Dear Max,
I know you're busy so I won't engage in a lot of chit chat.
I went to Extro 3. Couldn't afford the whole cost, but with the help of
the lovely Natasha, I paid some, and manned the front table in exchange for
the rest. Among the most enjoyable occasions of my life. I thought then,
as i do now, that it should have been available to the larger audience
waiting in front of their tv's for something worth watching--something to
get excited about. And here you are about to go at it again. But this
time I'm ahead of the action, able to make my suggestion when something can
still be done about it.
Now, I am all but absolutely certain that you've covered this ground
already. How could it be otherwise? It's so obvious. Yet I have never
heard, vis a vis tv offerings (though I have no great knowledge of tv
offerings), nor on the extropians list, of a cable or videotape offering of
the extro 3, nanotech, transvision, or other conference, of whatever sort.
So I see two or three ways to go here--by the way, I fully expect that the
recording quality of the extro 3 tapes, and other sub-professionally
recorded events, and the sound quality, probably don't come close to
"broadcast" quality, and that post-production clean-up is likely to be both
expensive and of limited benefit; nevertheless, you have the "finished"
product there in the can, ready to go. A kind of freebie ready to be turned
into money,...er, revenue.--
or
3. Initiate an extropian business enterprise, and do it ourselves. Re this last consider: If we are entering "the information age", then being a collector and distributor of information should, by definition, be economically viable, if not lucrative. The kind of information that comes from conferences is--I'll stick my neck out on this on--high quality, but not currently considered for broadcast because of--I'm guessing again--low demand and sub-broadcast-standard production values. But shortly, when access to such materials (full bandwidth video) becomes possible on the internet, demand should be higher and production values less of an issue. At which time, an inventory of product and an established position in the marketplace makes you a player. There are lots of high tech conferences out there that the world is hungry for but can't afford to attend. When, in short order, the filaments of the net connect to that hunger (if not already) you have a happening thing. (Someone might suggest that those who would be interested could, as they do now, get their info by reading the conference proceedings. But I would suggest that a human narrated treatment clearly is richer and greatly broadens the audience.)
Meanwhile, a cable tv, videotape, and --how could I have overlooked it--
"Conferences on CD" distribution enterprise seems a ripe extropian
enterprise.
I'm willing to help. And I'm here in the Bay Area.
Anders,
Is Transvision 99 on tape?
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles