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Cute Cat Theory at ETech

I’m speaking at this year’s O’Reilly ETech conference, which takes place in San Diego, CA from March 3-6th. Tragically, I’m there only for the day I’m speaking – the 4th – and then heading to New York to attend a board meeting.

I say “tragically” because ETech – short for “Emerging Technology” is consistently one of the most fascinating and stimulating conferences I get to attend. It began seven years ago as a conference on one of the hottest emerging topics – social media. And it continues to cover hot new fields in geekery – this year’s conference promises sessions on body hacking, DIY aerial drones, visualization of data and crowds, and a focus on emerging tech in the developing world.

That last bit, of course, is where I come in. I’ll be giving a talk titled “The Cute Cat Theory of Web Activism”. Familiar ground to regular readers of this blog, but I’m hoping a guided tour of digital activism using examples throughout the developing world, and a close look at how China is censoring user-generated content will be exciting to some folks. Even if not, the next speaker in my room is Violet Blue, talking about sexual identity online, so perhaps some folks will come to get seats ahead of time… :-)

Other reasons to come to this conference, even if you’re not interested in hearing me:

– Uber-hacker Saul Griffith on Energy Literacy
– Larry Lessig on his new focus on combatting corruption
– JC Herz on data visualization
– Physical computing god Tom Igoe with a tutorial on Making Things Talk
– Body-hacker Quinn Norton on the intersections of our bodies and society

Seriously, it’s going to be a blast. Come if you can. Use this code – et08fds – to sign up and save 20%.