BarCampUSA 2007 - Webstock – the summer of LØVE

Tickets ($50 for all 4 days) for BarCampUSA's August 23-26 Woodstock for Techies at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds near Madison, WI go on sale this Wednesday.

BarCamp only just began in 2005 in response to Tim O'Reilly's annual A-list techies only Foo Camp in Sebastopol, CA when others decided to have their own participation-friendly conference and started a revolution. The concept quickly eclipsed its beginning and exploded into a global network of unconferences to support the demand for technophiles everywhere to learn, share, collaborate, teach and participate.

Though still in the early stages, BarCampUSA 2007 organizers are planning for 5,000 attendees. The event has the potential to be a real Webstock for the national psyche by more fully capturing the hearts and minds of a generation and the general public into a movement, especially if policy sessions around Net Neutrality and other issues get organized. This generation of catalyzers is technophiles who have already begun to redefine the world as it is currently known.

Geekdom has become cool, because of the instant success and celebrity of numerous wonderpreneurs but more deeply due to the philosophic resonance of innovation, improvement and life enablement. Being a geek is being capable, tech savvy with the multitude of technologies, gadgets, and websites that permeate contemporary culture. Everyone wants to be innovating, commenting, creating, helping and just being part of it.

Regarding BarCamp2007, it might be good to wait and see what kind of connectivity and power is going to be provided. It would not be a bad idea to turn up a MAE-WISC Internet Exchange Point to accommodate the massive flood of text, photo and video traffic bits, and oh, can I eBay my Foo Camp ticket?

Technology ... the reality of the future

How did geeks become so cool?

Wealth
It is really very simple, first, in the wave of IPO booms and the Internet bubble, geeks became rich. That always gets people's attention.

Tech-driven modern life
Second the PC, Internet, broadband, gaming, media center, mobile device and self-expression consumer-created content revolutions brought completely tech-driven and tech-enabled lives. Just to be alive in today's increasingly interconnected society requires tech-savviness. In fact, there is a great opportunity to make technology relevant to older tiers of society who feel increasingly excluded. Today, the more you you know about your gadgets and technology, the more fun you can have! Everyone, not just nerds, has to do tech.

Technology provides hope to society
Third, the coolness of geeks has been horse-powered even more by trends at the ideological and psychological level. Technology is one of the few recent areas where there can be collective societal hope. The political, economic and social spirit of the US and by extension the increasingly westernized flat world has had the tenor of limitation, circumscription, control, and immaturity. Technology provides a bright spot of innovation, progression and hope. Much psychic leadership has shifted away from its more traditional source, political leaders, to technology innovators.

Also critical in a newly self-actualizing society, technology is providing a realm where people can take action and drive results to the extent that does not currently seem possible in political, religious and social realms.

Go Geeks!

Techies are homogeneous

There is a certain homogeneity about techy culture, both on the surface and below. On the surface, the homogeneity is visible by age, race, educational background, demeanor, posture, hair and clothing style and facial expressions. Below the surface, the homogeneity is in the type of questioning the mind does, the inquisitive questions that will be asked, the assumed knowledge base, the educational and life experience background and the comments, sense of humor, means of communication, value systems and approach to life.

How can one understand, and integrate with if desired, the techy and non-techy cultures? More than ever, tech culture does seem to be the rise and long-term persistence and domination of a class.

There seem to be shortcomings with the techy culture. What are they? Is it the homogeneity? The lack of integratability with others? Is it the predictability, for example, maybe not the details of how to get somewhere but what the general set of interesting problems is (e.g.; like better physics, faster biological solutions, nano). Is it that they seem like they are in a clueless bubble compared to the other, "normal" larger yet anachronistic world?

Some techies are oblivious either naturally or selectionally to the other or any other culture. Some techies and non-techies are in the void trying to bring or lead the wayward normal culture along. What do those who see both sides and live in between call home?