Connections 2011, Observations

A few observations:

1) *Big* crowd compared to last year. lots of agencies here, with no significant reduction in the 'regulars' like Markowitz, Nofi, Robinson, Gresham, etc.

2) Lots of people who had no clue how deep and rich wargaming is in both the military and (especially) the hobby world. The depth and breadth and decades of experience of the hobby crowd seems to be slightly overwhelming the military guys who are just trying to get a sense of what sort of wargaming is going on.

3) This leads to occasional things like yesterday's presentation of a 'wargaming tool' that is essentially a pretty-looking GUI on top of SharePoint-level functionality, because the creator had no clue what else was going on in the wargaming world.

4) Someone from TICM-Gaming should be required to be here, if only to see that FPS games have yet to be mentioned, except in passing and with much derision. I wonder, though, if they would disregard the entire conference because their pet projects aren't being lauded.

By: Brant