1. Scifoo WAS AMAZEBALLS.
2. Twitter is a narcissistic waste of time. Actually it is an amazing platform for letting groups of strangers spontaneously form around an issue. For example, I wanted to meet with people for a beer beforehand, but didn’t know anyone. Searching on twitter for “scifoo” revealed there were people meeting by the hotel pool. Converted!
3. Everyone was spectacular. You meet this introverted scientist who talks about his latest quantum this, or cosmological that. Can you work out that he sold a 10M copies of a book on cats?
4. An astrophysicist lamented not bringing a telescope. So one of the organisers says “Google needs a telescope” and buys a 10 inch telescope on the spot and we start looking at Saturn!
5. Google provided unlimited food, alcohol, and ice cream. Everyone got a smart watch.
6. The toilet seats were heated and there were little fake campfires to sit around. The campfires and the toilets were in different locations.
7. The best talks featured:
a. Building a telescope for finding non-equilibrium chemistry (life) on other worlds.
b. Spending 2 months a walking a backhoe 50 miles through the Sahara desert because of a broken axel.
c. This guy who really loved fungi.
d. Evolving robots!
8. The format was really effective for seeding discussions. I used it to explore the question – would you wear wearable tech?
9. I learned that introductions should be a striptease. For example:
What do you do?
I make rubber bands
There must be a trick…..
Do you know what a rubber band is?
Yes
Do you know what Bluetooth is?
Yes
We make rubber bands with Bluetooth.
I knew it! So what do they do then?
Blah blah blah.
10. I would kill to go again.
StretchSense 