[LINK] Report on CloudCamp

[Roger Clarke]

A 'Cloudcamp' was held at NICTA's office in Canberra this afternoon:
http://www.cloudcamp.org/canberra/2010-10-13

It was billed as an unconference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

There were about 40 attendees, few of us under 40.
Not exactly a hotbed of young, driving innovators, I thought to meself.

The 5-minute 'Lightning Talks' to kick it off turned out to be 
spruiks, mostly by the sponsors (although fortunately two 
well-known-corporate-name sponsors hadn't sent anyone).

They stayed on-message, intellectually unambitious, safe.

Since neologisms are important, let's dub them 'unenLightning Talks'.

An impromptu definition of cloud computing half-way through the Talks 
was an inaudible mumble, and the diagram on the butcher's paper was 
unseeable from mid-audience.  It seemed uncharitable to ask for a 
re-run, particularly since the audience had already said it knew what 
CC was.

The prevailing interpretation of Cloud among the unenLightning 
Talkers appeared to be specifically SaaS - which appears to be 
indistinguishable from what used to be called application service 
provision (ASP).

After an hour, with zero interaction, I'd noted a single comment that 
had been worth having (by the facilitator, Kiwi Ben, no surname 
evident).  Embellished, it was this:

       The increasing use by many people of multiple devices
       is a major stimulant for separation of {data, {maybe
       applications}} from user-devices.

Ben then formed a semi-random panel from the audience, with the 
intention of getting something moving.

Things didn't look like getting any better, and I figured I could 
make a lot more progress for me, and maybe even humankind, by being 
somewhere else.

</miserable old bastard grizzle>

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University