n00b View On Gnomedex

n00b View On Gnomedex
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As promised, here are my thoughts on Gnomedex from the perspective of the new kid on the block, and a new volunteer to Gnomedex. Volunteering for the conference meant my priorities were not around snapping photos and doing interviews. Instead, I had a unique, up close, and personal look at the Geek behind Gnomedex, the volunteers, the sponsors, and the speakers.

If you're looking for dirt, you usually find it. However, if you're looking for the dirt on Gnomedex, I'll leave that for Reddit.com to dish it out.

Five reasons why I LOVED volunteering for Gnomedex:

1. The speakers. My volunteer job was to assist Chris with curating two-day's worth of solid content and personable speakers. Over the years, Chris has learned that brilliant content can fall flat if the stage is not set, the speaker is not coached, and the community is not prepared. From day one, we dreamed of what speakers we would love to have join us, and received suggestions from volunteers, past speakers, and not-a-few unsolicited self-promoting queries.

The majority of the speaker line up you saw at Gnomedex came together quite quickly. Three of them were added to the lineup in the last 48 hours prior to the launch party. I bow and take off my hat to the handful of speakers who were given less than a week to prepare for their thirty-minute presentations. It was not only a thrill to watch you fly, but a reminder to me to just "let it ride" when you put your content out there. You've inspired me to take more risks, to try new things, and to seek to inspire others.

If you look on my iPhone for who I took the most pictures of, you'll notice that I took one of every speaker. Do I have a favorite speaker for Gnomedex? No. Do I know some better than others? Absolutely. Speakers who took the time to connect with me personally have left an indelible mark on my soul for their personal and professional contributions to my conference experience. Of course, I have a little more "happy puppy love" for those who were able to make it to my Belly Dance Tweetup at the end of Seattle Geek Week! You rawk. [So do your butts].

2. Chris Pirillo. The great thing about working alongside Chris is that he is so multi-talented. The challenge with working alongside Chris is that he is so multi-talented! Learning the process of conducting such a beloved conference from the Geek himself is a pleasure and an honor.

Sometime next week when I've turned over all the data of Gnomedex I was responsible for over to Kat and Chris, I'm going to poke my eyes out to give them a rest, because I swear I've poured over emails, documents, charts, phone numbers, venues, and threads so many times to catch the details, my eyes are swimming. But with Chris, you learn to be detail-oriented, professional, and thorough. If anyone reads this and wants to offer me a part-time, project-oriented job, I'm going to be asking Chris to tell you what he put me through to make me qualified to do almost anything short of coding.

3. Magic. For some reason, I like knowing that the magic we know as dance, music, performance, and public speaking has a math to it; meaning, even magic has a logical explanation. By volunteering, I felt I was part of the magic of the conference that so many others enjoy, whether in person, or via Youtube videos and livestreaming of the event.

Along with the magic comes the swag! I love watching people's faces light up when they won something. You'd think they were on "The Price Is Right", prancing down the aisle towards the stage to pick up their goodies. Sponsors provided great swag, such as Parallels, a night's stay at Hotel Max, a Wi-Fi iPad, and Throwboy pillow. Conferees changed out their own T-shirts for either the official Gnomdex T-shirt, or Swedish Hospital's, H1Nerd1 shirt.

4. It's finite. I enjoy projects that have a start and finish. Gnomedex had a birth, and it had a death. The next weeks and months are going to be interesting as all of us come to terms with ending something we believed in. My hope is that like all endings, it signals the beginning of something new.

5. Community. As a newbie, many of you reached out to me and made me feel welcome. While you could have treated me as unnoticeable hired help, you asked for my name, you connected it with my work, and you expressed kindness and interest. For all the dysfunction that I have seen in Social Media circles since the beginning of my year as "the n00b of Social Media", I saw many of you caring for others, including them in meals and conversations, and working against exclusion. Some of you even laughed at my jokes! I felt like less of a dweeb.


Five reasons why I HATED volunteering for Gnomedex

1. There is only one of me. I couldn't be doing one thing and taking care of another thing. I can't count on my hands and feet the number of times I had to end a great conversation to take care of an urgent need. I swear, this must be how new mothers feel: they never get to finish a conversation before the baby is spitting, shitting, or threating to put shit in their mouths and choke on it. The baby was Gnomedex, and it demands your attention.

2. No sleep for the wicked. It is very hard to be of any help to anyone when you don't get sleep. Volunteers sacrifice time, energy, and sleep, with many of us treating our volunteer activities like a job in the months before the conference. I had two nightmares before the start of the conference about something going wrong. One of the nightmares was true, involving an element in the schedule. The other nightmare had something to do with Chris stomping around the Gnomedex stage wearing nothing but pajama bottoms and swinging a light saber. I think that was brought on by sleep deprivation.

3. Volunteering means putting others first. If you are a selfish little arse, you won't make it very far. But I learned the hard way that if you put something out there for free, it will be gnawed to the bone. I knew I should have grabbed that scrap of food before it was gone...

But in all seriousness, serving others does bring up the question of taking care of your own needs. If you suck at putting others first, you do not know what it means to ask Chris or his volunteers - or even a paid event managing staff -- to conduct a future Gnomedex.

4. Disability. I think my right arm and my left wrist need to be in a cast for a few weeks to recover from responding to a million and one emails that flew by me from March 2010 until August. Can you say, "repetitive motion injury"? I am too tired to correct the auto-correction on my iPhone, so messages to Kat and Chris sound like teenage texts involving pee and poop.

5. Coma. My brain was firing on all cylinders, but fueled on PopChips and Zing bars. We had such amazing speakers, and it will be months before I will be able to sit back and enjoy their presentations without interruption. I did not get to sit back and absorb all the nuances that make Gnomedex magical. While audience members got to enjoy everything going "right" on the stage, volunteers have to keep their eyes open for everything that can potentially go "wrong", and step in to fix it.

That's the nature of being a volunteer. What that does to you brain is make you appear like you have a brain the size of a walnut, a.k.a. "I am my cat". I'm not sure if I put one intelligent word after another when I congratulated speakers for their presentations, or said hello at an after party and remembered names and faces. It's one big blur of silly-happy exhaustion.

I can say that when it was time to jump off the platform and fly Saturday night at Emerald City Trapeze Arts, I was so glad I had said "yes" back in the spring.

To Chris and the volunteers of the last Gnomedex, thank you for having me on board. Let's go flying, but for real. May you take your best ideas and inspiration from Gnomedex, and see them soar.