Puerto Vallarta

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Technology 1 – Blogger 0

I attempted to post this earlier in the week from the hotel via an external blogger fango-dango. Presto! Nothing. Out she goes into the blogosphere. Anyway, here's what I wrote a few days ago:

Big, blue, billowy pennants snap in the wind along Puerto Vallarta’s seaside promenade.
The signs announce a sailfish and marlin tournament here at the end of the month. Bad timing on my part. Just here for the meeting, thanks.

Conference mode: badge? Yes. Hotel ID bracelet? Yes. Keynote speaker at 9? No – 8:30. My presentation? 10:30 on Wednesday. Room? Girasol 1A. 1A? That’s trouble. Let’s look at the program guide. There’s the Girasol (sunflower). There’s Girasol 1. No 1A. Perhaps a closet? The men’s toilet? How can this be?

Alas, dear Reader, don't panic. There is a 1A ! – small but manageable for the size of audience. Conferences often fly or don’t depending on the layout of the hotel or facility. I'm pleased, though. Enough people found me to fill most of the room (thankfully).

Here’s another thing I learned this summer at tech-camp: unconferences.

An unconference is a gathering where the content of the sessions is created by the participants in an ad-hoc fashion rather than by a single organizer, or group of organizers, in advance. Becoming more popular among the techie-types. I wonder if my good colleagues in this business are ready to try an unconferency approach.

Plane reading – since I’m down Mexico way I’ve brought along Carlos Fuentes’ odd little story (my opinion) called Inez. Two stories in one but tied together at the very end. The strand about the old conductor lusting after the young singer is the more compelling.