This document summarizes a keynote speech given by Merlin Mann at WebVisions in 2010. In his typically unconventional style, Mann discusses how technology has advanced significantly since 1994 when he first used a text-based web browser, allowing people to build, publish and connect in new ways. However, he questions whether our creative output has kept pace with innovation and challenges the audience to make better use of existing tools and raise expectations for both performance and impact. Mann believes complexity should not prevent having opinions, and through a "hand-wavey ramble" will celebrate WebVisions' anniversary by examining the best and worst of a world with seemingly unlimited possibilities.

1. HELLO.

2. Merlin’s Original Talk
Keynote Session
Bold Ideas and Insane Possibilities
Time: Fri May 21, 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm
Speaker: Merlin Mann
What did we do before APIs, jQuery, XML, application frameworks, and open source blogging tools? Well. The truth is we did quite a lot.
But, even as our wrenches and pipes have matured and even transformed, it's more worthwhile than ever to ask ourselves what we're
producing with all of that massive horsepower.
Has our creative output kept up with our technological innovation? Are we driving a legitimate revolution in how the world sees, thinks,
collaborates, and builds together? Or are we mostly iterating a more sophisticated method for telling millions of people about our sandwich?
Who knows. Maybe it's a little of both.
The answer, of course is as complicated as the people who build, use, and benefit from these tools, but complexity beyond his depth has
certainly never stopped Merlin Mann from having a lot of opinions.
In 1994, Merlin edited a text file, pulled it up in the command-line Lynx browser, and his life hasn't been the same since. This year, he
brings his passion for unique creative voices to WebVisions.
Through one of his typically hand-wavey rambles, he'll help celebrate the anniversary of WebVisions by holding up some metaphorical before
and after photos, designed to illuminate the best and worst of a world in which the possibilities for creative and technical expression seem
without limit. And also in which sandwich communication technologies have grown to a level of maturity no one could have predicted in 1994.
At the heart of it, Merlin will challenge the audience (as well as THEIR audiences and himself) to raise the bar for both performance and
expectation -- encouraging us to make more with what we have, and to make better of whatever it is we do.
And, if you ask nicely, he might even show you his Lynx browser.

3. Meaning...
YOU ME
Doing it Knows
wrong. everything.

4. Or...
Get off
my lawn.

5. Sorry.

6. Same thing.
But, different.

9. Connections
1. Stuff
2. People

10. 10 Years

11. 15 Years

12. merlin@freenet.scri.fsu.edu

13. WARNING:
Douchebag
Logo Dump
Ahead

14. Logo Dump: 1995

15. Logo Dump: 2000

16. Logo Dump: 2010

17. Also. Yeah.

18. Soooo much easier…
1. To Build
2. To Publish
3. To Connect

19. Or...
1. Wrenches
2. Pipes
3. Wires

20. BUT.

21. Ripped
From the
Headlines

22. Nov. 2007

23. Result:
Connections Breaking Connections
“Some people would consider this
‘conversational marketing’. It’s not. If Mrs.
Kravitz is peeking at me from across the streets
through the blinds and then running to her
neighbor to give her an update that doesn’t
mean Mrs. Kravits and I are having a
conversation. It means she’s eavesdropping on
my business.”
—weblog.muledesign.com

24. 2009

25. Result:
Connections Breaking Connections
CO UN TS
AC
D ELET ED

26. Apr. 2010

27. Result:
Connections Breaking Connections
“I don’t see any way to teach my service to
exclude events that people marked as
Closed because they thought it meant
Secret. So I guess elmcity’s Facebook
feature is going to have to wait until those
lessons are learned.”
—blog.jonudell.net

28. PRIVACY

30. PRIVACY?
• Security
• Integrity
• Trust
• Discretion
• Familiarity

31. Intimacy.

32. Too wussy?

33. Intimacy combines...
• Security
• Integrity
• Trust
• Discretion
• Familiarity
• ...with a whisper

34. What’s so hard?
• Getting Granular
• Making it “User-proof”
• Finding a model

35. Granular
Tight as you can.

36. Guess who?

37. User-Proof
No “Ooops”-ies.

38. Money? Um.
No model (yet) for:
1. Scarcity
2. Closed doors.

39. Connections
A T R I SK
1. Stuff
2. People