Last week I was at the IETF meeting in San Francisco (making my way through protesters in between meetings). This week I'm at the Information Highways conference. For two Internet-related conferences, the two are as different as night and day, where the night is overcast and the day is rather summery.

IETF had a couple thousand 100% authentic geeks, whereas Information Highways seems to have a few hundred marketing and public relations and purchasing agents. IETF had working groups, emphasis on working, while this conference has "by invitation" breakfast presentations. My presentation later today will include dessert, presumably so people will listen to me.

I'm not entirely knocking this IH conference, you understand -- I'm all in favour of my company being able to market its products in a comfortable environment in which experienced IT people are disposed to hear how useful our stuff could be. It's just not quite my natural milieu!