Just back from the 2008 Georgia Technology Summit.  I am going to stick with my theme from last year in honor of it being Oscar week. On the whole I think it was a great show.

The Good

1.  Don Tapscott’s presentation.  I hope to get a copy of it so that I can post more later.

2.  The 40 innovators. I posted about some of them over on PeachSeedz.  Great group of companies, great presentations by most.

3.  Sig Mosely being introduced into The Technology Hall of Fame of Georgia.  This deserves an article of its own that I need to get to.
4.  The people’s choice awards, nice semi-interactive element.  The winners that I captured were:

• Damballa: Breakthrough technology
• Playmotion: Coolest technology
• ScanTech: Most likely to create jobs
• Suniva: Most likely to succeed
• TerraGo: Best presentation

5.  Scott Burkett championing entrepreneurs from the stage.

6.  And it seems from the TAG’s State of the Industry study that there is a strong Internet cluster emerging in Atlanta.

7.  Free Wi-Fi! Which might not seem like a lot but it is a big improvement from last year.  More importantly it shows that TAG listens to its customers.

The Bad

1.  Using videos to make presentations when the person in the video was in the room remains a silly concept.

2.  This is just one guy’s opinion but I wish that Sig would have had a chance to tell a few war stories.  The guy is a hall of famer and deserves more then a 60 second Oscar acceptance speech.  I would rather have that than an after lunch keynote.

3.  The program was a bit long.

The Ugly

All of the following is based on information collected in the hallways and via the back channel.

1.  The participation fee is steep.  My suggestion is remove the 2nd keynote to reduce this cost and pass this cost reduction through to enable unfunded companies to apply and get some exposure.  This would also shorten the program.

2.  Need to expand the demographic of the event beyond old pasty white males in dark suits.  What do I have against old pasty white males in dark suits?  Not much in general, I am one, but it seems that the concept of wikinomics and mass collaboration that Don preached was not something that the group in that room are going to openly accept.  The audience needs to be expanded to move the Atlanta technology community forward.

And that is what I am all about.  Moving the ball forward.  Kudos to TAG, Tino, and everyone involved in doing their part to make it happen.