O’Reilly’s Foo Camp: Assessing the “Tech Backlash”

European Straits #82

Dear all,

I’m just back from California, where I participated in the 2018 edition of Tim O’Reilly’s FOO Camp. It was three intense days of discussing ideas and building new relationships!

I’m sure most of you know Tim O’Reilly. If you want to learn more about the man, you can start with this article I wrote about him and his book WTF. But to give you an idea here, Tim, whose company O’Reilly Media is specialized in technology and business training, defines himself as a “mapmaker”. His focus is on connecting with those he calls “Alpha Geeks”—people who are racing ahead to try and decipher the future. He and his team then disseminate what they’ve learned by producing books, interactive content, workshops, and conferences, all designed to develop a better shared understanding of what’s coming.

The FOO Camp (with ‘FOO’ standing for “Friends of O’Reilly”) is one of O’Reilly Media’s many formats for gathering “Alpha Geeks” and putting them to work. It’s an “unconference”, which means that ther…