I'm over at Hastings for a conference. I wrote up the first panel for my MfA blog.

My panel was good. I don't think I was imagining it that the audience was fullest for us, being that we had the massive star power. I was sitting between Krist Novoselic (bassist for Nirvana) and Fat Mike of NOFX, with Jenny Toomey (Director of the awesome Future of Music Coalition) sitting in and moderating. Nervous! I think I did ok though. People had positive feedback for me, and I'm hoping to get some constructive criticism tomorrow. It was kind of a rush.

Lawrence Lessig is a-fucking-mazing. I've been a fan of his work for a while, but I'd never seen/heard him live. His presentaion was one step shy of genius theater of the mind. His pacing; his use of visuals and music; his messge which is down-to-earth and intellectually as close to bullet proof as it gets... I want to put this man on tour all over the nation to promote Free Cultre, or at least rip off his act and get enough people excited that we can stick The Man Himself on the Supreme Court. I'll try to find video of that if I can.

In all it was an interesting day. I was surprised at how many misconceptions were floating around. The notion that filesharing cut into music industry profits was gospel, when in fact it's highly debatable. The technology community was also somewhat underrepresented. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the keynote of State Senator Kevin Murray. I was called away from his work in-progress to prep for my panel, which was a good thing because half way through it I was almost in full rant mode. I took notes during his speech and I will send his office a message with some far more laid-back responses than I would have given in-person. I don't know if any attention will be paid, but I'd like to educate the man.

Anyway, it was a great experience. There were a lot of smart, good-looking, energetic people there. I got to tag-team-transcribe one panel via SubEthaEdit and Rendzevious (my new favorite way to know who's definitely "in the know" about tech at these things). I got to shmooze a little later. It was fun to talk in front of folks. If I can keep this up without getting hooked on Hubris (good luck, comanche) I might get to make it a more regular thing.