RailsConf 2008 Interlude

Well, I just expelled a ton of creativity in the wrong place, and this reminds my why I normally write my entries in a text editor first.  Grrr.

Kent Beck’s keynote last night had a great story in there.  He describe technology as having four categories.  They were enthusiasts, early adopters, early majority, late majority.  They talk about how technology is picked up.  The latter two are significantly larger than the first two.

Now, I will give my (hopefully funny) analogy to bad RailsConf sessions.

The enthusiasts is that very small number of folks who try to sneak out, and could be confused with what session they are in, or maybe even need to use the facilities.  At this point, you probably don’t know that the talk is failing.

Enter the early adopters.  These guys are more in tune with their distaste for the talk.  They might have even just been skittish and seeing the enthusiasts take off, they jump the gun prematurely.  Let the snow ball begin.

Early majority is the key to failure.  When you have a roughly 30-45% drop in population maybe halfway through the talk.  I’d say it has failed to inform (or entertain) the masses.

Lastly, the late majority would be your truly interested listeners.  Maybe sprinkle in some polite listeners