Impressions on reboot7

I’m late in blogging this but a holiday intervened.

Organisation

+ive: on the whole very good, smooth, on time compared to others tuff I've known, great atmosphere, working wifi, nice food and good location

-ive: I missed the first half hour, so I never really knew who the organisers were, too bad! A FAQ for newbies might have helped as well. I guess there should be a Danish event for all the foreigners who managed to get to CPX. Minor quibbles in all.

Presentations: Overall high quality. Some stuff I couldn't judge but solid, forward looking content. A few inevitable sales ppts (skype) and some flaky stuff (all the biology stuff, whoa). Where are the European keynotes (i guess 1 out of 4 is not bad).

On Jason Calancanis: What I didn't notice at first (I always thought it obvious) was his emphasis of "unfiltered blogs" ie not taking any editorial influence on his writers - perhaps a result of his larger than life blogging personality;-). It was always how I would prefer events to be run as well although there the connection between sponsorship and speaking slots are even more extreme. So although www.gizmodo.com disclosed the fact that Siemens was paying for their trip, they didn't disclose the part about the exposure that was part of the deal. Props to Jason for being principled there.

Doug Engelbart Demo: what took us nearly 40 years? 'nuff said. Cool also to have Ross Mayfield on the other side, iChat of course (would skype provide a better sound quality?).

Nokia: the talk was a bit of a wasted opportunity, but I'm still keen to get a S60 phone, preferably with wifi and a skype client. I'm in the market for a replacement phone that would allow me to work without firing up the laptop all the time.

Actually, it was curious how little gadgetry was in evidence. Just Macs, that was about the extent of it, no flashy displays of phones, digicams (ubiquitous but strangely unobtrusive) or other gear. Heavily stickered laptops maybe. A serious projector and microphones that worked were also remarkable in a way.

In short: I unwittingly went exactly in the spirit of the original event: a reboot after a long year with no holiday. I wanted a sort of brainspa for new ideas and unconventional settings, and it fully delivered on that. I recommend anyone to give reboot a whirl if you get the chance.