

Why you should go to Geeknrolla (and other start-up conferences) - tomh-
http://danieltenner.com/posts/0008-why-you-should-go-to-geeknrolla.html

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wallflower
I'm becoming a fan of Daniel Tenner's writings, and I'm looking forward to
seeing them upvoted rapidly to the News.YC front page like 37Signals stuff
usually goes. I like how he writes because he makes a point and then tells a
story (usually his) to support that point (public speaking keystone).

I've been fortunate to go to several conferences on my company dime. The best
was the Colorado Software Summit in 2000 where they were talking about Ruby as
the next big thing. However, none of these paid conferences match up to the
BarCamp-type events and even informal meetups at bars to drink and discuss
projects. I think there is a certain artificial short-term hype that is
instilled in you when you fly to a conference and get hyped up on the energy
and excitement and marketing parties - it is not sustainable once you return.
I find that I enjoy local meetups more now - more long-term, less virtual, and
you might even become friends.

Daniel Tenner's previous piece "Dealing with Impossible Crises" is worth
reading if you missed it the first time

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552581>

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swombat
Thanks for this feedback :-) I really do appreciate it.

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wallflower
I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking, what do you like to read (not
necessarily blogs, books)? Your writing is easy on the mind.

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swombat
That's quite hard to answer... When I was younger, I read almost exclusively
fiction - pretty much anything ranging from classics to science fiction. For
the last fifteen years or so, the proportion of non-fiction has increased,
largely because I read a lot less for pleasure. If you counted blogs and other
online writings as well, I'd say that most of what I read today is non-
fiction. But I've always preferred a good novel to any factual book.

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wallflower
> That's quite hard to answer.

Good answer. Thanks. I tend to shy away from the '10 ways to X' blogs, and I
could surf from Techmeme for hours if I'm bored at home. I like stumbling upon
random people talking about their lives, sharing their experiences.

For example, I don't know the methodology for selection but each of the Blogs
of Note all seem to be interesting in their own way.

<http://blogsofnote.blogspot.com/>

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jlees
Geeknrolla was awesome. We need more events like this in the UK!

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vaksel
I think it needs to be something for the entire Europe to get some real
traction. If you keep it UK only, it'll continue being small and you won't get
as much exposure.

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jlees
I've been to LeWeb and the Web 2.0 Expo both in Europe. It's actually quite
nice not to have to leave the country for once. This event was organised by
TechCrunch Europe and by no means limited to UK attendees :P

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mikebutcher
Fear not - the kind of thing I did with GeeknRolla #gknr is something I want
to replicate again. The trick is in the content and the vibe. Stay tuned...
@mikebutcher

