My Exclusive Interview with Ken Denmead, Editor of GeekDad.Com

For all you geeks out there, have a seat and enjoy my interview with the Editor of GeekDad.com, a division of Wired.com, Ken Denmead. I have had the privilege of knowing Ken and his wonderful family for a few years now. I have learned more about anything 'geek' that I thought possible because Ken and his contributors on Geekdad.com give a new twist to technology that makes it easier and fun to understand. This past May, my family and I went to Maker Faire, here in the Bay Area, and visited Ken's GeekDad booth. This year he featured almost every kind of Lego block and even his GeekDad sign was made out of Lego. (He made it himself and it even lit up, too!) To read his articles on the booth at Maker Faire, click here, and here.

Ken and I got together and discussed the history of GeekDad and also any plans for the future.

How was GeekDad started?
Ken Denmead: GeekDad was started in March of 2007 by Wired magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson as a place to post the interesting projects he was doing on the weekend with his kids. He invited a number of other tech-savvy dads he knew to join him on the blog.

How did you get affiliated with it to become Editor?
Ken Denmead: Not long after starting the blog, Chris put out a call for writers, looking to build the membership of GeekDad with other techie-dads. I was following the blog at the time, and having loved writing for all my life, and seeing it as a chance to blog about my kids and the things I liked to do, I took a shot.

How would you define your core contributors? (Are they hired journalists or everyday family geek people?)
Ken Denmead: The Core Contributors at GeekDad all started out as un-paid, volunteer enthusiasts, they're all geeks and parents with a passion for writing about what they love. A few of them have some professional writing experience, but on the whole, they're "just plain (geeky) folk."

GeedDad is so popular, how many hits a month does it get?
Ken Denmead: We are regularly seeing in excess of a million pageviews a month, more than 10x growth over the last two years!

I saw a TV interview with you using Skype, how did that come about?
Ken Denmead: One of our contributors compiled a great list of things our kids will probably never know about - technology and culture items that each of us probably grew up with, but that have already fallen by the wayside. It struck a chord on the internet, and received a lot of attention. Wired was approached by ABC News Now, looking to do an interview about the piece, and Wired asked me to do it as Editor of the blog, and the "face" of GeekDad.

Is that interview available on You Tube or anywhere else online for people to see?
Ken Denmead: You can find it on the ABC News Now website [Click here to see the entire interview]

Since that interview, have you been quoted in any other publication? (If so, where and what about?)
Ken Denmead: Yes. Indeed, the most amazing was being quoted in both the New York Times and Washington Post about a commentary I wrote in the aftermath of the "Balloon Boy" incident. [Click here for the New York Times article, and here for the Washington Post article.]

What makes Geek Dad so popular, in your opinion?
Ken Denmead: It's a source of fun information and commentary for geeky parents, by geeky parents. This is, in many ways, the geek generation, but there still aren't many places that just speak to geeks on their own level. Hopefully we're providing that.

How would you define the purpose of Geek Dad?
Ken Denmead: To have fun! And to spread the joy of geeky parenting!

What do you see in the future for Geek Dad?
Ken Denmead: We're about to launch some cool community features that we're hoping will take the site even farther. We have events scheduled for December at the Wired Holiday Store in New York, and a GeekDad book will be coming out in May of next year!

Do you have any Geek Dad merchandise for the fans out there?
Ken Denmead: The official GeekDad t-shirt just went on sale! You can click the link on our site to get to it - www.geekdad.com!

GeekDad is a wonderful website not only for tech savvy adults, but is also aimed at teaching the next generation to enjoy technology just as much, if not more, than we do. Take a look at the site and let me know what you think!