I usually steer away from controversy on this blog. I said nothing during "Rory-Gate" that Ted and Roy started even though I had an opinion. Now, to be clear, Roy and I are blog-friends, we've chatted, emailed, we are cordial. Regulator kicks the llama's ass - Roy's a fine fellow.
That said, Roy, are you trying to be a commentator, or are you just trying to stir crap up? Seriously, relax.
Roy commented on my Apprentice.NET post and thought that winning the tickets to the Influencer's Dinner was cheesy and represented some kind of larger disintegration of the social fabric of the blogosphere, or possible space-time. Note, the emphasis is mine.
Sure, I know some of this is tongue in cheek sorta thing, but still. When did Bloggers become rock stars to win dinners with? ".Net Influencers"? hmm... I know these are all great people but C'mon! just wear the "I'm a Legend, worship me." T-shirt and be done with it already.
Do we really want to cultivate the cult of the worshiping masses? In the last year I've seen Bloggers become celebrities, celebrities become legends, and I've seen legends become myths. We need to remember (and especially those who are at the helm) who we are and what we are here to do. We should not get all full of ourselves creating contests for people to meet us. We should just meet them. We should not be handing out autographs, but software, tips, tricks and code. Oh and gadgets. I have to say that yes, I'd love to meet with each and every one of the “cool bunch” but I would feel really awkward trying to win their grace through a contest. What's next? A Don Box coffee mug? wasn't the “software legends” thing enough? Isn't this all getting a little out of proportion? [RoyO]
A Don Box coffee mug? Hell, I've got his rookie card! (By the way, buy a ComputerZen.com coffee mug!)
This isn't a bloggers dinner. There'll be Program Managers there, people who write specs, people in charge of .NET namespaces, people who influence the direction of the .NET Framework. YES there will be some MVPs there, and YES there will be some RDs there. Microsoft decides who is an influencer.
Dude, I was very happy to meet Don Box, and I'd be even happier to meet Tim Berners-Lee. However, I didn't say myth, legend, king or queen, celebrity or worship me. I specifically said "Illuminati" with the definition being "#5: Any persons who profess special spiritual or intellectual enlightenment" with the operative word here being profess.
It's just a velvet rope, and if you don't want to party in the champagne room, don't go to the club. The dinner existed (I didn't invent the dinner) before my little promotion and dinners like it will exist after. This is all in fun, there's no intentional elitism.
If you don't want to meet Donald Trump, then don't try out for the Apprentice.
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We're here at the Institute of the Americas at the UCSD Web Services Interoperability Education Day. Michele is currently speaking on WS-Security and WS-Trust.
