ETech - Final thoughts

I started out the conference finding it difficult to get oriented. The first half of each day was a burst of small 15 minute presentations which were hard to follow from a tending perspective right away. But by the second day I got the hang of it. Another on day one, many of the sessions were presenting things I already heard through other Internet channels. I was surprised by just how much I knew simply by reading the small circle of blogs/RSS feeds I keep up on. But soon enough, there was plenty I'd never heard of before. Lots of learning happening.

Again, as at the Accelerating Change conference I attended last November, actively taking notes during all the sessions was invaluable. Simple things like hyper-linking to things presenters brought up in their talks immediately would be something I could never remember after the fact. I'm looking forward to going back through the notes and thinking about something to the topics presented in more depth. I think I'll also put together a ETech blog list (from blog links I collected in my posts) and track some of the speakers for a while. I'll post the list once I get them all collected.

One thing about the conference was that it was real energizing. Mostly from the perspective of getting plugged into what's happening by the innovators who live at the beginning of the technology adoption life-cycle. It also gave me a clearer perspective and appreciation for some of the innovative things happening around in my own work place. Yes I admit it, I'm probably spoiled.

Finally, all of the real innovative stuff was being done by real small groups of people--even in orgs the size of the BBC. Small is the way to go. But how can big orgs control small groups and make sure they're heading in the right direction? Usually, they impose bureaucracy to minimize risk. Nothing earth shattering there. But the bureaucracy kills the pace of innovation. What's the right balance point? Tough, tough problem that I haven't really heard anyone address with a solid solution yet.

My daily summaries can be found here:

• Day 1 thoughts
• Day 2 thoughts
• Day 3 thoughts