Pop!Tech

IT Conversations audio from Pop!Tech 2004 (Human Nature): "Are we fundamentally changing human nature in our lifetime?" Joel Garreau thinks that yes we will be...over the next twenty years. What's driving this? He goes into great depth on Moore's Law and later on, Metcalfe's Law, which he received brownie points from Bob at the end of his session. He talks about technologies, how they are now aimed inward and gives a number of S curve examples.

The four presenters in the session on Connected Politics get together for Q&A moderated by John Sculley: Andrew Rasiej, Adrian Wooldridge and Joe Trippi. [The last of four IT Conversations audio recordings from the Pop!Tech 2004 session on Connected Politics.]

"Politics is broken; our democracy is broken...It's time for us to examine the electoral college." So says Andrew Rasiej who has spearheaded several innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the "Digital Divide" in public education. [The first of four IT Conversations audio recordings from the Pop!Tech 2004 session on Connected Politics.]

Joe Trippi, the former campaign manager of the Howard Dean presidential campaign from Pop!Tech 2004. This is the third of four IT Conversations audio recordings from the session on Connected Politics.

"Connected politics is not cesessarily left-wing politics...Taking power away from the political elites, the media elites and the rest of the elites and handing it to the great American public will not necessarily shift politics in the country to the left." [The second of four IT Conversations audio recordings from the Pop!Tech 2004 session on Connected Politics.]

"We're screwed," Alex Steffen begins. We need 4.5 planet Earths just to meet the current consumption of resources, and it's only getting worse. But there's hope, and Alex gives his favorite examples of cool ideas of innovation, particularly in the developing world. It's amazing what necessity can breed. How about a flower that turns from white to red in the proximity of a landmine?! [IT Conversations audio from the Pop!Tech 2004 session on Happiness]

Pop!Tech was about much more than just technology, and the agenda didn't skirt controversy. Thomas Barnett calls globalization "this country's gift to history" and explains why its wide dissemination is critical to the security of not only America but the entire world. As a senior military analyst for the U.S. Naval War College, Barnett is intimately familiar with the culture of the Pentagon and the State Department (both of which he believes are due for significant overhauls). He explains how the Pentagon, still in shock at the rapid dissolution of the once evil empire, spent the 1990s grasping for a long-term strategy to replace containment. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Barnett argues, revealed the gap between an outdated Cold War-era military and a radically different one needed to deal with emerging threats.

IT Conversations audio from Pop!Tech 2004 (Human Nature): Author and New Yorker Magazine journalist Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point has been a tremendous bestseller for over three years and counting. In this presentation he explores why we can't trust people's opinions -- because we don't have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke's market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller's Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.