I left the Pop!Tech conference a day early. (I had a wedding to attend in Brooklyn Saturday night.) On the whole, it was an enjoyable experience, worth going if only for all the people I met. Then again, I didn’t have to pay the $3,500 ticket price to get a seat. (Pop!Tech gave me a free ticket, although I paid my own airfare and hotel.)
I spent Friday night hanging out in one of Camden’s bars, having escaped a sit-down dinner hosted by some Googlers to which I had invited myself, then reconsidered. I sat at the bar and watched the locals arrive, many off their boats still wearing waders and smelling like fish. While the locals were friendly, it was clear I was an out-of-towner, and the bartender soon started directing her regular customers over to me so they could ask me the same question: “What is Pop!Tech, exactly?”
Despite having been held in Camden since its inception as the “The Camden Technology Conference” in 1997, employing dozens of locals to work as staff*, and even keeping a permanent office on Camden’s main drag, it seems that most of the town’s residents don’t have the first clue as to what Pop!Tech is really about. It wasn’t just fisherman that were in the dark. Shopkeepers, having had their stores filled with badge-wearing conference goers all week, were equally unsure. The desk clerk at my motel asked me if Pop!Tech were something her son, who “builds computers,” would be interested in. I said it probably would be, but that it cost $3,500 to attend. She yelped.
It is difficult to take seriously a conference filled with people encouraging small, local actions toward change yet content to serve as only as a tourist in the town where it is based. Why should I care about those in developing nations when those doing the preaching aren’t interested in the people of Camden? Undoubtedly Pop!Tech transfers a lot of money to Camden, but it’s a shame that, as an conference touting communication, interaction, and dialogue, economnic stimulus is all it brings. (In fairness, one of most interesting presentations Friday was by Ted Ames, lobsterman and conservationists. Ames is from Maine.)
I want to underline that the locals were interested in what was going on at the conference, once they discovered what it was about. Letting the locals participate in some way, perhaps even letting them attend for free, would bring in a whole set of voices that seemed to be under-represented at the conference and would serve to break up the “crème de la crème” perception that Pop!Tech purposely (and I think unproductively) fosters.
There were other incongruencies. Lexus, a sponsor, brought several hybrid cars to the event as loaners, to be taking for spins by conference attendees. All the Lexus vehicles had California plates. How much gasoline, offset even by carbon credits, was expended to bring the cars to Maine?
(During one presentation a man questioned the necessity of mobility given by cars and planes in light of fuel and environmental costs. It seemed to evoke peculiar quiet in the crowded hall, filled with people like myself who had both driven and flown to be there.)
I don’t doubt that many valuable connections are made at Pop!Tech each year. I also don’t doubt a fair amount of global good comes from those connections, as well as projects sponsored by Pop!Tech itself. It’s impossible to gauge if those connections would happen without Pop!Tech or similar conferences, like TED, just as it is impossible to determine if the hundreds of thousands of dollars expended for a few days to bring people together would have been better spent elsewhere. That it is so difficult to determine Pop!Tech’s ultimate utility may be the best summation I can offer.
* I’m not sure how many are actually “employed.” All the staff I talked to were volunteers, working the conference in support of Camden or in an attempt to make connections themselves.
All that you say is too true. Oddly enough though, poptech started out as more accessible. The first year I attended the price of admission was $600, which was reasonable enough. Back then they didn’t have quite so many sponsors, either. It has become evident over the years, though, that their target demographic exists in more rarefied air. My observation at recent poptechs was that paying attendees see this conference more for its networking potential than a learning experience. Venture capitalists have no problem ponying up the dough for a trip to Maine in the fall.
Your post mentions that locals should be able to get in for free. In the past some educators and students were allowed in gratis, though I don’t know if this is still true. Also, I believe the local cable TV provider broadcasts the proceedings live.
If I’m not mistaken, poptech was an outgrowth of the Camden Conference, which survives today, but has more of a world politics slant. The price of admission is only $225, though, so it’s very accessible to the local population.