Michele Perras and I were talking about this last night. Michele was concerned by the tone, particularly of the pile-on on Toronto TechWeek. As an event co-producer (ICE08), she felt the sting that any event organizer feels from criticism. I argue that this level of passion is not only good, but necessary. Something is at stake when passions flare. Canadians tends to shy away from open conflict, preferring to save criticism for passive-aggressive backchannel conversations. To me, bringing conflict out in the open is a critical step in shifting the conversation, of actually taking on some really important questions.

So pile on everyone! Comment, be angry, give praise, get engaged, don’t be silent. Fear not for giving or receiving offense. Fear only passivity and the mediocrity it engenders.

The sudden intensity probably seem especially vicious if you are seeing this from the outside, but the truth is that most of these “discussions” have been coming to a boil for a long time and I think the community just needs to get through them and get them (and the issues at the core of them) out of the way.

Hear hear. Though I’d like to see this move from the blogosphere to a sit down. Maybe an arm wrestle.
Ideally, a good amount of face to face would sort out motivations and hopefully get people working together towards the common goal of improving the industry in Toronto and Canada and bring increased global recognition to our neck of the woods.

Conflict is definitely good.