connecting*the*dots

Someone needs to stick to geek publishing.

That huge AOL logo behind Lou is killing me.

(photo snapped by Яick Harris and photoshopped by miss_rogue)

Let me fan out my geek cards on the table, face up, before I begin this post…

I’m all about open source, open content, open collaboration, etc., but I’m also East Coast, so please, FOC’s on the West Coast, help me out with this whole FooCamp debate.

Why do some consider Tim O’Reilly’s annual invite-only event of a few hundred friends, employees and people he thinks are interesting to collaborate and have some fun with, such a bad idea?

Dave makes an argument that the closed aspects of FooCamp sync up with the mindset of investors financing a narrow set of “proven” technology, which, he argues, leads to the formation of a bubble culture.

But couldn’t that be said about any closed event? I mean, Yahoo! has “Hack Days” for Yahoo! employees. Isn’t this the ultimate example of a closed event? (thanks to Chris for letting me know in the comments about the open Yahoo! Hack Day coming soon)

At least O’Reilly sends out invites to people outside of his staff… right? Or am I missing something here? Tim O’Reilly’s words:

…”You have to understand the objectives of the event. Its primary purpose is to make sure that O’Reilly’s editors, conference planners, and technical strategists are exposed to new thinking from people who are on our radar but haven’t necessarily been part of our community. Second, it’s to make sure that our individual contacts become collective contacts. Third, it’s to create a great mix of old friends and new, so that it doesn’t become “same old, same oldâ€?, and there’s always new blood.”…

That actually sounds progressive, especially from a business management perspective.

I mean, I dig what Dave’s saying on a philosophical level regarding closed-mindedness, but O’Reilly’s explanation seems to put that puppy to bed pretty quickly. Also, while I’m completely supportive of Chris and Tara’s BarCamp explosion as an alternate, open collaboration vehicle, even Tara accepted her FooCamp invite… so how can it be so bad for the industry?

If we could wipe out closed-events from the face of the planet, maybe open events-only would dent a VC-driven path to another bubble. But back on Earth, in this capitalist society of ours, people go after the short-term buck with the most tested approach available. Absolute conference “openness” can’t compete with the corporate investment mindset of my fellow East Coast money-men (I’m not a money man, I just lived next to them in a past life ;)

And seriously though, doesn’t this noise kinda give the influence factor of Foo a uranium supercharge?

Along those lines, does anyone know O’Reilly’s position on Israel’s right to exist? (heh)