Blog du Wren

The e.g.

File under "My Life Is Awesome": I recently had the great opportunity to attend the e.g. Conference in Monterey, California. It was 3 days full of inspiration, ideas, schmoozing, high class living, and, of course, a little juggling.

The best way I can describe e.g. is that it is a lot like TED. In fact, it is held at the same place TED was started, and there is much overlap between the organizers, attendees, and concept: get really interesting people and have them talk about what they are doing. The presenters ranged from photographers and film makers to adventurers to scientists to artists to even YouTube stars. The presentations were well prepared (with slide shows and hitting time points uncannily) and always interesting.

On top of just being interesting, I was familiar with a lot of the presenters' work, which made it so much more engaging. There was the artist who makes with just his footprints, the youTube science guy whose demonstration on spools kept us debating for a good hour on the drive home, the adventurer and photographer whose journey across Australia I had just seen a movie about, an author whose books I've read many of, and Adam Savage of TV's Mythbusters. Adam did a fun talk on juggling(!) which was totally awesome. A bunch of jugglers found him in the lobby to talk juggling with him afterwards. I even got to show him a trick!

The conference was relatively small with only maybe 400 attendees and presenters, which gave it a great intimate feeling. And besides the presenters being super interesting, all the attendees seemed to be top of their field or have something super interesting to add. It was lots of fun striking up comversations with whomever and realizing that they were an exec, inventor, or previous e.g. presenter.

Another interesting aspect of the conference for me was the aura of money. Tickets to the event were $4000, so most of the attendees weren't likely to be found behind me in line at the local taco truck. Many of the adventures or pursuits presented about were not something I could head off on tomorrow (the guy that drove one Mercedes-Benz SUV 500,000 miles around the world, the guy that replicated a float plane his father took to Brazil and retraced that journey, the guy that flew drones around volcanoes to get spectacular footage). It was a bit of a glimpse into how life can be with lots of money, which triggered as many thoughts and ideas as the presentations themselves.

The e.g. is something I am still processing and will probably for some time to come. The inspiration and ideas, the rubbing elbows with the rich and famous, and the great community time with Chautauqua* made the event something that I won't soon forget. Now it's time to start scheming how to find an invite to next year's e.g.!

Tuesday May 19 2015

File under: misc

Toggle Comments (2)

comment?

on Wed 20th May, 2015 02:14 pm UTC steve said:
how did you get invited?

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on Wed 20th May, 2015 05:22 pm UTC Wren said:
It's amazing what doors juggling opens. That, and hanging out with a bunch of jugglers/circus folk.
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