Next Sunday, I’m off to Denver for a really cool conference called Defrag. (Here’s the blog, which will tell you what’s really goin’ on.) I’m looking forward to it, because it’s different — a smaller, more intimate kind of event. The kind of event "where you send your brains for a workout," say the producers. 
There’ll be a couple hundred really smart people participating, many whose names you would know. Folks like Esther Dyson, Jerry Michalski, Clay Shirky, David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Paul Kedrosky, Brad Feld, Jeff Clavier, Chris Shipley, Steve Larsen, and a couple of new players I’ve met in the semantic web movement, Nova Spivack and Alex Iskold. 
And that’s just a few I can remember — there are many more smart Internet minds who’ll be there. We need this kind of event after Esther Dyson retired her great "PC Forum" conference after the 2006 edition. (I’m so glad I got to cover that one. It was soo timely, and everybody-who-was-anybody was there.)
Defrag is being held at the very cool, new Denver Hyatt. Here’s an invitation to all my friends here in the Minnesota technology community: please join me at Defrag! (At least two already are, and we’re flying out together.) Denver’s not that far — and, hey, you guys need to get out of town once in a while! 🙂 I even have a special discount code that will get you $500 off. But you have to act fast, since that expires soon: the code is "DefragMN"…and you can use it when you register right here. I guarantee you, you won’t be sorry you attended this conference! Check the agenda.
One of the three producers of Defrag is a guy I know named Eric Norlin, and I’m looking forward to meeting the other two. I met Eric back in ’99 through my work with Net Perceptions, and he’s become an even more plugged-in guy since then. He’s been in the digital identity business and has run other conferences, such as Digital ID World. He lives in Florida now, but was in Colorado for many years, so has lots of contacts there. (He also was based in the Twin Cities for a couple of years, quite some time ago.) Early on, Eric even worked with the NSA, so he’s just an interesting cat to say the least. It’ll be fun to see him again. Here’s how Eric and friends describe their newest creation:
Defrag is the first conference focused solely on the internet-based tools that transform loads of information into layers of knowledge, and accelerate the “aha” moment. Defrag is about the space that lives in between knowledge management, social networking, collaboration and business intelligence …. it’s a gathering place for the growing community of implementers, users, builders and thinkers that are working on the next wave of software innovation.
The sponsors of Defrag are BEA, Yahoo, Me.dium, Newsgator, ThinkFree, Adaptive Blue, AOL, Dapper, HiveLive, Lijit, Near-Time, Siderean, Microsoft, ZDnet, ProQuo, and Collective Intellect. For more on the sponsors, see this post on the Defrag blog: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It.
And here’s more insight into what this inaugural Defrag is all about, from another of Eric’s blog posts, Inter-Twining at Defrag:
One of the earliest phrases that I hit upon to help describe Defrag was ‘networked knowledge’ … That idea — that knowledge is not simply a passive, managed asset, but an active agent in a system that is working for me — is the core of what we’re exploring.
I’m pumped! Watch for my live blogging next week — Monday and Tuesday, November 5 and 6. Take a look at the agenda and tell me what you like. I especially like "Social Networking in the Enterprise." Cheers.
I know from years past that the attendees at eTech are top notch — many leading developers, trendsetters, founders, and VCs (definitely a lot names you’d recognize). The strength of eTech, according to O’Reilly, is how it “taps into the creative spirit of all attendees, sparking provocative encounters and productive inspiration that continue long after the conference ends” — and I agree based on personal experience. In addition to the variety of sessions and extra-curricular activities, eTech has an exhibit hall featuring a focused group of about 14 exhibitors and sponsors.
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