I just got out of a wonderful panel at Supernova 2006 titled "Power to the People." The participants in the panel were:
- Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist)
- Gil Penchina (recently named CEO, Wikia)
- Saul Klein (VP of Marketing, Skype)
- Mena Trott (Co-founder, Six Apart)
- Tina Sharkey (Senior VP of Network & Community Programming, AOL)
The overall purpose of the panel, according to the Supernova 2006 agenda, was to shine light on the ever-so-popular phenomenon of user-generated content and how that affects existing businesses and industries. The panelists were both relevant and characteristically open to sharing their opinions and visions on this appropriately chosen topic.
One of the points that stood out most to me was Craig Newmark's explanation of how the Craigslist community has shaped over the years. Everyone always wonders how Craigslist can be so popular yet still look the same as it did nearly half a decade ago (not only in design but also in the slow adoption of tools such as video). The reason stems from Craigslist being formed nearly entirely from its users since the beginning. If Craigslist doesn't see enough support and desire from its users for a given feature, they simply won't implement the feature. And along the same lines, Craigslist basically lets its user run free with the culture and community of the site. His example for this trait was the Hurricane Katrina disaster, after which the New Orleans Craigslist community formed a life and culture of its own, with little or no push or direction from Craigslist itself.
The Supernova conference is also a great example of a university utilizing a conference to get their brand and reputation in front of many smart and "plugged in" individuals. While obviously biased, I think Kevin Werbach, the host of the conference, has done a fantastic job of getting the Wharton name behind an exciting technology conference and around these fresh-minded people. This is something I feel has been lacking in past years, especially for Wharton.
I'm looking forward to hearing Jeremy Allaire (founder of Brightcove) speak on the "Rise of the Videonet" panel tomorrow, as well as Seth Goldstein (founder of Root Networks) on the "Who Owns You?" panel. Should be a great feature to the final day of the conference.
On Wednesday, November 7, we'll be hosting an Amazon Web Services Meetup at our offices in Center City Philadelphia. Jeff Barr, Amazon's AWS Evangelist, will be at the event. Invite Media already uses EC2 and S3 heavily, and we have already talked to a few other companies in the area who do the same. We're also hoping to bring together a lot of the PA'ers interested in technology at the event, and will of course be firing up the grill on the roof for free barbecue :) 
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