Just got back from the Web 2.0 Conference, where I was going to be speaking as part of a panel on what teens want from technology (see my previous post about the talk). Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to participate.
I had previously had a half-hour phone interview, which led to my invitation to speak on the panel. Last week, I received an email informing me that I was selected:
Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the Web 2.0 Teen Panel, facilitated by Piper Jaffray & Co.
Seemed simple enough to me.
I got there this afternoon and joined a group of what eventually became ten or eleven other teens from around the Bay Area. We were told that since the session was 45 minutes long, only five people would be chosen to actually do anything. Needless to say at this point, I wasn't selected. Later, I was told that I seemed to be too much of an "advanced user" for the panel. There's a few hours of my life down the drain...
Obviously, I really wanted to have the opportunity to speak. Between my own experience and observations I've made from friends and classmates, I think I have a lot to add. While I can certainly understand that not everyone is suitable to be on the panel, that is why the organizers conducted interviews. If I (and the four or five other teens who weren't selected) truly weren't suitable, then we shouldn't have been asked to participate in the first place. That's what the interview was for, no? For people representing trusted names like O'Reilly and Web 2.0 to send out speaker invitations and not honor them, it is frankly rude, whether to teenagers or adults.
I stayed around after I was rejected and watched the discussion. I came into the meeting room to find myself standing next to Mitchell Baker and Brendan Eich, It was nice to see both of them again, brought me back to the summer.
Honestly, I don't think the panel was very good. It mostly consisted of platitudes that the audience all knew about, things like "yeah. A video iPod would be cool." That's all well and good, but unless you ask questions about what kind of content teens want to be able to watch and where they would watch it, it really isn't informative.
The teens selected didn't really seem to know a whole lot about what you could do online; no one knew what Skype was, and the idea of a voice or video chat was greeted with "it would be cool if you could do that." I realize that no one was looking for a super-technical group, but you can't really have a good discussion if the panelists don't know what's out there. At the very least, I would have been interested to know _why_ these teens used/didn't use certain technologies, not just what they did and didn't use.
Obviously, I can't distance myself from it that much, so if you were there, I'm curious to know your thoughts about it.
But I'm not bitter. Well, maybe a little, but that's not really the point... Watch this space over the next few days for my thoughts on just what exactly teens do want from technology.
Update: See my first post on the subject, discussing how teens are crying out for feed readers and syndication.
Posted by zach at October 7, 2005 5:46 PMSounds a lot like Ben's experience:
http://bigben.blogs.com/first/2005/10/web_20_what_tee.html
Posted by: Richard on October 8, 2005 9:49 PMI realize that you are disappointed that you were not able to speak, but please be courteous enough to tell your audience that you did receive $100 for your time and a pass to attend at least the final day of a $2000 conference. Additionally, it might be good to mention that you were told on the phone ahead of time that the final group would be chosen at the conference.
Any marketer knows that you cannot gain much information from a skewed sample set, and unfortunately, both you and Ben (who was introspective enough to admit on his blog) represent a very skewed sample set. It is great that you know what Skype is, but what you don't realize that it was more important to the audience to hear that none of the 5 more "average" teens did not.
Finally, it is also important for you to know that panels at conferences like these are often more about entertainment than they are about information sharing. Yes the audience wants to learn something, but few are ever expecting some great revelation. The audience pays to have an opportunity to network with their peers and, for the smaller companies, sell their stories to the VCs and larger company executives in attendance. You might have some great ideas on what teenagers need and want, and I encourage you to blog about them, but please do not expect John Battelle to give you the floor at a $2000/seat conference to shares your views with a 1000 of the countries top Internet executives.
Cheers and keep up the passion for technology - it will serve you well.
Posted by: on October 11, 2005 3:22 PMWow, you got blasted on that second response :) Sounds very defensives, if not exactly fair for your opinions. I think you represent a growing number of teens who really do know a lot about technology, more so than many adults do today. I'm going to be a future public librarian and I'm fascinated to know what interests young adults today and ways to draw them into the library.
There is a Teen Tech Week coming up in March and I was thinking of doing a library program. I'm not sure yet what I want to do but I was thinking of having a Teen Newsletter written by teens and some kind of formal program. If you have the time I'd be interested in any thoughts or ideas you have about teens and technology. Do you think a lot of teens would be interested in a program about teens and technology?
Thanks, and great Blog :)
Posted by: Lea on January 22, 2007 3:54 PM