One of These Things is Not Like the Other

At the TED Conference last year, I shared many meals and met many interesting people. One of the dinners I attended was organized by Susan Bratton who I met through Adam Gilad (I was interviewed for his podcast last year - http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/220-fearless-lover#ep9). Susan founded and operates the site with her husband. At the dinner, I ended up sitting across from Jamis MacNiven who runs a breakfast place in Silicon Valley named Bucks. Jamis is a rather interesting guy who, besides making a killer pancake, travels the world learning new things (remember what the doormouse says - feed your head). When I spoke with him at TED, he was about to go hang out in Italy for a few weeks to study architecture. His son shot a movie about wrestling in Mongolia and also won the Amazing Race. Needless to say, you can learn a lot from TED just by talking to the people there and listening in on conversations.

A friend of mine recently sent a shot that had me in it from Jamis' blog about his TED experience (http://bucksstories.blogspot.com/2008/04/ted-2008_18.html). It was of a group of us talking between sessions about the future of media. I was surprised to see the shot on his blog and it brought back some memories of the discussion. It is quite fascinating how media shapes our world-view today and how technology is changing the ways in which we both consume media and how the production of media is financed. From recent discussions I've had with others, television revenues are down and bit torrent is on the rise. Hard drives continue to increase in size and home media networks are also exploding, especially with consoles and receivers that are wi-fi'd. Media is ephemeral, though the stories and themes are transcendent. As the pace of media and communications (connecting minds) continues to accelerate, it will be exciting to see its impact on collective consciousness.

These are certainly exciting times we live in. Events like TED and The EG are great places to get a preview and to meet some of the people behind the changes.