Current mood:	geeky
Current music:	"Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton
Entry tags:	tech, travel, work

Google I/O 2009
I'm out at the 2009 Google developer conference, and you can totally see the effect of Google's $1M+ per employee per year revenue. They have money to throw at the attendees, so they do so. And, honestly, they've done an amazing job making a conference that's aimed at software developers:

• They assume that most people here have laptops and/or smartphones with them, but no paper or pens. All of the sessions have power strips every few seats, the wifi is free (and heavily utilized), etc.
  
• They gave everyone free Google Android smartphones and encouraged them to activate and use them at the conference. Taking pictures of the barcodes on attendee's badges or session title slides sucks the contact info into your phone.
  
• Dress code is pretty easy-going. Overdressed East Coasters such as myself are not just wearing button-down shirts but also failing to wear jeans. There are two women wearing skirts, and I suspect that everyone here knows that number precisely.
  
• I've never seen so much source code in a keynote speech before.
  
• Video games everywhere. I'm currently sitting in a bean bag next to a couple of guys playing five-year-old Modest Mouse songs on Rock Band.
  
• There are warning signs that end "...There may also be robots armed with cameras so if you don't want to be captured on camera, please don't walk up to or talk to the robots." And they're not kidding.
  

Unsurprisingly, the M:F ratio is somewhere between 20:1 and 50:1. It seems it's become more balanced as the day has progressed, and I'm not clear if that's deliberate. It makes my hormones scream "reproduce now or you'll never get another chance!!"