Gluecon ended some 12 days ago, and I’m finally gaining some perspective on things, so it is time for the wrap-up. Caveat: this is really a laundry list of thoughts culled from notes I took, things the staff observed, survey feedback, etc — it is by no means all-inclusive, nor is it in any order of importance.

Logistical/Operational thoughts — All in all, things went pretty smoothly (many thanks to my wife and our staff), but (as always) there is room for improvement:

1. I’d like to start putting twitter handles/IDs on badges (which means collecting them via the registration process). I heard the question, “what are you on twitter?” multiple times. Is twitter the new business card? Dunno, but it’d be useful on a conference badge.

2. For all of our conferences, I’m going to start a cab-sharing wiki. It just makes sense.

3. Ditto for speaker/session descriptions. For Glue more than Defrag, people wished they had more in-depth session descriptions - and “posting” those on a website just is tedious. Having speakers post it on a wiki (and create some interaction) makes good good sense.

4. No more water bottles (kinda). So - here’s the story - we started doing water bottles because we just couldn’t stand watching people grab a bottle of water, take 2 swigs and leave it on a table any longer (for both cost and waste reasons). We just assumed people would want a bottle to carry water around in. We were wrong. Most people were perfectly happy with having plenty of water stations and water on the tables. I think next time around we’ll do 75-100 water bottles and place them at the water station (for those that want them) versus putting them in every bag.

5. Power Strips: During the setup (I spend about 6-8hrs “managing” the set-up the day before the event), I made the call to have the power strips on the end of the tables in room 1 versus in the middle of the tables. It seemed inconsequential. I was wrong and I heard about it. Noted.

6. Gluecon videos will begin appearing on InfoQ shortly; I’m asking speakers to put their presentations on SlideShare; and Gluecon pics can be found here.

7. One of my favorite moments was giving Phil Windley a hard time about how at one point Glue was cheaper to attend than an unconference (Phil runs the Internet Identity Workshop unconference). 

Speakers, Tracks and Sessions:

1. Mitch Kapor was the top rated speaker of the event. Beyond Mitch, lots of people got mentions — Jeff Lindsay (webhooks), Peter Coffee, Aaron Fulkerson, Rick Nucci, Bob Frankston — lots of good stuff.

2. My biggest take-away was that next year we need 2 technical tracks (beginner and advanced) and 1 “strategic” track (high end discussion, business issues, etc).

3. The 3 topics that people most wanted to hear more about were Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Managing Real-time data, and Social Network Glue.

4. In general speakers need less time than they think to convey their point. Shorter “sessions”; more “discussion.”

5. I really liked this definition of “the glue space” - “information services between Network Architecture and Applications.”

6. Some folks took to starting a Gluecon wiki (fleshing out what a Glue SDK would look like) - please check it out.

Interesting Social Media Impact: I’m really overwhelmed by the role that social media played in Gluecon registrations and promotion.

1. 92.5% of survey respondents said they heard about the conference from some form of social media.

2. Gluecon saw over 1.1 million impressions on twitter in the 30 days leading up to and including the event.

3. Gluecon saw over 119k unique viewers of conference-related tweets.

I’d advise PR firms to learn very quickly that articles in tech pubs don’t carry nearly the weight they used to, and that they need to stop asking for a press list and start concentrating on social media (PR’s new job may be working the social networking tools like EventVue verus staying home and “pitching” articles to journos). Like I said, the above numbers are pretty stunning (to me) — after all, Glue’s just some tiny little first year tech conference held in Denver, Colorado, right?

Overall:

Overall, I think we had a great first Gluecon. Great energy, a really good core foundation for a community, and a true sense that there’s a lot to go work on for next year. We’ll definitely be back in 2010 (may 26-27) — bigger, badder, and better than ever before.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Seth Levine and Phil Becker (my partners on this), the staff (Mollie, Matt, Robbie), our sponsors (more to come on that), the speakers (all of you added so much), my wife Kim (without whom NONE of this would happen), and most importantly, all of you (our participants) — as you really make Glue what it is. Thank you!

Hi Everyone! Just uploaded Gluecon pics to Flickr. The pics can also be viewed on the Glucon home page.

It is really quite simple: Register by 5pm Mountain Standard Time today using the code “en1″ and Glue costs $395. Register at 5:01pm MST tonight and it costs $495. Register on site (tuesday) and it costs $595. All of which is to say that you should register today.

Things are definitely picking up in pace around here, as I watch the weekend slip away into endless details and headed to Denver for Glue.

2 things of note this morning:

1. If you need a roomie, I’ve got a moderator (male) who’s looking to split the hotel room cost. Email me (enorlinATmac.com) and I’ll get the two of you connected.

2. If you need a free meal, I’ve got your hook-up there as well. We’ve still got a few spots left for the Microsoft-sponsored “Re-imagining IT in 2015″ - hosted by Dave Drach of Microsoft Startup Zone. Great conversation, cool people and a free meal the night before Gluecon beings. Just register and shoot me an email saying you’re in, and you’re in.

Meanwhile, my insomnia has kicked in (I always get insomnia before a conference), and my brain seems to be on this continual playback loop of “more human than human” by White Zombie. Oh well.  See you at Gluecon.

3 quick notes today:

1. All discount codes end on Friday, May 8th at 5pm Mountain Standard Time. No exceptions. Get your butt in the door now - use “en1″ and save yourself $200 bucks!

2. You cannot transfer your registration on site (i.e., show up and say, “I’m using Joe Smith’s registration”). If you need to transfer a registration, you need to let us know by Friday, May 8th.

3. And finally (and this is just cool) — the next person to register will win a free 20 minute flight in a 2 seat, open cockpit plane around the Front Range (note: you must be under 180lbs and 6 ft to fit in the plane).  Name another tech conference that gives away flights in cool, experimental aircraft!

7 days to Gluecon, and 7 reasons that you should come:

1. Things are improving and Glue is where real innovation lies: This one’s easy — anecdotal though it all may be, myself and a bunch of other folks are starting to pile up some evidence that things are improving. Get in now. And don’t just get in on every tired, old, washed out trend kicking around the Valley — get your butt to Glue and see what’s really up.

2. The Wifi is gonna rock: Two things that conference organizers consistently screw-up — wifi and power-strips (lack of). We don’t make those mistakes.

3. The Agenda: This one is actually about 4,322 reasons, but I’ve collapsed it into 1.

4. You’ll get to meet the brains behind Glue: No, not me — my wife! Kim works the registration desk and handles every last detail of the conference. When you’re saying, “this food is actually good” - go thank my wife.

5. You might just change your whole life: Gist announced their Series A today. They met the Foundry Group guys at last year’s Defrag. I always watch for these kinds of indicators with our conferences — little signs that significant things are starting to happen in and around the conferences. Bottom line: coming may put you in the right place at the right time.

6. The Pre-conference dinners: We’ve got 3 sponsored pre-conference dinners around 3 great topics - Cloud Computing; Who will own your identity and why?; Re-imagining IT in 2015. Wanna hang out on the 11th of May at 7pm with 25 awesome people (and get a good meal out of it)? Come to Glue. Spots go quickly and it’s first come, first served (the “general invite” email goes out to the full conference registration list Thursday morning).

7. The topic matters: Whether you’re working on the cloud, identity, pervasive context, data portability, web oriented architecture - most startups today are working on something that involves “Glue.” Why not hang with like-minded folks and learn something? — all for $395 (ie, CHEAP).

Register today — waiting only makes the price go up. Not coming only makes your post-Glue regret go up.

We’re 8 days from Glue - which, when I stop and think about it, is kind of amazing. “They” threw the worst economy in 50 years at us, and it didn’t stop us. They threw some odd flu at us, and that didn’t stop us. So, what happens in 8 days? We’ll be gathering an amazing group of people together in Denver, Colorado — outside of the Valley, outside of mainstream expectations, and SQUARE in the middle of real innovation.

If you’re not planning to join us, well - I dunno what to say.

If you are planning to join us, TAKE NOTE: discounts are ending this Friday. If you’ve got a discount code, you’d better use it (and quick) — because if you show up on site to register, you’ll be paying $200 more than you will on this Friday (no exceptions). You might wonder why that is - it’s really quite simple: our planning costs go up after a certain date (and that date is Friday).

So, get in gear, use a discount code (”en1″), take $100 off of the current price and REGISTER NOW.

See you at Glue!

Phil Becker has been my partner in crime around conferences since 2002. In that time, Phil and I have shared endless conversations around the “cycles” that occur in the technology world (economically, developmentally, innovation-wise, etc). The other day, Phil and I were discussing the recent announcement by Eucalyptus Systems (a 5.5mm Series A), and pondering the significance of it all.

Our thesis is this: Historically, truly significant periods of innovation in the world of modern information technology can be marked by some technology research work moving out of the world of pure research (be it academic or govnerment-driven) and into the world of commercial technology.  The examples (and these are just a couple) are not insignificant:

1. BSD-Unix: This history is a who’s who of open source operating systems.  From the early beginnings of PDP-11, to the 1982 departure of Bill Joy (from Berkeley) to start Sun Microsystems, BSD marks a HUGELY significant innovation cycle in technology.

2. Mosaic:  Similarly, the development of the Mosaic browser (building on FTP, Usenet and Gopher) reads like a who’s who of the founding of the world wide web. Marc Andreesen’s move from the University to the founding of Netscape (and Netscape Navigator) may be the most significant technology development of our lifetimes.

3. Google:  The movement of the google search algorithm out of Stanford and into the commercial world is well documented, and certainly backs up our thesis.

There are, of course, other examples (hell, you could argue Facebook fits this profile), but these serve as a good foundation.

Now take a look at Eucalyptus.  Eucalyptus is now moving out of UC-Santa Barbara and into the commercial realm. In ALL of our analogies, this move marks the beginning of a very serious period of innovation in the tech world.

Is the Eucalyptus move that significant? We can’t know yet. But I’d argue that the thesis certainly bears watching. And, if we’re right, then the open innovation field that Glue is seeking to explore sits on the cusp of something amazing. Perhaps I’m over-inflating things. But, perhaps not.

Join us and help me figure this out.

I’ve been watching with interest a great series of posts over on Pamela Dingle’s blog. It all began when Pamela tried to get a blogger pass for the RSA conference. What really caught my eye, though, was James McGovern’s response - specifically, “Achieving the goal of educating attendees is never the goal of those who run conferences.” [sidenote: I OBJECT your honor!] Pamela, then responded to James with the very sensible point that it is all about attendees (I agree). And, finally, the RSA representative came back with some idiotic excuse about page views and technorati rankings.

I’ve said all of this before, so forgive me for droning on, but…

1. Start by distinguishing between trade-shows and conferences. RSA is a trade show. Glue is a conference. Trade-shows (it is correct) get the huge majority of their revenue from the “expo” portion (i.e., vendors) - and, therefore, tend to view the vendor as their customer (if even subconsciously). Conferences, on the other hand, have a revenue stream that is more evenly split. And, therefore, have a choice…

2. A *badly* run conference doesn’t understand that the attendees are the customer. A *badly* run conference mistakes sponsors (vendors) as customers, not realizing that without attendees you have NOTHING.

3. A well-run conference knows that your primary job is to make attendees happy. So, sorry James, there are some of us that have a goal of education of attendees (though your sweeping generalizations sure are incendiary).

4. A well-run conference focuses on quality over quantity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - if (you’re a vendor and) you want 1000 “leads” go to the web 2.0 expo. If  (you’re an attendee and) you want parties and 6-wide breakout sessions, head to RSA. If on the other hand, you want quality conversations that can evolve over a two day span, find a well-run conference.

5. Conferences are about community. Community is about a shared concern or mission. Smart vendors get involved in that mission because they know it will increase their sales over the long run.

At the end of the day, it is a tough thing to run a conference well. It takes a lot of care, a lot of work and a nice heaping teaspoon of “luck” (good fortune, whatever). But most all, it takes attendees that CARE about the topic, and in turn, the conference. Even if that core group is only 15 or 20 people — over time those 15 or 20 people –talking, thinking, building– will help attract the right folks, and real innovation can occur.

And no, you’ll never get that at a trade-show.

Right around this time, I like to take a quick snapshot of the “crowd” assembling for a conference. Glue’s no different — and the folks coming look fantastic. From places like:

AdMeld
Alsop Louie Partners
Avaya
Best Buy
Citizen Sports
Cloud Ave
Cloud Security Alliance
Denver Art Museum
Devver
Facebook
Filtrbox Inc
FreshBooks
Gartner
Guidewire Group
IntelliWare Systems
Internet Broadcasting
Intuit Inc.
Los Alamos Nat’l Lab Research Library
Massachusetts Institue of Technology
Meritage Funds
NASA Ames
Network World
NeuStar
Paypal
Salesforce.com
Symantec Corporatiion
SynapticHealth
Union Square Ventures
UserSphere Research
Yahoo! Inc.

Typically, the titles are lining up in the Sr. Director/VP range for the larger companies and CTO’s for the startups.

Glue’s gonna be a blast. Don’t miss out, use “en1″ to receive $100 off of the registration price (bringing it down to $395).