was built on the idea that people learn words best in context — by seeing words right in the middle of a sentence, where they belong — and not from dry dictionary definitions. When you learn words in context, you learn a lot more than “what it means” — you learn how a word is used, when, where, and by whom.

Wordnik is so much fun if you’re a word junkie, you can even find out popularity of words over time. They have an entry for ridonculous, what more could you want?

Paul Simon

We offered to be his bodyguard, but ended up having a few glasses of wine and talking economics instead. You never know who you might meet at Pop!Tech.

Yahoo Buzz Marketing Team

At the closing party we got to meet several of the members of the Yahoo Buzz Marketing team. These guys are more than a little brilliant, and ass-kissing like that got nGen Works in as a participant of their Purple Pedals promotion. Basically Yahoo took some cool bikes, painted them purple, attached a solar panel, GPS, digital camera and modem to them and now they snap shots and upload them to PurplePedals.com for people to checkout. Our bike should be here next week so look for a follow-up post when it arrives!

As you can see from this long post that I tried to keep short, Pop!Tech is a great time that can create amazing opportunities. If you ever get the chance we strongly recommend attending.

Oh, and if you ever meet Jesse Ashlock ask him to tell you his Sarah Palin joke. It is so wrong and so funny. (For those who may have forgotten Sarah Palin was a character on Saturday Night Live.)

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