Science in the Triangle

How can you hate a conference headlined by Go Daddy and Playboy with the keynote panel moderated by a lady with the purple hair?! But it really wasn’t as early 90s ‘boys will be boys’ as all that. I recall back in the real, early 90s at the annual CED (Council for Entrepreneurial Development) Software Conference that most of the all-male attendees worried if the only way forward, meaning to make any money, was to obey the Microsoft juggernaut. Clearly not, because Google came along. And now there is concern of what Facebook really knows and do you have to love Apple to get cool technology?! Certainly not, which is why we get together to learn from and to measure one another.

I found this Conference to be interesting for many reasons that reflect the development and potential of our community, both technical and entrepreneurial. In addition to the reliable supporters from the area such as SAS and IBM, there were a range of marketing and advertising sorts; familiar service providers; smaller entities that grew up such as iContact and Bronto. The teams of those seeking to continue to shape the Internet as an advertising channel outnumbered those who seek to perpetuate the Internet as a disruptive force to the way that things are presently done. At the conference, the present class of disrupters were those who understand mobile devices and the new realm of of apps that run on them. Read more…