PopTech! Friday morning...
Day two of PopTech!
Alex Steffen... www.worldchanging.com
Ecological footprint, how much land does it take to live. Americans would need 4.5 planets to sustain our lifestyles. Baywatch effect, everyone on the planet watches Baywatch.
The Internet made Howard Dean?
Linus Torvalds...the tech bloom. Incredible open source burst of tools for collaboration. Lula...Brazilian leader, negotiating the deal between developing and undeveloped world. New idea of southern culture, as in the area South of equator.
Tools spreading to people who have the least. Manuals for setting up a refugee camp on the fly. Merry-go-round that pumps water as the kids play. A water jug that you can roll. Innovations coming from the developing world. Fog catcher, drinkable water from the air. Flower that detects land mines.
Who is Angela Lindvall...eco-warrior. Alex has this great sense of optimism about saving the planet. I hope he's right. Energy from pond scum. Alex's hope is that we are about to wake up.
Michael Hawley...Bhutan about size Switzerland. But 700k people versus. 7 Million. Great pictures from Bhutan. Very human scale country. Happiness is looking at a map. Now he has opened the book. Dazzling. Lesson on turning the pages. 400 ft of paper. Acme, world's oldest book bindery. Absolutely wonderful pictures and talk about taking this book around the world and the kids featured in the book. Go see the book, and contribute to it. Great project.
Michael Hawley
Ze Frank...
Great intro...talking about critical E-Mail. Puntuous changes. Writing for spam! Great timing and sense of humour.Very funny guy. Hard to translate into words as to how funny this guy is.
Now for the Q & A.
Bhutan Gross National Happiness indicator........
Frank Zappa..."Politics is high school with guns and more money.."
Ze Frank....Have you given any thought about the energy that might come from pond scum..."now I have!" Very funny guy, go to his site. Very clever.
Poptech ideas and roster are cool, but where are the women speakers and ideas encompassing women? Could no one think of any women doing any interesting work in these areas? There's only one? She's very good. But of the conference seems to be mostly by white men, visualizing white men talking about global and technology trends, behaviors, ideas. Women see things and communicate very differently than men. And their research is different. They ask different questions. How about exposing it, thinking about it what else is out there? Visualizing women as a part of the picture?
Posted by: Chris Martin | October 22, 2004 at 08:37 AM
Good comment, valid comment, but I know that a number of women were invited, and for various reasons a number of them couldn't come.
The ideas that have been advanced aren't really gender based, but rather are applicable to all. Are you listening to www.itconversations.com?
If not, do so, and you can hear the speakers.
Posted by: Buzz Bruggeman | October 22, 2004 at 08:58 AM
Yes, I've been listening. And the one woman was very good. But the point is, many of the ideas, as presented and constructed, and the underlying assumptions, are informed by a male understanding. They are fascinating speakers, and it's well done. But women inhabit half the world, and to not come up with some women speakers with is disturbing.
I am aware that 9 other women were asked, but declined. But there are more than 10 women with amazing research in the areas you cover, who are great speakers. Should have approached 50 women to get 15. In contrast, if you have 29 men speaking, and more men were asked who turned Poptech down as well, it means the request ratio of men to women was also high. That's not good.
Since men are the default, and their perspectives are considered to be neutral, then I can see how many would understand that the presentations so far are gender neutral. But if you had more women, it might be more apparent the contrast in views and assumptions, and research directions, to understand why their presentations are actually male, even if the presentation isn't about gender or a particularly male issue.
Posted by: Chris Martin | October 22, 2004 at 09:30 AM