On Wednesday I attended the Tampere TalentMeet in TalentSpace, organised by TreStart, where I drank mainly tea. Although given the event organisers habit of putting capitals in words in random places, perhaps what I drank was actually TeA.

I talked for a short three minutes in front of about 100 people about Chainfrog and blockchains, and it really was a learning experience. I wish I had had thirty minutes.

Firstly, I have to say that the location was excellent – just the right balance of space so it didn’t feel crowded, and didn’t feel empty, in the center of town, with audio/visual equipment that worked without a hitch. The tea and pulla were wonderful too, and there was a great mix of people. All in all, an excellent event, well organised, without feeling stilted or formal.

So, back to what I learned: the main problem with our focus of business is that blockchains now are like the web in the mid-nineties, in that most people don’t really get what they are about. When I said that blockchains can be used “to create data records that can’t be tampered with” and also “to achieve consensus between different entities on a distributed network without needing a central authority”, I saw a few faces in the audience light up with understanding, but many more just looked confused. This is not surprising – blockchains are new technology, and their uses are just starting to be investigated and appreciated. I am confident though that Chainfrog can take a part in the educational process.

After all, the first TCP/IP connection was made in 1975, the first web page was published in 1991, and yet the web is only generally considered to have gone “mainstream” in late 1999. We still have a few years left before most people who need to care about it actually “get it”.