Webstock – Derek Powazek – The Wisdom of Communities
Author of “Design for Community, The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places”, Powazek is an alumnus of HotWired, Blogger and Technorati and he wondered why despite the wisdom of the crowds (Google “James Surowiecki”), community generated content tends to be somewhat *low brow* results… The four elements of crowd wisdom are; Diversity Independence […]
Webstock – Nat Torkington – Better, Stronger, Faster Failures
Home-town hero Nat Torkington, ex (and sometimes current) alumni of O’Reilly media is always a good choice for an entertaining show, he didn’t disappoint this time! What is the ultimate feedback loop? Science needs failures to progress, Torkington gave historical examples to prove his contention. Within technology we also use a failure fuelled feedback loop […]
Webstock – Jane McGonigal – The Future of Reality
McGonigal is a game researcher at the institute for the future. Her ethos is that in game-design the human experience is perfectly optimized – we feel we have purpose, we feel we are collaborating and we feel we have a meaning. Why then are other aspects of our online (and for that mater offline) experience […]

Welcome to Webstock
Well here we are in the vibrant, creative and seemingly totally web-enabled city of Wellington (disclosure – I’m a Wellington boy borne and bred). Around 600 people have jetted in from all around the world to take part in what is quickly getting a name as one of the coolest conferences bar-none (heck – even the free […]