Pop!Tech 2007: A Whole Body Experience

Wow. I don’t know where to begin … or where it will end. I’m writing this on a flight back from the most amazing conference I’ve ever experienced (and I’ve experienced lots of conferences). I estimate the average combined IQ and EQ level among the people at Pop!Tech 2007 as perhaps the highest I’ve ever encountered at any event I’ve ever attended. The only conferences that come close are my recent experiences at Foo Camp and at ETech 2007.

Andrew Zolli, the curator of Pop!Tech, talked about the “intellectual crack cocaine of thought leadership” that permeates the event, and I certainly felt that. However, when Jessica Flannery described having a “full body experience” during a talk she attended by Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and co-recipient (with the Bank) of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize – which catalyzed her resolve to make a difference, and led to her co-creation of the Internet micro-lending web site kiva.org – I felt that she had articulated a more apt characterization of [my experience of] Pop!Tech (though I prefer to substitute “whole” for “full” in my description).

I’d mentioned “goosebump moments” in my earlier post on Blessed Unrest. I experienced higher GMPH (Goosebump Moments Per Hour) than at any other conference I’ve attended. I was thoroughly intellectually stimulated throughout the 3 ½ days, but the key differentiator for me was wave after wave of emotional stimulation, as speaker after speaker shared their stories of overcoming personal, professional and societal obstacles to achieve significant positive human impact. In some cases the impact is primarily a raising of awareness about important issues facing humanity, in others, the impact was actions taken on the ground to design, develop and deliver solutions to very human problems.

Some of these awareness-raising and solution-delivery examples involved some kind of technology (the “tech” in Pop!Tech), but I came away with a new answer to one of the questions posed to all attendees at the conference as part of "The Nokia Interview" I mentioned in my earlier post on our pre-conference Pop!Tech session on empowerment.

Q: “What is the most powerful but underappreciated tool for changing the future?”

Now, given that I work for Nokia, and gave a presentation at our pre-conference session entitled “Empowering People through Mobile Technologies in Developing Regions”, which highlighted some of the ways that Nokia is facilitating the empowerment mentioned in the title, I had been reading, thinking, writing and talking a lot about how mobile phones – and their supporting infrastructure(s) – are tools for changing the future. However, I think that they are a tool that is fairly well appreciated, at least among the people attending Pop!Tech (… er, and hopefully a little more appreciated by some, after my presentation ☺). However, by the end of conference, having been exposed to so many examples of the importance of people being willing to attend to the very human problems in person, I believe the most underappreciated tool for changing the future is physical presence.

A: “Our physical presence, attention and actions – our whole selves”

I believe technologies – and especially mobile technologies – can serve to empower people in significant ways, but they can only be of service if they are connecting the people who are on the ground confronting the problems to the resources (digital and/or physical) that can help them in their endeavors. Sure, we can use electronic mail, electronic voting, electronic petitions, SMS, smart mobs and other forms of digital activism, and these can have some positive effect, but to really achieve significant human impact, we need more physical activism – people showing up, getting involved, dealing with the messiness otherwise known as the human condition in its diverse manifestations throughout the physical world.

So, having had a spiritual, intellectual and emotional awakening as a result this and other steps (e.g., the Africa sessions at Foo Camp and the Communities & Technologies 2007 conference), what am I going to do about it? I am not able – or, at least, not willing – to answer that (yet). The courage of the people sharing their stories – many of who had [similar?] fears, uncertainties and doubts about what they should, could, or would do – helps stoke my courage, helps me recognize my fears, uncertainties and doubts, and helps me think (and write) more clearly – or, at least, more elaborately – about what I can or will do.

For the short term, I made a number of contacts with people who are on the ground, up close and personally involved in delivering solutions in developing regions. I will be seeking to extend the kind of facilitation of empowerment I talked about in my session to some of these people and their projects. I will also seek a way to visit one or more of these places, so I can at least better appreciate the problems and opportunities for solutions. Oh, and I’ll also post some of my notes from the conference – probably strung out over a few separate entries, and over a period of time.

Over the longer term, well, I just don’t know yet … or at least I’m not willing to recognize or acknowledge it yet.