I wasn’t at NTC as I mentioned so I can only speculate on causes cultural or physical (e.g. ready access of wireless), but I’m struck by the difference between NTC, and this month’s various other tech convergences (etech, SWSW, PyCon). In particular it is by and large possible to at least follow the conversations unfolding at the non-non-profit focused events via a steady stream of blog report backs, subethaedit note steams, etc.

It would be going too far to say that it is as good as being there, as the communication is decidedly uni-directional with even the standard infrastructures of dialogue (email, blog comments, etc) being abandoned in their comparative paucity en masse by those attending in the flesh for the rush of face to face. But still, the information percolates, the simplest most concrete ideas spreading, and hatching into a part of the ongoing discourse, the wild dreams perhaps hibernating until a next fertile meeting of minds, or else quietly being incubated by some newly formed conspiracy. It is these ripples which make the impact, their weak effect magnified by their wide area of effect.

There was a great push this year to engage the wider audience, coordinated by the usual suspects via a wiki and persumably this week will start to see a more formal breed of report back from NTC. But its utter opacity for the two days during which it existed is notable, and so I’m noting it.