BlogNashville Observations…

OK, people are demanding a recount of the weekend events, so here are my observations of BlogNashville:

• I should have taken the good camera, the view of downtown from the Belmont parking lot was pretty amazing.
• The Curb Events Center at Belmont is a lot nicer than Mike Curb’s offices on Music Row.
• I thought I was sitting in the back of the room where the opening cememonies would be held. It turned out to be the front of the room.
• When Dave Winer was taking requests for the group sing-along, I turned to the people next to me and said, “Freebird.” Glenn Reynolds heard me and repeated it into his mike. He really is the human aggregator.
• Mr. Roboto didn’t carry a computer around with him, but he was still able to respond to this post from Blake. He flipped him off from across the room.
• Terry Heaton goes to so many conferences, he has his own nametag and lanyard. Points for style, points off for not assimilating.
• John Cox looks like Penn Jillette.
• The waitress at Tabouli‘s must have a degree in customer service. I asked if it was OK for us to get separate checks. She said,”No.” She actually did end up splitting the check. Into two checks. (There were 8 of us at the table. It was the most brilliant passive-aggressive move I’ve ever seen.)
• Playing with Flickr was really fun. It’s the killer app for nerd conferences.
• The conference topics were interesting, but I found more value in reading what other people were writing about what other people were writing about what was was actually going on in the session. WHILE I WAS IN THE SESSION. And if that didn’t work, Dan Gilmor has a really cool NASA screen saver.
• Hammock Publishing has some of the nicest empolyees I’ve ever met. Especially the ones that share educational experiences with former first ladies.
• My favorite part of the closing ceremonies? Bill Hobbs ceremoniously pulling the plug on the free Wi-Fi.

All in all it was a fun day.