Simon Phipps spoke at the recent .Net Nirvana Geek Cruise, but had an unpleasant experience. He was the joker that Neil threw into the mix to keep things interesting, but it appears that his talks on Java and Open Source didn’t go over too well with the other speakers.
Robert Scoble discusses this on his blog, ending with the comment, “I guess Geek Cruises is another one of those shows where you better expect to only hear one side of the story.”
My response: Having spoken at three Geek Cruises, I’ve never gotten any push whatsoever to slant my talks. Hell, I did three JavaScript sesssions at the first Perl Whirl conference.
In this case, it sounds as if it was the speakers that were complaining and Neil was just trying to keep them happy. When you’re all stuck together on a ship, there’s a certain amount of effort that has to be made towards helping calm people down that you don’t necessarily have to do at a land-based conference. I don’t think that it’s a GC thing at all, but I’d personally wonder about the speakers that complained.
Robert, I think that you’ve got this one pegged all wrong. And to prove who’s right, I’ll challenge you to go on the next Geek Cruise, June 1-8 in Hawaii. See you there?
I just posted in my comments as well.
You’re right. I probably am being too harsh on Neil and his organization and not harsh enough on the speakers involved.
It’s real strange, though, since Jeff Prosise is one of the speakers involved and he’s one of the nicest, most professional, and smartest people I’ve ever dealt with. I guess I should call him up to get his side of the story.
I was just trying to point out that conference teams are often under pressure to comply with sponsor’s wishes. I did a poor job of explaining that.
I’d love to go on a Geek Cruise, but I just got home from visiting the tax man and I can’t afford to go on any trips for a while.
Geek cruise? Too expensive.
Do you go on geek cruises you have to pay for?
–Kynn
Conference Costs
Kynn Bartlett wrote in our comments that Geek Cruises are too expensive. Here’s my response (copied into our rants section,
Geek cruise? Too expensive.
See my followup post, but I have to disagree with you on this one.
Do you go on geek cruises you have to pay for?
If there was a topic that I was really interested in, had the money, and couldn’t get a speaker slot in, sure. I’d also like to go to SXSW Interactive and the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, but I’ve got deadlines up the wazoo and they’re both more money than I want to/can afford to spend to attend conferences solely for enjoyment.
If you think the Geek Cruises are too expensive, there’s a very simple remedy.
Don’t go.
Me, I’m racking my brains trying to come up with a reason that I should be hired to, I dunno, do tech support for the passengers, or present on something I’m qualified for (and that geeks would pay to hear !).
You have to realize that in addition to what would be a rather nice cruise you’re getting some rather nifty presenters. The cruises have had people like Larry Wall, Randal Schwartz, Sal Soghoian, (I’m sure I’m butchering his last name, but he’s the best AppleScript lecturer I’ve ever heard), and Bob LeVitus, and Dorie–the co-author of the most logical, understandable introduction to JavaScript I’ve seen–and I bet she’s good as a presenter.
Heck, I’m paying $1600.00 three times a year in tuition–and I’m sure I’d get my money’s worth out of the $2050.00 conference costs in terms of the commercial value of the increased skills I’d get. I’m not so sure that’s true of a dissertation
As I just said in a comment on Robert’s site, Jeff Prosise was a model of courtesy, actually, I quite agree with the assessment Robert makes of him. I was aiming no fingers at people, just recounting an experience that surprised me. I actually think the same thing could happen with a critical mass of characters at any event with a ‘religious community’ atmosphere – certainly OS/2 and Java (both of which I’ve been connected with in some degree) have been candidates in the past.
I also pointed out in a later blog entry that Geek Cruises (Neil) were a model of propriety here and this incident was in no way representative – certainly the XML Excursion I spoke on was one big happy family, even among the speakers who had differing outlooks.