Rick Borovoy (Co-founder and CTO of nTAG Interactive) is talking about networked name tags and belief trees. He builds technology that supports face-to-face community building: a wearable networked computer in the form of a name tag. It slides to reveal a PDA display for sending a message or checking your agenda for the event. It lets you switch modes: group to personal and back again.
Think about your belief tree: perhaps you believe “technology can build community”. Maybe you believe that it can build community online. But even if you organize your beliefs into a tree form, it’s really a belief forest: many beliefs (those of the sponsors, collaborators, etc.) You may think that it’s your product idea that is at the root of the tree, but it’s wrong: you’re what’s at the root.