Eric Norlin
Why the “NoSQL” moniker is useful – for now
There’s been a lot of crowing as of late from folks that wish the whole NoSQL “movement” (where “NoSQL” means “not only SQL” – but gets misinterpreted a LOT) had been named something else. Since the whole movement is essentially engineers at this point, I thought I’d weigh in (I’m just a lowly marketing guy, [...]
A Startup Guy and His Tale of Recovery
I’m a startup guy. I didn’t know that until I was already neck-deep in a startup, but it’s true. I often get asked why Glue’s sponsors are so dominated by startups. Partially that’s because guys like Techweb (producers of Cloud Connect) have “national account” reps for the big guys; folks that can pick up a [...]
The Value is in the Glue
One the recurring themes I keep seeing is that the adoption of cloud computing is being driven by our current sucky economic circumstances. I don’t disagree that the macro-economy is a *contributing* factor in cloud adoption, but I really don’t think it’s the primary driving factor. Rather, I think cloud adoption is part of a [...]
What, exactly, is a “post-cloud” world?
If you’ve bothered to read the Gluecon site, you’ve probably picked up on my techno-marketing-babble-jargon. Namely, the word “post-cloud.” When I first wrote that, I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I knew I was trying to convey what things are like on the other side of this “cloud debate.” For the next 12-18 months, [...]
A Note To My Colorado Friends
As a guy who organizes two tech conferences that take place in Colorado, I’m in a bit of a weird place. I’m part of that “Colorado tech community” via my friends/cohorts/biz partners — people like Brad Feld, Seth Levine, Andre Durand, Rob Johnson, Josh Fraser, John Minnihan, David Cohen, etc — but I’m also not [...]
Rhyming History
I must be getting old (er). In my pursuit to have even a beginner’s grasp of what’s going on around this cloud stuff this year, I’ve joined about 300 “groups” (what us old guys used to call “mailing lists”). One of those groups is the A6 working group — spearheaded by Gluecon keynoter Chris Hoff. [...]
APIs, TOS, and building a hooked web
Let me throw some things against the wall and see if anything sticks. This week I confirmed Chris Messina (of OAuth, and now Activity Streams fame) and Jeff Lindsay (who gave an awesome talk on Webhooks last year) to speak at Gluecon. Simultaneously, I’ve been reading blog posts like this — where the punch-line is: [...]
Exploring the in-between
Yesterday provided an interesting cross-section of the spectrum of technology. On one side, you had Apple’s launch of the iPad. On the other side, you had Oracle’s press conference detailing the setting of Sun. It occurred to me this morning, as I poured over endlessly similar pieces about both events, that the two ends really [...]
Conference Diversity
Context: There was a bit of a kerfluffle last year when some folks started pointing out the lack of diversity at some tech events. I’ve addressed this in the past on the Defrag blog, but it’s worth saying again — this is a problem I’m aware of and actively working on (year in and year [...]
Wrapping up Defrag by looking ahead
Inspired by recent theories around the nature of the time-space continuum, specifically that the past crystallizes out of the future, I thought I’d “wrap-up” Defrag by trying to look ahead to 2010 — and the in process of doing so offer up some “what I learned” thoughts. I’d be remiss if I didn’t begin by [...]
Gluecon 2010 – even stickier
Is it December 2009 already? Where did *that* year go? If it’s the holidays, then it means one thing for sure: once, we ring in the New Year, my attention turns to Gluecon 2010. In case you missed it, last year was the inaugural Glue conference (a.k.a., “gluecon”). We set out to explore the set [...]
A product/solution idea?
Yes, I know I owe everybody a “defrag wrap-up post” — and it’s coming. Believe it or not, it really does take my brain about a month to reboot after the conference (maybe I’m just slow that way). So, I’m coming back on-line and have some thoughts gleaned from this year’s show – stay tuned. [...]
Behind the Scenes of Defrag
Sometimes the stuff that happens “behind the scenes” of Defrag is really worth sharing. What follows is the email that Paul Kedrosky sent to his panel participants today (posted with permission). Enjoy: Folks – Good to e-meet you all. For our session we’re going to have some fun next week by having a sprightly discussion [...]
The Exclusion that is a Community
A caveat on this post: I hesitated to write this – mostly because I think it’s very easy for the author (me) to cross a line of being provocative for provocative-ness’ sake, and for readers/commenters (you) to misinterpret my meaning here. Please be gentle. There were a few tweets flying around at JiveWorld last week [...]
Woke up this morning…
When I woke up this morning, I found my brain thinking (without me, apparently) about way back in the 90s. Do you remember when web pages really were static? When it was all html? Do you remember the debates about whether or not companies like General Motors even *needed* a website? (For all of you [...]
