A week ago Sophisticated Relationships mentioned the talk Lexi and Jonathan gave at Bil Conference, and fortunately we had a partial video from Robert Scoble at Fast Company. Now we have all of our talk thanks to Brian over at Hostile Fork for taking the first half of the video and Matt Knopp for putting it together with Scoble’s video.
You can see part 1 here and part 2 here.
Jonathan and I hope you enjoy!
This weekend was busy for us at Sophisticated Relationships. Rather than posting this week, Lighthouse and I have another wonderful guest post for you on Wednesday, this one from J.M. Cornwell.
J. M. Cornwell is a nationally syndicated freelance journalist, editor and award winning writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Columbus Dispatch, and New Woman. Her stories have been published in the Chicken Soup and Cup of Comfort anthologies, eight of which will be published in 2008. Ms. Cornwell lives in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and maintains a blog. She can be contacted at fixnwrtr [at]gmail [dot] com.
Lighthouse was at day one of the Bil Conference and returned to Los Angeles to participate in the marathon with her sister.
I (Lexi) was at the Bil Conference for the weekend, giving a talk with Jonathan on the four principles we believe are imperative to keep in mind when meeting people.
Robert Scoble made a video of that talk and posted it here with his awesome cell phone to video technology. The slides are here as a power point, originally made in Keynote by Matt Knopp. We hope to get our own copy of the talk posted soon.
One of the many things that makes Bil work, is that everyone I met seems like sincere, curious and helpful people with follow through. That’s a lot of people with those traits in one place. Think about it: it is a conference with no organizer, and any one of the attendees was able to figure out their part in making it happen.
We had streaming video thanks to Paul in conjunction with One Click Webcasting. We have many Saturday talks available to the web thanks to Robert Scoble at Fast Company. Our speakers had help with sound thanks to Adrian Cockroft, we had projectors and a huge screen thanks to R.K. at Qtask. Food and a Saturday post talk gathering at a local pub courtesy of Joyent. Many of our power cords that enabled all of the attendees to fuel their electronics were available from Elliott Ng and Social Media Club and Meraki helped provide wifi. Our other sponsors included Creative Spaces and The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (who donated the first monies needed for space rental).
And then there were the speakers, and everyone that I saw has something relevant and important to share with the group, and were approachable after their talks. The attendees between talks, or at breaks, at dinner or the bar were also easy to talk with. I had several wonderful and interesting conversations, where the sincerity of whom I was interacting with really shown through.
For example, although Razib at GNXP is passionate about genetics, we had a great time talking about some of the cultural differences between Monterey, Bangladesh and Atlanta Georgia. Marek from Naviscribe is a scientist and businessman, yet our communication was about our philosophies of life, the balance and acceptance of grief and joy, and the various framing of perception that takes place amongst all humans on a day to day basis. I met too many wonderful people to name all of them, and reconnected with others whom I don’t see that often due to distance.
There were many good talks as well. My favorites include:
1. Aubrey de Grey: How to Be a Successful Heretic
2. Chris Heuer: Transforming the heart of Business Love & Work
3. KV Fitzpatrick: KV Fitz – Gifted Education
4. A Pagidas: Dare to be Wise! – Reclaiming Philosophy from the Anatomists of Thought
There were also many talks that I missed, and hope to find online later. Fortunately, there is a place collecting BIL mentions.
BIL was a successful example of what can happen when you bring curious, competent people with decentralized organization. I look forward to next year, reconnecting with BILders and learning more from the speakers!
If you were at BIL, I want to know, what were some of your favorite parts? What was helpful for you in approaching and connecting with other people?
Lexi & 
