(DISCLAIMER: I forbindelse med GoTo Konferencen i Århus senere på måneden breder jeg mit sædvanlige fokus – computerspil og gamingkulturen – til også at dække  den brede teknologiske udvikling. Til GoTo vil flere af tidens større foregangsmænd – og kvinde, fortælle og diskutere nyere forskning og udvikling i branchen. Mit fokus til konferencen vil ikke være en teknologisk udredning af data-mining eller at forklare hvorfor XML startede en revolution i halvfemserne. Jeg vil gerne ind under huden på nørderne og se hvad der har drevet dem i deres fra interesse til karriere og videre. Da konferencen er international vil mine blogindlæg herom være på engelsk.)

What makes tech-tinkerers tick?

As I’ve just recently left the safe environment of Aarhus University and am slowly inching my way into the tech-industry I’ve met a lot of people. Different people, strange people, boring people, awesome people but all in all – just a whole bunch of people. My way into and around the industry is games – I neither produce nor develop them; I analyze, discuss and talk about them from different perspectives and chime in on topics such as “How can we use game-technology and ideas outside of games?”, “What’s the point of the numerous hours spent on video games by people today?”, and the classic – “Do video games make children violent and/or dumb?”. Therefore I am not acquainted with the innards of XML-technology, the knowledge of why CQRS makes the world go ‘round or how deterministic garbage collection can change my monday mornings.

I don’t know much about the innard of XML-technology, or why CQRS makes the world go round, or how deteministic garbage collection can change my monday mornings. What I do know, is that something drives people towards such specialized and trendsetting technological shifts in the current discourse; I can’t wait to find out what!

My focus for this years GoTo Conference in Aarhus will be to divulge beyond the technological refinements that thinkers such as Tim Bray, Adrian Cockcroft and more undoubtedly are sentinels for – I’d like to come closer to an understanding of what makes them go further than many of their peers – and what got them started. Is Pong or Donkey Kong the common denominator to a lifelong venture through the forefront of IT, or has something sparked their basic human drive for exploration and expansion taken it to an extreme?

It is interesting to regard how the trailblazers of today want to form the industry and culture of tomorrow – do we need more or less focus on topics regarding the gender-issues (if there are any) in the industry, should (more) new research be government-funded and thus owned, is open software good for developers or does it undermine the industry?

So all in all, I’m excited too see, at GoTo in Aarhus, if Big Data stems from big thinkers, or if Web Development precedes human development!

Skrevet af tidl. medarbejder Christian Mogensen

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