The Reboot Rundown

Reboot9 wrapped up in Copenhagen last week, and attendee accounts have been permeating the blogosphere ever since.  So what did the attendees take away this year? The most prevalent theme, according to one blogger, is the idea of “the computer as a social agent.”

This may seem obvious to those of us well steeped in the world of social media, but if you consider it, eliciting as much human, personal interaction as we do from a piece of hardware is extraordinary. Indeed, the official theme of Reboot this year was “Human?”, questioning the personal nature of seemingly impersonal objects, products, devices and technology.

How many of us have close personal friendships that wouldn’t exist if the Internet didn’t? I personally have several, and I am newer to the game than some. In a BBC write-up on Reboot, one reporter notes the irony inherent in a tech conference so focused on finding the humanity in technology. “Understanding human behaviour and how to adapt those behaviours to technology and the web rather than the reverse is rare for technology devotees.”

While the human side of tech was explored, the conference wouldn’t have been a tech conference without discussion of the latest gadgets and tools. Bloggers gave the most attention to the discussions of the Twitteresque Jaiku, a microblogging platform. Also receiving attention was Dopplr, a site catered to globetrotters looking to keep tabs on friends’ locations.

Sifting through the numerous excellent blog posts from the conference, below is a good primer for anyone unable to make the trek to Denmark.  I urge any and all to post links to any gems I may have missed in the comments section.

Stephanie Booth’s blog included the most comprehensive rundown of the conference, with her notes on each of the presentations she attended (along with the opening address), including links to each of the presenter’s own blogs. She includes an especially detailed rundown of Stowe Boyd’s presentation.

Andy Budd also posts extensively on his first Reboot experience, a great read for anyone unfamiliar with the event. He did express some dissatisfaction, however, at the free-wheeling, philosophical nature of Reboot’s presentations. “I largely enjoyed the sessions, but despite all the philosophising, I couldn’t help feel that the talks lacked substance. A lot of the sessions were little more than a series of loosely joined concepts with nothing in the way of narrative or conclusion. Like separate blog posts rather than a single, well thought out argument. It was as thought the speakers spent so much time trying to sound clever, they forgot the point they were trying to make.”

Andy’s colleague, Jeremy Keith also posted on Reboot, joining Andy in lightly criticizing the “blue sky thinking” taking place at the event, noting that while it can be frustrating, the discussions are a “nice change” from run of the mill tech conferences, arguing that “Reboot should only be taken as part of a balanced conference diet.”

Stowe Boyd himself posts a link to his video presentation and a wrap-up post with his thoughts on some of the presentations.

For anyone looking for short and sweet, Ben Griffiths lists the “Things I learnt at Reboot,” including this interesting tidbit: “Social networks have very low click-through rates for current types of web advertising, and excessive advertising is one of users’ most frequently-made complaints.”

Chaos 'n' Coffee posts a very good rundown of the best of the conference presentations, with links and summaries of presentations. He paid particular attention to the humanity theme present at this year’s Reboot, focusing on the social aspects of this medium. “In fact, one of the main themes that inevitably spread through the Reboot9 conference has been the computer as a social agent. Starting from Jeremy Keith and his speech on “Soul” (the very first presentation I attended on Thursday morning) to Tom Armitage and Dan Dixon who quoted the Nass research on human reactions toward an artificial agent (a computer), all the way to Matt Webb who’s been my last presentation on Friday and was titled Products are People Too.”

Andy Boyd also gives detailed thoughts on each day of the conference, with numerous links and information, and his thoughts on some of the presentations.

Thomas Purves and Kim Bach write about Dopplr and Jaiku respectively, two of the most discussed of the new technologies at Reboot.

One of the elements of Reboot was the use of highly abbreviated “micropresentations” of some of the topics up for discussion, explained by Marco Formento thusly: “I particularly enjoyed the micropresentation session in the main hall. What are micropresentations? They are quick presentation, designed after the Pecha Kucha model, that make speakers re-present their speech with the ‘15 slides/20 seconds each’ formula. They are great because is a great way to get the general meaning of an entire day of presentations in minutes.”  Dannie Jost discusses his micropresentation of his discussion, with links to his slides.

Mondofunza posts a video of John Bookman’s micropresentation, and Ewan McIntosh posts a summary of his presentation, as does Ben Blench.

Damien Mullaly reviews each of the presentations he attended, with links to each on the Reboot main page.

As I said, feel free to point me in the direction of any other interesting posts, and maybe I will see you in Copenhagen someday!

Technorati tags: Reboot9

Comments

[Bernie Goldbach]

We have a few podcasts in the can from Reboot 9. First up, "Human Reboot" at

http://podcasting.ie/podcast/human-reboot/

[John]

Thank you fro bringing such nice posts. Your blog is always fascinating to read.

[Sarah Wurrey]

Thanks for the intel, Bernard, I will be sure to check them out.

[Ann]

I like your blog, it’s always fun to come back and check what you have to tell us today.

[Dannie Jost]

Interesting view of reboot. It is unfortunate that we did not get to talk at reboot ;-)

Do however expect much many more posts to follow.