O'Reilly Radar > ETech 2005: Where Did They All Come From? :

Europe and UK do seem to be under-represented in the data. There were times during the conference when it seemed like the Brits had taken over. Maybe it's just they were all giggling a lot, or that they were more active on IRC, or had taken over the bar. And what about the "Virtual SuW" Does a person from Wales attending via iChat count?

More seriously, the contact detail for attendees and especially presenters seemed surprisingly thin. For instance, I'm sure there were a lot more people with a Skype address than mentioned this. Perhaps next year the data entry form should have a FOAF import filter. And to make geocoding easier, make Zip/Postcode a required field. There are some good Zip/Postcode to Lat/Long databases freely available.

And lastly, it always seems like conferences are overly protective of all this data. I'd really like to see the contact list online in the run up to the conference and afterwards. It shouldn't be too hard to have an online registration form that has a privacy switch and where access to the data is only available if you've registered.


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[ 11-May-05 8:24am ] [ , ]