Mind Blown at Defrag
Defrag is an unusual conference. The simplest way to describe it as TED for geeks. Lots of these tech folks are really smart, and when given a forum to speak about whatever they want might result with interesting ideas. The conference creator, Eric Norlin, figured there is no shortage of cloud, social business, mobile, etc. events, but [...]
Upcoming Conference: Defrag
Coming up next is Defrag – this is a pretty unique conference. Unlike most of my events that are focused on telecom, this one is a bit of a tangent. The content is phenomenal. The conference is 5 years old, and organizer Eric Norlin works to keep it intimate. Eric describes Defrag as the first [...]
The Dreaded Predictions List
Ahhhh, December – how I love thee. I have this annual tradition in December where I completely suspend work for the last two weeks of the month, and I spend time assessing the past year (how I performed on personal goals; I’m big on writing down goals, etc), and plan out the coming 12 months [...]
Defrag Wrap-up, Part 1
Defrag’s over, and my sense was that it was our best yet. I wanted to share some quick thoughts/reflections, and then come back in a later post (in a few weeks) and share my “here’s where we’re gonna improve” post that I do annually. 1. One of the ironies of being the guy that creates [...]
The Cloud Economics : Emerging Signals
Over the weekend, I finished reading the recently released Microsoft paper on the “Economics of the cloud”. As I head to Denver today for participating in the defrag panel on the impact of cloud computing in the enterprise irregulars track, I just…
Breaking the Echo Chamber
I’m writing this morning in a text editor, as I wait for internet to be restored at my house. And I’m suddenly thinking that I’ve got to get a 3G iPad or a mifi device (or an HTC Evo), because MAN do I feel cut-off from the rest of the world. All of that got [...]
“Why don’t you move it to California?”
It’s a question that I hear probably 6-8 times per “conference cycle” (ie, 6 to 8 times per year for every conference I run): “Why don’t you move Defrag to California?” Now admittedly, my personality bristles a bit at the suggestion. Over the years, I’ve tried to find ways to stay calm — but I’ll [...]
Dawn of a New Day
I was reading Ray Ozzie’s blog this morning, and this struck me (quoting at length): In 1939, in New York City, there was an amazing World’s Fair. It was called ‘the greatest show of all time’. In that year Americans were exhausted, having lived through a decade of depression. Unemployment still hovered above 17%. In [...]
CloudAve Special: 3 – No, 5! – Free Tickets To Defrag
Every year, when we get depressed about the darkness that is going to engulf many of us on the northern side of the country after the Daylight Savings time change, the only thing that keep our spirits up is the upcoming Defrag Conference. No this is not a hyperbole but a fact which many of the [...]
Earn your Defrag XP
If you’re a gamer, you’re familiar with earning “XP” (experience points). If you’re not familiar with it, your kids are probably staring at you right now and wondering why you’re so weird. Basically, you accrue XP by playing a game over time – and that XP is good for boosting the benefits associated with your [...]
Open: The Ultimate Buzzword
Yesterday morning, while exercising, I found myself thinking that I wanted to write a blog post about “open vs. closed” and how the whole argument (open source, openstack, open business models) had gotten so confused that the word “open” meant NOTHING anymore. And then Apple released it’s earnings. Apparently, I’ve got some sort of secret [...]
29 Days and Counting
We’re 29 days from Defrag, and things are about to all fall into place. The final agenda gets posted this week. The registrations are rolling in. The amazing people are prepping to gather. And you do NOT wanna miss what’s sure to be our best Defrag yet. With that in mind, here’s how Morning 1 [...]
Defrag Keynote: Alex Wright
The opening keynote at Defrag will be given by Alex Wright. I’ve been emailing back and forth with Alex a bit about the topic, title, etc — and thought I’d share The Deep History of Oral Culture and Social Networks As the Internet continues to evolve into a global real-time conversation, we are witnessing the [...]
The Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur Scholarship
I’m overjoyed to be able to finally announce something we’ve been working on for a while: The Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur Scholarship for Defrag. If you’re not familiar with the Kauffman Foundation, this blurb might help: “The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Based [...]
Steel Horses, Thorny Roses and Long, Winding Roads
As anyone who knows me knows, I have a borderline obsession with 1980’s hair metal and heavy metal. It was the music of my teenage years: I grew up listening to everyone from Iron Maiden to Bon Jovi, and I watched in absolute horror as my beloved form of music mutated into some kind of [...]
