Part 1: Jet Fuel = Liquid Paper
The conference started quietly enough with a Thursday night reception in the beautifully restored and expanded public library in the small mid-coast town of Camden, which has a winter population of about 5,000. (In summer, it quadruples.) I lived in Camden for 20 months in the early 90s, and it has always attracted an interesting mix of thinkers, CIA retirees, technology geeks, and active corporate types. When I worked there at the legendary Kodak Center for Creative Imaging, it was a rare week when some prominent creator or entrepreneur (or several) didn't stop by either at the center or just in passing through town. It's a perfect place to talk about people and progress away from hubbub. Although it's touristy, it promotes reflection, especially in the quieter fall and winter months.

The "Being Human" event was the fourth technology conference produced by CTC, and was an outgrowth of ideas discussed in previous years' events. The organizers arranged a slate of speakers, none of whom were paid, to explicate their ideas and tell stories of their personal experiences at the intersection of technology and humanity. The only event similar to this is Richard Saul Wurman's TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design); Wurman, by the way, was an attendee in Camden. Streaming video of all sessions is expected to be online at www.poptech.org sometime soon.

John Perry Barlow gave the opening keynote. Barlow is formerly best known as a Grateful Dead lyricist, but his current celebrity arises from co-founding the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and traveling internationally to promote the rights of self-expression and privacy.

His keynote was somewhat rambling and hard to pin down, which made more sense when he mentioned having just flown in from India, and that he is "not entirely comfortable being in the same place for more than a few days." He riffed on a new geriatric class of travel that would wheel people with his wanderlust on and off planes on gurneys. More seriously, he said, "the Internet is going to do to jet fuel what the computer did for paper," radically increasing the demand for travel the way desktop publishing caused paper usage to skyrocket.

Barlow maintains that a growing global consciousness he called the "overmind" is quietly building itself into a more powerful organization through the interconnectedness and proliferation of the Internet. The overmind "doesn't have a conscience, [and] may find us inexpedient," he continued. He argued that we, as individuals, have to work to make sure this new creation of ours doesn't act outside our own ethical framework.

This isn't science fiction or mysticism to him; it's shown every day, he said, through the continuing truth in Moore's Law, an axiom that predicts computer processing power will double every 18 months. Through the uncoordinated efforts of millions of people individually and in small groups, Barlow said, Moore's Law has remained true for years.

Following Barlow, John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple Computer and a partner in the venture-capital firm Sculley Brothers, introduced the first panel, featuring PlanetOut's Smith, and Mary Furlong, the CEO of ThirdAge Media.

Smith, from PlanetOut, used a primitive and powerful visual aid to show the demographics of her audience. She had instructed the conference staff place colored sticky notes on the back of each seat in the Camden Opera House, the main venue for the event. She asked everyone to stand, and to remain standing until she asked a question to which their answer was "no": Did audience members have gay, lesbian, or trans-gender friends or colleagues? How about family members? Then finally how many in the audience visited her site. It was an effective device.

Community is the strong suit at PlanetOut, with personals and chat forming the nucleus of the relationship of the site with its members. The site has an international membership, including people from countries like Saudi Arabia, in which practice of alternative sexuality can be subject to the death penalty.

Furlong spoke to the subject of older people and technology. She put the lie to canards that older folks can't learn to use technology. The term "third age" was adopted from a French phrase to better represent the time frame of Baby Boomers, who may no longer be in the middle part of their lives, but not quite on the road to elderly.

Her audience isn't composed of recumbent retirees, but people who ask questions like "How can one wear leather pants in size 14?" She noted that one in three "third agers" will remarry. In Q&A following, Furlong added that this generation is savvy: "You're going to do a background check" on that person whose personals ad you answer.