Thanks for your opinion on this Chris. You can read Chris’ post and perhaps give him your thoughts as well. Should Twitter be banned at conferences on stage?

Here’s your chance to join him with a FREE All-Access Pass worth $299.00!

1. Put up a blog post BY NOON TOMORROW (Wed) Pacific Time, telling why you should win this badge (use text, but if you want to get creative, add an original video, original song, take chances!)
2. In your post, link to http://www.gnomedex.com and  http://www.blogworldexpo.com
3. Come back here and leave a comment, letting us know you’ve entered and with a link to your post
4. We’ll review the posts tomorrow (Wed) at 12:00 Noon, Pacific Time and choose a winner!

Some Gnomedex basics:

• Who? Influencers, Entrepreneurs, and Tech Enthusiasts
• What? A confluence of leading bloggers and new media
• When? August 20 – 22, 2009
• Where? Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle, WA

Good luck in the give-away, and have fun!

19:00 hours ’til the deadline. Plenty of time…you can do it!

LexBlog has more on their talk here.

Michael Linton has caught my attention with his Open Money presentation. I will update after I figure out what he is exactly talking about, but whatever it is it’s interesting.

It’s nearing the end off his talk and I don’t get it. Maybe you can figure it out.

Tris Hussey has more here.

[tags] Gnomedex, conference, Michael+Linton, Open+Money [/tags]

CrapMonkey didn’t appreciate Robert Steele’s presentation but loved Guy Kawasaki.

The theme was “open government,” presented by Robert Steele, but it was very heavy handed and spent a lot of time picking apart political and corporate leaders. Yes, they probably deserve it; No, that’s not what I paid to participate in at Gnomedex. The day got better after that. Guy Kawasaki discussed product/company evangelism and was entertaining and informative as usual.

Marcelo Calbucci isn’t impressed at all:

A lot of uninteresting talks. The comments and questions are even worse. Lots of useless, pointless and self-serving questions and comments.

Vanessa Fox asked some very interesting questions about privacy and blogging. Tris Hussey covers it here:

Vanessa Fox, who might be a poster child for this on Controlling Your Life 2.0…

The discussion, of course, is one that hits close to home, hence the slow updates on this post …

Being out there, lacking a “private life” per se … at least here at conferences. How do you handle the privacy of others in your life?

Where do you draw the line …

Is it generational, is it personal, is it something have to just accept?

In a very awkward moment during Jason Calacanis’ presentation on spam having already ruined email and starting to ruin search and blogging; Dave Winer yelled from the back of the room that Jason was spamming the conference with a sales pitch for Jason’s new company Mahalo. They exchange was brief but definitely uncomfortable. The topic was a great one, and Jason does a great job calling people to the carpet for unethical and invasive marketing tactics. In the end. That being said Winer made a good point.

And Technosailor just called Jason out again for failing to add WordPress to Mahalo. It wouldn’t be a Jason Calacanis talk without him calling Nick Denton a liar and a piece of garbage; and he just did after giving him credit for his comment system.

This talk is getting dangerously close to a brawl with Marc Canter (sp) again calling Jason out on his business model.

[tags] Gnomedex, Jason+Calacanis, Dave+Winer, Technosailor, SEO, spam, Mahlo [/tags]

Halfway through his talk I feel inspired.

• “Message to Microsoft, we will let you live but we want your money.”
• “We have a military industrial complex that profits from war and secrecy not open source and peace. “
• “I dont think anybody unwilling to support open spectrum should be elected to anything anywhere.”
• central banking is an evil cancer. These people are selling us credit they dont have to make profits they don’t deserve.”
• “Lincoln and Kennedy were both assassinated when they were about to print money and not borrow from the banks.”
• “I gave up on Wikipedia because I don’t have time to deal with morons.”
• “The Federal Government is broken in every possible way. “
• “I don’t want you to think I am Jane Fonda on steroids. “
• “I am on my best behavior with you guys by the way. “
• “Our education system stinks it beats the creativity out of kids by the fourth grade.”
• “We have gone from America the Beautiful to America the shit in just two administrations. Clinton is just as much to blame”
• “The Iranians have a sunburn missle and I think they have a nuclear warhead for hit.”
• “I believe we need to start blogging retroactive impeachments. I am not saying we need to hang them or execute them just expose them.”
• “I got thrown off Fox News for saying the global war on terrorism wasn’t real. Well its not”
• “We are in a hundred year war that we started in 1988″
• “our job in the next 15 years is to hand out cell phones around the world first one per village then one per family then one per person”
• “your government is stupid and they are stupid deliberately.”
• “I sent a letter to Bill Bradley and Bloomberg and asked why don’t you contact Ron Paul and McCain and build a cabinet and they didn’t respond.”
• “No one here who doesn’t agree with me isn’t getting out alive”
• “Every time someone touches my social security number I want a Cisco based system to notify me so I get to decide who gets to see my information.”
• If I had my way I would significantly upgrade the luxury at Guantanamo and I would take Bill Gates, and
• “if I had one take away message from here that you can blog I would say why aren’t Microsoft, and Google and Sunn and all of these guys asking for an antitrust waiver to create an Open Source skunk works.”
• “We don’t do peace.”
• “If I had been Shinseki, I would have grabbed Wolfowitz and thrown him down the steps of capital hill.”
• “The Alien part I am not prepared to reject but it is much to digest right now.”
• “Central Banks are Evil. The sooner we get a grip on open money, the sooner we stop buying stocks, the sooner we stop being serfs, the sooner we will do well.”
• “In an unjust bandwidth environment, everyone should be a hacker, or a Ham radio operator.”
• “The Freedom of Information Act is just a way to keep you busy.”
• “Don’t waste your time on the Federal government. It’s going away.”
• If the Federal Governmet does not get turned over in 2008 I expect serious session movements to follow. (Note I do not have this last quote 100% accurate and am paraphrasing)
• “There is a sweeping movement across the country called home rule.”
• “Extremist religions both Jihadists and Christian fundamentalists are evil.”
• “Faith is not about god its about you and me.”

[tags] gnomedex, gnomedex+keynote, Robert+Steele, Open+Source[/tags]

But, here?s why I love Gnomedex:

1) Every attendee uses a laptop computer during the event. It still is one of the few events where I?ve seen that happen.
2) No press passes.
3) I haven?t been asked to speak since 2001. Heh. Not quite true, cause I was on a Gillmor Gang panel last year, but I don?t count that as speaking.
4) It?s geeky, but not developer geeky. User geeky.
5) It?s not over your head or over your pay grade like TED or PopTech.
6) It?s in Seattle in one of their two sunny months.
7) Ponzi. Ponzi. Ponzi. Source: Why I love Gnomedex? ? Scobleizer

Now if Chris would ask me to speak…well Gnomedex might just vault to #1. .

In any case, it’s going to be a fun few weeks. Might wear out this poor laptop, not to mention my Passports. I did, finally, invest in a decent backpack-style laptop bag so carrying my laptop around doesn’t become an exercise in pain after about 15 minutes.

And, yes, if you’re wondering, I really do like live blogging. It’s a thrill for me. I love trying to break the news first or at least catch the witty phrase someone used. More on WordCamp later, maybe my list of people I want to meet up with. What am I saying…I’m looking forward to hanging out with everyone!

Technorati Tags: WordCamp, Gnomedex, conference blogging, live blogging