Comments on: The Real Deal

By: Technically Philly » Innovation Philadelphia to go back to the drawing board | Covering the Community of People Who Use Technology in Philadelphia.

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:32:00 +0000

[...] disappeared that he “wouldn’t miss it.” Indy Hall co-founder Alex Hillman also refused to speak at GECES, sparking a debate in his comments section about Innovation Philadelphia’s role in the [...]

By: Billy Joel on the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit : alex hillman writes here

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:27:46 +0000

[...] still a massive amount of distortion in the continuing debate about my posts, mostly circling around the assertion that “bottom up” is better than “top [...]

By: Warwick Poole

Warwick Poole — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:10:34 +0000

Quickly, background: Alex, I've met you once briefly at National Mechanics when I was there with Matt Mullenweg. You ignored my email once and some tweets asking you to read that email too. I was trying to get a coworking space in Phoenixville going and was asking for your advice. You know, the community/sharing kind of advice. Nevertheless, I'm not in a situation where I could take on this project anymore so I've had to stop working that project. For now.

Some things about this whole saga seem off to me. And I'm no Philly tech/creative scene insider at all. I know some people vaguely, slowly trying to make more connections. And look, I'm even late to this party.

"Without my support and involvement, there’s a void in the honesty of how this event represents Philadelphia. Comments on my original post support that."

"I have to wonder if Innovation Philadelphia led them to believe that we’d be on a panel together, and if that had any influence on their decision to participate? I don’t know."

There's a debatable level of hubris in these two statements which colors my perception of other points being made in this post. There I said it.

I'm hunting for concrete details about this overpowering "top down"-edness and bureaucracy which renders the IP conference unbearable for any self respecting freedom loving independent worker. Not found a lot so far. But I'm hunting...

Also, I don't know a lot about IP. In fact I'd never heard of them until I stumbled onto this post. Probably proves your point about what they've managed (or not) to do with this money they have. But I did some quick research and it seems that IP created, or was involved in creating the Creative Economy Investment Fund. Which in turn funded DreamIt Ventures, or invested in it, in some fashion. I don't know the details. It seems to me that good things are flowing down this river. In fact I'm reading something here indicating that you, Alex, get involved with a DreamIt funded project called Anthillz? I don't see bad here only good. I want to see more of this.

So my vote would be for more conferences, not less. I'm hoping for IP to do more, not do less. And they should be free to use any format. In fact, if they want to use an overhead projector, like my 7th grade math teacher Mrs Rogers was the very first in our entire school to do, then I say go for it.

I want to see more guys in pin stripe suits listening to a tattooed guy tell them how he built a web application that is better at solving a certain problem than the Oracle solution that their company dropped eighty grand on. And those guys in the suits go to the IP conference (probably) where they can get a Danny De Vito Limoncello at the open bar. They should hear the good news right?

"The most dangerous thing in the world for me would be to think I operate in a bubble."

"He asked me one of the hardest questions I’ve ever been asked:"

Now if that's really the most dangerous thing in the world for you to think, and if that's really one of the hardest questions you've ever been asked, then Alex my friend your life is goddamn awesome. Possibly even Dangerously so.

By: Warwick Poole

Warwick Poole — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:10:34 +0000

By: Warwick Poole

Warwick Poole — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:10:34 +0000