Boris Mann's Link Blog

I were spending my money, or my foundation’s money, or my company’s money, I’d want to raise the odds of success by trying to attract a combination of people that I thought would interact well. I don’t think that is properly characterized if it’s described as an attempt to create a “news elite.”

It may be difficult to point to concrete examples of results from conferences of any stripe, but that doesn’t mean there are no results. Every attendee has the potential to change the world. An idea might take years to bear fruit. Relationships developed at such meetings might lead to something years down the road. Any number of day-to-day decisions could be altered.

For me, these falls into the theme of curation. Small groups that have high signal to share with each other on a peer level are much more interesting than much larger gatherings where there is a high disparity in interest/skill/expertise between participants.

I miss the 100 person Northern Voice days.

And at the same time, I hate the bullshit “curation” (because it isn’t) of TEDxVancouver. I don’t know that you can curate more than about a 100 people.