Current Thinking from Brad Gibson

It was essentially about "Your Online Identity" but an alternate sub-theme of this year's Lexi.net Conference in Calgary would have to be about the power of women online. There was great online talent here from the likes of Kristin Darguzas, Janine Warner, Regina Lynn and the dooce herself, Heather Armstrong.

This was my first of the biennial Lexi.net Conferences and if they get within 50% of what Sharlene was able to do this year, I'll be back in 2008. Having spent a bit o'time at the likes of Northern Voice 2005 and the Portable Media and Podcast Expo 2006, what was especially nice about this Confab -- as they say in the land of memories -- is that I got to meet Calgary bloggers like D'Arcy Norman.

For my money, the killer tech mind in the room was Aaron Seigo . I missed Aaron's presentation because it coincided with equally killer content from JC but we spent a few minutes at lunch talking about "Why Software Stinks". Expect a lengthy podcast exposition from Aaron on the Bradcast in 2007. This guy makes KDE desktop software and if I don't post for a few days it'll be because I'm playing with Kubuntu, which is the KDE desktop based distro of Ubuntu Linux.

John Armstrong (the other half of power couple 1, he being Mr. dooce) was outstanding with his non-bullet point intro to design and identity. John's thing was more extemporaneous than I think even he realized -- I was mulling the subtleties of his links between appearance and message for most of the weekend. There is clearly an art in impression but it can be fulfilled in a variety of ways as he demonstrated with his impactful collection of logos.

The women were definitely inspiring. Kristin is one of the first "big-time" blogher.com members that I have met and she has agreed to a future chat so that we can talk about that. Her success seems to come from a perfect balance between the nonchalance of her frank writing and the nervous insecurity of her own questioning. She knows there's a big audience out there but when she sees them there is a touch of writer's anxiety in her delivery. That trait is also a characteristic of Heather Armstrong. Heather's journey is a perfect accident of need and deliberation. It's risk/reward in a new environment and it is something I saw too in each of Janine and Regina; although their topic spaces are worlds apart. The dooce was not someone I had read much. Her story is well known and she put a face on it that spoke to the inevitability of its outcomes. While she is all moving hands and fine boned fragility to see her, the dooce is also a woman of power and charisma.

A last thought; as one half of a great couple, it was motivating to watch working couples like Janine & David and Heather & John in action. Now all we have to do is get Janine & David blogging...
Update: Okay, I found David's blog. Where's Janine?

lexi.net_conference_2006 lexinet lexicom