Ger:man n:erds at re:publica 13

There are nerds in Germany, and they even have their own annul shindig in Berlin with the conference re:publica -- note the pre-internet spelling.

To the blogster, the one big idea that re:publica has drawn on is the TED conference series. Now, having typed re:publica three times and struggled each time, we'll use our own shortened version in the rest of the blog, "re".

In addition to some awefully shrill session titles like "Online universities - food for thought or an intellectual malnutrition epidemic?" you can find a good number of interesting presentations, too.

The blogster admits that is sounds strange to the old ears to hear people talk in German about the internet and other subjects in the wide net the organizers cast.

But there are lots of sessions in English, too.
Which is worse?

No answer to this question, sorry. We went and listened to some of last year's speeches, in particular to a keynote by "the rooster" Sasha Lobo. He is, they say, the only Germany social media expert who can make a living off of the topic.

And we now understand why. His niche is a bit that of internet guru for the literate masses, wealthy redish mohawk hairdo for the hip, and Mr. OpinionOnEverything to the nerds.

The blogster might have fancied himself a little in the guru part of that role, but there is only room for one rooster. Otherwise you get into cockfighting. Too bloody for the gentle blogger.

There is another question the blogster would love to see answered: where are all the old nerds?

It is more than understandable that everything around computers once was the domain of youngsters, but we should have noticed by now that even they get old.

Bill Gates is an old guy, Steve Jobs died old.

The camera sweep over the audience at the "re" showed some 40-ish faces, where the ancestors? Not all of them made so much money from stocks in the early boom years that they could retire.

One day, we hope to see studies about the outflow of people out of the IT industry. Yes, you read correctly.

It's a subject nobody talks about. A lot of people leave.

The blogster worked in a team once that lost many members, who turned away from the bits and bytes to become, for example a psychologist and a Montessori teacher.