Today, i spoke on a panel at the Institute for the Future’s gathering of its sponsors. It was odd to be there because it had a flavor of Media Lab sponsor events, only i was an invited speaker not a slave doing demos who had been up for weeks on end. The Institute is a great resource for thought on technology – where it’s headed, what people are doing with it, why… Basically, it’s a collection of really really smart people who get to think through tough problems. [Needless to say, it sounds like an ideal job for a researcher.]

The whole event was around the ideas of cybernomads… how is mobility changing the way we operate?

For the panel, i had the great opportunity to ask questions of Schuyler Earle. He’s been working on this project called noCat Wireless which is a community of people in Sebastapol working on gaining wireless. It’s fascinating because we always talk about technology letting us remove geography from the equation, but this project allows us to connect to people in a given region. It’s also built a “community” through a traditional form… diverse collections of people gathering for a shared need.

The other fun thing about the panel was that i actually had the opportunity to speak with Howard Rheingold (who was on my panel). I very much enjoy Howard’s synthesis of ideas so having the opportunity to get face time was just fantastic.

Anyhow, it was great to spend the last two days thinking about the future, critiquing conceptual models. I felt like i was back at Intel. I forgot how much fun that was.