It's Saturday morning, and I'm sitting in Room 290 of the Stanford Law School, host of BloggerCon III, a global assemblage of blog enthusiasts hosted by Stanford University "Internet and Society" group. I knew this conference would be different when I formally registered. Lines were organized by first name, which immediately led to confusion among the registrants. “Ah,” I thought, “I have arrived and BloggerCon, and I am ready for something quite different." So far the crowd is quite friendly, and the jovial fellow to my right, Adam Curry (yes, that's him), was wonderfully helpful in getting my wi-fi connection all set up at the conference. Lawrence Lessig just kicked us off for the conference, noting the "extraordinary" opportunity in front of us for this conference. He promptly introduced David Winer, the conference organizer. "This is a different kind of conference...an unconference," he noted. "We do this the way the blogophere would suggest do a conference." Indeed, he added "we don't have an audience." The protocol here reminds me a bit of Lord of the Flies, whereby the kids on the island were required to have the Conche in hand before they can speak. Also, there's something a bit surreal about a room full laptops. Now, laptops were common while at b-school, but there's something peculiar about just about everyone typing while the folks at the podium are speaking. Are they listening, or are they blogging? Or both? Let me assure you, this is a brave new world. Keep reading...
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