I’m sitting here trying to think of reasons why Nashville should have a buzzing technology scene that rivals Atlanta and gaining some serious footing towards what’s going on in Texas. I’m also trying to figure out why technology is largely ignored nearly the entire local media –and I don’t just mean using to it communicate.
In the past month I have met passionate business owners doing incredible things far bigger than the city that contains them. I’ve discovered an entire group of locals who share the same appreciation for the Internet and all its culture. I’ve seen innovation happening in my backyard that I’d previously only read about from Silicon Valley news blogs. Yet, through all of these new experiences, contacts, friends, etc., the only thing to solidify inside my mind is a question: Is technology any more tethered to science than it is to business or culture?
No. Maybe it used to be tied to one category but now it encompasses a full ecology of news. The advertisements in technology are also the story. Science of technology is driven by market demand for better products and machines. Culture happens when we finally learn how to communicate through these new tools. I could interweave threads involving tech all night long, however, the point is technology is in a rare perfect harmony with itself.
So WTF Nashville? BarCamp should have been enough to wise us up [622 registered users via barcampnashville.com] to the reality that we’ve been ignoring a huge portion of human advancement. I know most people reading this will probably disagree immediately, but the truth is we’ve just barely scratched the surface with “un-conferences” and twittering.
I want more…
[Concluded in Part 2/2]
Tom Cheredar 