User:Sj/Log/Conferences and other social tools

Conferences play an interesting role in the percolation of new memes and ideas throughout circles of discourse, society, influence, and innovation. They often have flavors -- a typical age, speed, liveliness or bureaucracy -- all their own. And they can both be intensive sessions of creative idea-sharing and ways of normalizing a field -- defining research and focus so that people feel no need to think outside of a collective box.

Which types of conferences the olpc community attend, to learn, and presents at, to inform, is an open question. The range of problems tackled by the project, and the range of fields affected by the result are both large. Whatever the answer to the question, keeping an open list of related and tangential events, and expanding the circle of people interested in reporting to & from such events, is worthwhile. And such lists can provide a good starting point for a discussion about how to gather and distribute communities around the project's facets.