Not too long ago, a friend of mine held an un-tech party. She is in a business where her clients and associations are all tech related and she needed a break. She invited non-tech friends as much as possible, and a few tech friends who she thought were most likely to be able to set it aside for an evening.
What: This soiree is an unusual experiment, but a necessary one. It’s the first of the UN-TECH GATHERING, so you can say you attended the VERY FIRST ONE if this event goes down in history. (likely).
The rules: NO TECH TALK whatsoever. You can talk about ANYTHING under the sun other than tech. Who can make it to the end of the evening you ask? I wonder. Others wonder. Even a writer from USA Today wonders (no kidding actually).
The premise was interesting, and it was amusing to see some of the participants dance around computers and technology. “Oh was that tech related? Oh no, that was merely presentation!” right before launching into a conversation about the Poptech conference…
Because of the likelihood that some participants might have trouble avoiding technology-related discussion, non-tech questions were prepared ahead of time. They were distributed as a means to stimulate conversation for those who might be struggling.
Some of the questions:
If you could change genders for one week, what would be the first thing you would do? (future post – I promise)
If you could have lunch with anyone living or dead, male and female, who would it be and what would you ask?
- top two: Da Vinci , Joan of Arc (from group discussion)
- others I might choose: Socrates, Alexander the Great, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelina Jolie (what can I say – I’m a guy), Halle Berry (another guy one), Nancy Pelosi, Mukhtar Mai, Nicholas Kristof (Read A Heroine Walking in the Shadow of Death. It’s well worth a free sample of Times Select if you’re not a regular subscriber)
If your could participate in any event in history, what would it be, and what role would you play?
- Renaissance Italy – male painter (someone else’s response, but I thought it was interesting)
- Ancient Greece in time of Socrates and Plato – student
- beginning of life in universe/ galaxy / solar system – recorder, scientist
- first contact with sentient, non-human species – sociological observer & translator
- ouster of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, et. al. – Senator exercising oversight responsibility of post (I mean as long as we’re dreaming…)
When you were young(er)/a kid, what did a parent or teacher say to you to change the course of your life? (future post)
One area of conversation that broke the boundary of the non-tech theme of the night challenged the premise in a positive way. What about the humanizing aspects of technology?
Some blogs, for example, are simply personal journals and serve to bring people together. In politics, Howard Dean, Moveon.org, DailyKos are all phenomena of our technological age, yet they bring real people together and give a stronger political voice to the individual citizen rather than monolithic and power-hungry political machines.
I’ve read and heard comments that email is de-personalizing, and computers are making us lose the art of the handwritten letter. Yet, when I’m working on my computer and am thinking creatively, I am much more inclined to use it in tablet mode. Putting my thoughts down in my own handwriting feels like it lowers the barrier a bit between the thought and the recording of the thought. Technology permits more of me to be present. Just a teeny, tiny, inconsequential aside: my new M400 has shipped… IT’S COMING!!! 
One of the interesting debates taking place in our internet culture right now is the public vs the private in how we choose to express ourselves in our blogs and in places like MySpace. What opens us to the world more? What of the different masks we wear in our online personas? Where do we draw the lines of safety and how do we enforce them? (Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, Child Sex as Internet Fare, Through Eyes of a Victim)
There will definitely be more to come…
