Chris Pirillo at Gnomedex 2007. (Credit: Kris Krüg)

Going back to its beginnings in Des Moines, Iowa, nearly 10 years ago, Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex conference has always been a unique cultural event -- bringing together geeks from all over the place to share ideas, learn about new stuff and basically figure out how to use technology to make everything a little better.

Which is why this is feeling like the end of an era.

Pirillo confirmed via phone today that this year's Gnomedex, scheduled for Aug. 19-21 in Seattle, is looking like the last, at least in its current form. The 37-year-old Lockergnome founder talked about the broader trends playing into the decision, the plans for this year's Gnomedex, and hinted at changes on the horizon in his own career.

Continue reading for edited excerpts from our conversation.

Q: So this is the 10th Gnomedex, am I counting right?

Pirillo: Yes, the 10th and likely final Gnomedex as it has been for the last decade.

Q: Yeah, so I saw you mention that offhandedly online, tell me about that. Where are you with this right now?

Pirillo: It's interesting, the conference game. I don't really want to give it up, but every year, it's kind of like planning a wedding. You know, been there, done that. I just get really worn out, especially in the weeks leading up. People's plans change, you have to coordinate speakers, venue, food, parties, etc. And you're essentially dealing with special interest groups and I don't necessarily mean sponsors.

Every attendee has got extreme sensibilities, and if you rub them the wrong way they're just going to be emotional about it, and now with greater access to social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, YouTube, etc., one small mistake can just be catastrophic or seemingly catastrophic and blown out of proportion. That coupled with, I would say, the landscape of a lot of free conferences or gathering points has further minimized the need for Gnomedex at this point, at least as far as I've been producing it.

Q: All that said, having been to many a Gnomedex in years past, I know this is a labor of love for you.

Pirillo: Of course, every year I look forward to it, if only because I do my best to really find presenters, people on stage, who nobody has heard of, or few people have heard of. I tend not to go with the bigger names if only because the bigger names usually want to charge you an arm and a leg. That being said, we've been very, very lucky to be able to have a couple of Gnomedex alumni up on stage, including Brian Solis, our primary keynote who's been a Gnomedex for a variety of years, of course is well-known in social media circles.

And then Austin Heap, with his work that he's been doing making the internet free for Iran, he was just written up in Newsweek just the other day, in fact, we actually made his connection through Mark Horvath, who we had on stage last year. He was formerly homeless and now using the Internet to get the stories out about the plight of the homeless in America. To me, technology is further influencing our daily lives whether we know it or not. It's surfacing the stories that are really inspirational, looking at people who are really genuinely doing interesting things, and trying to get them on people's radar before anybody else knows what's going on.

Q: That's what Gnomedex is about. So why not continue?

Pirillo: That's what it has been about. But as I said, the value to me of a two-day conference with wifi, power strips, food, a single-track event for right around $300, I have yet to see anything competitively come close, specifically at the Bell Harbor Conference Center, which is of course a high-quality venue. Still, people think that's too pricey, at which point I wonder what they're doing for a living. They're probably social media consultants, which means they're unemployed. No, I'm serious, social media people are cheap. Oh, my God, they are so cheap. I love 'em -- I am one, I guess, but there's a reason you don't hear me saying I'm a social media expert. Because that is double-speak for unemployed. I know I'm going to catch hell but dude, prove me wrong! The only people asking for free passes have been social media folks.

And it's not that I don't love 'em or support their efforts. There's a lot of stuff going on here in Seattle. This year I was approached by a few other individuals who are really, really doing amazing things in the community, including Shauna Causey, who recently left Comcast. She started up Tech Mavens, and she's making an effort to bring light to women in technology, and that's the kind of thing that I love talking about and sharing. I asked her up on stage, and she accepted, and I was very grateful for that. She's done a lot of stuff in the community, including the Voluntweetup, which has taken off, at least in my estimation. If you help one group or organization or individual with technology, then you're doing a good thing. It's the people who don't. It's the people who regurgitate, that really aren't adding any value to the chain.

Q: So give me your pitch. Gnomedex tickets are still available. If you were speaking to someone on the fence, what would be your pitch for attending this year's Gnomedex.

Pirillo: Like I said, I'm not joking, this is going to be the last one. If you had heard about it and said, oh, let's wait for next year, well, OK, but I'm not doing it. If I do anything with the brand from this point forward, the precursor of what may happen is what's going to happen the day after Gnomedex, actually, a hackathon of sorts. We're working with open government data -- Adam Kalsey who is a Gnomedexer from way back in 2004, asked if Gnomedex wanted to do a hackathon, so come Sunday, we're going to be developing applications -- on the web, iPhone, Android, whatever -- using open government data. And if there's a future for the Gnomedex brand it's likely going to be in these hackathons where we can bring certain hardware to life and let the community build it, play with it, run with it. But those are just substantially easier events to manage rather than these full-on conferences where everybody complains about having to pay more than $10.

Q: Now this year you're part of something bigger that spun off of you, based on other people's ideas, and that's Seattle Geek Week. What is Geek Week, and what are your thoughts on how it's unfolding?

Pirillo: I really don't know what it is, either, to be honest. What had happened, specifically, last year Shauna did a Voluntweetup the day before Gnomedex and she had a whole bunch of non-profits up at Bell Harbor Conference Center, and a large number of social media folks in the area. ... There were a few people who were wanting to do events that week but they didn't want to take away from Gnomedex, and I'm like, well, I think we can all get along, why not just do something like a Geek Week. The idea is just to raise awareness for all these communities up here. It's loosely constructed, completely ad hoc, and it's just attention/awareness.

To the point where I learned that there's a conference happening immediately before Gnomedex and so this became our sister conference, pii2010 -- privacy, innovation and identity, which is just a huge, huge deal. This was just amazing to me after all these things started coalescing, we realized we had a lot in common in a complementary capacity. Given the state of affairs and the issues surrounding identity and privacy, there's a lot that people don't think about. Especially in relation to social media, they check into foursquare and before you know it an unknown marketer may know more about you than you know about yourself, and that's just scary, honestly.

Q: What's your future beyond Gnomedex?

Pirillo: There is something that's happening with me on the immediate horizon that I don't know if I'll have the ability to say at Gnomedex or not, but certainly I'm not going to disappear anytime soon. I love the area, I love the people up here. ... It's very much in the realm of where I want to go with my career path, whatever it is. People ask me what I do for a living, I say I'm me. How do you explain that, really? Either way, I'll continue being myself and looking for really cool opportunities to work with others and doing the same stuff I'm doing online. It will be interesting to see what happens with this pending announcement. I don't know if it's huge. It's not earth-shattering like I'm going to go buy Google with the money I've been saving up from Google AdSense or anything. But it will be something that I think could very well benefit a lot of the connections I've been making since starting in 1996.

Q: OK, I've been dying to ask you this question. John Edwards, Gnomedex 2006. In hindsight, what do you think of that choice of speaker?

Pirillo: Ah, I wouldn't change a thing. Certainly Gnomedex has evolved since 10 years ago. There are some people that really appreciate that choice, but then again you can't make everybody happy. Personally, as a registered independent with conservative tendencies, it didn't bother me a bit. More than anything it was something worth trying -- hell, it landed us on the front page of the Seattle P-I. So I don't have any complaints.

Q: You gotta question their news judgment, huh?

Pirillo: Right! Well, hey I was happy to do it. Nothing came close. Over the years I had quite a few visionaries there -- Robert Scoble all the way back in 2001, Leo Laporte back in 2002 -- he's coming back, I believe, we've got a TechTV reunion that's happening, at least that's what I've been told by the volunteers. Tim O'Reilly at Gnomedex 3, Dave McClure was also at Gnomedex 3 for the first time. Going all the way to Gnomedex 4, there was Steve Wozniak and Wil Wheaton, they both keynoted. Of course in 2005 we had the big announcement with Microsoft and RSS in Internet Explorer.

Every year is different, and I've always tried to do my best to identify what I believe are transformative technologies, personas and stories. ... It's always been my goal to inform and inspire, and that's certainly not going to change anytime soon. That's pretty central to everything that I do. It's just with the economy causing people to think twice about what they're doing and how they're spending their money, it just makes it very challenging to put on a high-quality conference.

Photo of Pirillo by Kris Krug, via Flickr, Creative Commons.