Kip Knight’s blog

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A tradition that started last year in Dana Point (where we live) continued this year in Dallas.  Like everything else in Texas (where we used to live), it's bigger.  There were over 37,000 entrants in the Dallas Turkey Trot and it definitely felt like it since it took us a good 10 minutes to shuffle over the "start" line with the rest of the crowd.

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This was the 42nd Turkey Trot for Dallas and, according to Wikipedia, it's not the oldest Turkey Trot in the US (that honor goes to Buffalo, NY, who's been doing it for the past 113 years) but it's definitely the largest, with participants from all 50 states and 10 countries (I guess CA was well represented this year with the 4 of us).

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We all made it across the finish line but as far as burning off the calories at Thanksgiving....that would take a couple of marathons!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...so here are some pics from Dana Harbor near where we live.  The weather here has been unseasonably hot (or maybe it's the "new" norm...I hope not).   Anyway, sunsets are hard to beat in OC!

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This was my third year to go to “Pop Tech” which was started 10 years ago by John Sculley.   It’s held each year in Camden, Maine and is limited to the number of folks who can fit inside the Camden Opera House (about 500).  And Camden is gorgeous this time of year.

·      Cost – TED is expensive ($10k) while PopTech is $3k (not cheap, but in line with what a lot of conferences charge these days)

·      Karma – TED is a bit like being back in high school…you have the “cool kids” (i.e. the rich and the famous) and everyone else.  PopTech is much more populist….every day for lunch you’re matched up with a random group of attendees which makes for some really interesting conversations and connections

·      Impact – TED is focused on presentations (limited to 18 minutes in length…they are always very well done and can be found on TED.com) while PopTech has both presentations as well as follow-up (i.e. enrolling others to assist with helping out on some of the tough issues they are facing)

PopTech is a really amazing collection of attendees and presenters and entertainers – it’s a marathon of music, topics and presentations over a 3 day period (over 50!).

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Here were some of the highlights and “fun facts to know and tell” from some of the presentations from this year:

·      What’s A Trillion? – Just a few years ago “a trillion” was rarely used in describing debt and unfortunately now it’s a daily occurrence…to put it in perspective, a trillion seconds is 32 years long

·      We Need To Get Over The 80’s – Most decades last 10 years and are easily recognized for what they stood for (the Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression of the 30’s, the Fab 50’s, the Swinging 60’s, etc).  The 1980’s lasted from 1980 (when Reagan was elected) until last fall’s economic meltdown.  We need to get over the “more is good” attitude that drove the thinking and values over the past 30 years and move on to a more sustainable, balance approach for our economy as well as our lives.

·      It’s All About Passion – The Latin word for amateur is “amatore” which means “love” or “passion”.  That’s the key to tackling some of the tough issues we’re facing today.   A great definition of democracy is “government by amateurs” and is an accurate description of what the Founding Fathers were all about.

·      Innovation Is Everywhere – It was encouraging to see some amazing examples of innovation during the week from a wide variety of areas, including:

o  A “dirt battery” that is powered by microbes has just successfully completed field testing in Africa

o  New bio-degradable packaging from mushroom roots (mycelium) can take the place of Styrofoam

o  Re-Char is a biomass that’s buried in the soil that sequesters carbon while enhancing the soil’s agricultural output

·      Data Visualization Is Amazing  - There are some new and dynamic ways of “making the invisible visible”.  Check out the Natale Project for an example that shows the impact of immigration from countries from all over the world at http://tinyurl.com/yzt4a6x

·      “The Wisdom of Crowds” Is Growing on the Internet – People getting together from all over the globe to tackle huge issues using the Internet is happening all the time.  Two examples:

o  Climate Predictions – You can sign up to help forecast what’s going to happen in various parts of the globe in terms of climate change at http://climateprediction.net.  So far over 400,000 folks have signed up….plus you get the benefit of having your computer run faster if you sign up if you have a GPU on your computer.

o  ReCAPTCHA Project – You know those irritating words you have to fill out for entering certain websites?   The inventor of CAPTHCA has now created ReCAPTCHA that has users fill out words that have been scanned from old books and newspapers that need to be verified (since the scanning is pretty marginal for documents that old).  They are digitizing 45 million words a day now!

·      Eat Food.  Not Too Much.  Mostly Plants.   That sums up Michael Pollan’s book (“In Defense of Food”).  He was the best presenter this year – shared some amazing stats such as it used to take 1 calorie of energy to make 1 calorie of food before WWII….now it’s something on the order of 10 calories of energy for every calorie of food.  A vegan in a Hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat eater in a Prius.  We’re “eating oil” and it’s a major contributor to a lot of our other huge problems such as obesity, health problems and global warming. 

·      The Power of Human Networks – Another great speaker was James Fowler, co-author of “Connected”, who spoke on their work.  It’s old news about “six degrees of separation”…what’s new is the impact that the “three degrees of connection” that exists.  You don’t realize it but you have a big influence (both good and bad) to your friends and friends of your friends.

If you’re interested in going to next year’s Pop Tech, check it out at www.poptech.com.