Category: Conferences

I go to conferences as a speaker, and also work with some big conferences in blogger relations or outreach. I think about conferences. Complain about them. Have ideas.

LIft13, Mobile Stories: Christopher Kirkley, Sahel Sounds [en]

Here are my live notes of the Lift Conference session “Mobile Stories.” Keep an eye open for mistakes, inaccuracies, and other flakiness due to live-blogging.
Christopher Kirkley: Sahel Sounds

Camera and other functions supersede making calls. How technology has been adopted in a different culture challenges some of our ideas.

Initially thought the cellphone would interfere with his field work and recordings. Started to realize that the cellphones were also a tool (e.g. people recording local music productions).

The cellphone in West Africa is a little different from in the West. Cheap alternative phone market, converging technologies into one device. Memory card as personal storage space of all digital media. Photos reworked and passed from person to person.

People spend a lot of time sitting around and drinking tea, context where file-sharing can happen. So cellphone adapted as a sharing device. Bluetooth for direct file transfers. Browsing each other’s collections. This is how most media is traded. Emergent network: cellphones and people traveling from city to city. steph-note: back to a “slow” network with spatial highways

Metaphor for the internet. Has evolved differently from “our internet”. Most frequently shared data on mobiles is music. Soundscape has been transformed. Tinny cellphone music being played all the time, headphones pretty much inexistent. Home-made creations found only on the bluetooth exchange network. Most interesting music! Music would not be distributed without the cellphones (cheap!) About 15$ to record a song in a cheap studio (don’t need the best microphone…). You can walk out of the studio and immediately start sharing your song. Great method of distribution for music of ethnic minorities.

Shops which are physical versions of iTunes: you go and buy an MP3 song. Of course paying for the service and not the music (which isn’t perceived as having an inherent value). For artists: mp3 trading as a way of free promotion. A lot of artists are actually going to the mp3 vendors with their new songs so they will distribute them, sometimes even paying them to promote them.

Student who publicly shames a director for abusing students in exchange for grades, through a rap song. Song goes viral. Student expelled until he deletes the song, so he deletes it. But it’s already on the network, out of control.

Rise of the cyborg esthetic in Mali.

LIft13, Mobile Stories: Geoffrey Dorne [en]

Here are my live notes of the Lift Conference session “Mobile Stories.” Keep an eye open for mistakes, inaccuracies, and other flakiness due to live-blogging.
Geoffrey Dorne

Créativité mobile et évolutions sociales que ça engendre. Technologies de plus en plus intimes (on dort, mange avec son téléphone). Proximité et individualisation. Jeux et applications qui n’existent que dans le téléphone.

“There’s an app for that.” Il y a toujours une application pour répondre à un besoin.

Applications comme signaux faibles, signaux faibles comme applications. Photos dans les musées. Parents qui photographient leurs enfants pendant le concert scolaire. Filmer et enregistrer les concerts auxquels on assiste. Belkin qui a sorti un grip pour tenir son iPhone pendant les concerts. Outlisten (montage d’un concert via tous les enregistrements crowdsourcés).

Retour à l’animisme, au côté sensible et émotionnel. Applications vivantes: calendrier avec animations, magazine complètement interactif (au sens fort du mot). Il est une expérience tactile également. Plutôt qu’un album, Philip Glass fait une application qui permet presque de toucher la musique à travers les visualisations graphiques qui l’accompagnent. OKO, application où il faut manipuler des photos de la NASA mouvantes pour reconstituer le puzzle. Application qui envoie des messages/photos via un son audible que n’importe quel autre téléphone peut capter (avec la même app).

Retour à la matérialité. Au revoir le skeuomorphisme. Boujour tangibilité! On envoi une vraie carte postale à travers une app. steph-note: love what has to do with binding together the online and the offline worlds

Ouvrir les frontières de l’écran, faire glisser quelque chose d’un devise à l’autre. Social mirror: le téléphone comme réceptacle (LiquiData) — on le pose sur une grande table dont il devient un élément.

Popslate. Ecran e-ink derrière son téléphone (coque qui change tout le temps). Objet plutôt que l’écran. Jeu avec de vrais pions qui utilise l’iPad comme plateau de jeu (social).

Dématérialisation du téléphone. Il existe encore, capteurs embarqués, mais on le voit plus. iPad caché sous un plateau de jeu qu’il rend vivant. Un élément de l’ensemble, ce n’est plus “un iPad”. Petit théâtre 3D dans lequel on place son iPhone pour voir un film en 3D. Impression de tous ces objets numériques, retour au support papier.

Jeu de rôle où le téléphone nous dicte l’espace de jeu, on le dessine, et ensuite le téléphone nous fait jouer dedans.

– de plus en plus de proximité entre l’objet téléphone et l’intimité
– on observe dans les apps les signaux faibles des évolutions sociales
– s’oublier et regarder les usages alternatifs et les gens

Demain le téléphone restera dans la poche et on regardera autour de soi.

Lift13, Gudrun Pétursdóttir: Icelandic Constitution [en]

Here are my live notes of the Lift Conference session “Democracy in Distress: Re-engineering Participation.” Keep an eye open for mistakes, inaccuracies, and other flakiness due to live-blogging.
Gudrun Pétursdóttir

From the Californian dream to the cold reality of the Icelandic quest for a Constitution for the people by the people.

Economic collapse in 2008. Huge amount of public anger. Demanded a cleaner and reformed constitution.

Iceland has been independent since 1944 (before: Denmark). Hasty constitution adopted with great national support (98%). Was to be revised very soon but it never happened in the hands of the Parliament. Maybe they weren’t the right ones to deal with it? Vested interests.

How they did it: put together a national assembly which had only one role, work on the constitution. Random sample, 18-92. Very well-prepared. In one 8-hour day of work, they had drafted out the major points that the constitution should include, and were able to publish it online the very next day.

25 people elected from the general public (anybody could run) form the Constitutional Council. Worked for 4 months solid (leave of absence from their work). Draft proposals posted on the website and open to public comments. 3600 comments. 370 formal suggestions processed by the Council. So we have a bill which took shape in the Council but with open exchange of opinion with the community. General feeling of being able to participate.

After 4 months the Council presented to the president of the parliament a bill for the new constitution — which had to be done in a way that was in line with the old constitution: only the parliament can change the constitution.

A year and a half later the constitutional bill is still under deliberation by the parliament. Heck. Conventional party-political practices: the opposition has to be against, by principle anything the ruling majority supports.

The question remains: will the parliament manage to complete the task that the public has contributed so much to? Dreary and pessimistic last slide. Whatever happens however, Iceland will never accept to go back to the previous ways of having the Parliament only work on the new constitution. They have tasted participation. steph-note: that’s depressing

Lift13, Micah Daigle: Upgrade Democracy [en]

Here are my live notes of the Lift Conference session “Democracy in Distress: Re-engineering Participation.” Keep an eye open for mistakes, inaccuracies, and other flakiness due to live-blogging.
Micah Daigle

Activist for 8 years.

Story: city with only one clock, owned and controlled by the king. He’d tell people when to wake up, go to work, eat, etc. Revolution, stormed the palace, took the clock, and put a replica in the public square. Good time will be kept, and it will be kept in public. Years and years later, the clock starts wearing out, and it cost so much to maintain it that only a few wealthy people were able to do it: they became the clock-keepers, and controlled it just like the king. People took the clock apart and realized it had inherent flaws. They came up with a better solution, but it was rejected by the people, because the clock in the city centre was the symbol of their freedom. The clock remained. Years later, completely solved by a solution which did not involve taking the clock down.

This is about democracy, not about a clock. How we make decisions together.

Democracy is both an ideal and a system. You can agree with the ideal and not the system.

Micah Daigle at Lift13

We have direct and representative democracy. In CH and California, hybrid system. Direct democracy seems like a good idea until there are too many people making too many decisions. 100-page book in the mail with all the stuff one has to vote on (California). But that was just a small percentage of things the government needed to vote on. They had got on the ballot because of money, etc. Not that good a system.

Representatives do not represent all your opinions on all the issues. People get in there because they care about certain issues, but then need to take a stand on others, start trading favors, slippery slope to corruption. Money buys access to politicians.

Humans have inherent limitations (trust, etc.). What if we could turn them into strengths? “What if we could represent each other on the issues that we know best?” What would that look like? Well, we would vote on issues we knew about or cared about. And delegate our vote to somebody else we trusted for other issues. But what about money, buying votes? If I’m representing my friends, that would be an incentive to not get bought out (would break their trust). But what if? Kick the person out of the system. “Liquid democracy”, “distributed democracy”, “dynamic democracy”… better: networked democracy.

We move from hierarchy to networks. Though old networks turn into pyramids. Everything the internet touches, though, seems to want to turn into a network. Makes sense our democracy would become networked. Makes sense in theory, but how does that work out in practice?

To change something, build something that makes the existing model obsolete.

Back to our town clock: wrist watches.

Lesson here: this isn’t about upgrading democracy, but upgrading collective decision-making.

Where are we now? Started thinking about how to build it. But to build the network, need to raise money, which would in a way trap the network inside a pyramid. Others than him in the same situation. Started company called collective agency. Looks for these projects that might transform the world, but can’t get funded by traditional VCs, and helps them tell their story in a way that allows them to crowd fund them effectively.

Lift13, Maximilian Stern [en]

Here are my live notes of the Lift Conference session “Democracy in Distress: Re-engineering Participation.” Keep an eye open for mistakes, inaccuracies, and other flakiness due to live-blogging.
Maximilian Stern

Think tank on Swiss foreign policy (foraus). Anybody can join and contribute to drafting papers on Swiss foreign policy. Party membership declining.

We face big challenges, however, and need to act — there is a tension here with our desire to include people’s concerns for our political decisions. Protests: Stuttgart 21. Nuclear power plant shutdowns. But you need to install new ways to produce electricity before shutting down power plants. Germany: wind in the north, industry in the south, so you need high voltage power lines to bring electricity from the north to the south.

=> new ways to integrate people into political decision-making.

But what kind of reform?

– direct democracy. Flaw: you can say yes or no, but not make comments. And it takes a long time to implement direct democracy.
– liquid democracy (cf. German Pirate Party). Only works within one party, the big parties are losing members.
– deliberative democracy: public discussion to reach decisions.
– go one step further: collaborative democracy.

Maximilian Stern at Lift13

Developed 6 tools for deliberative democracy:

– analyze
– …
– check the facts
– joint planning
– engage financially (citizen’s wind parks)

Examples: Iceland tried to crowd source its new constitution. Merkel’s dialogue with randomly picked citizens. Shell project connect to build a pipeline under the Rhine. Invited people to their plants and talked to them. Ended up changing their project a bit (different placement), and the project cost a little more, but they avoided all the inevitable protests.

Notes from LeWeb'12, Tuesday Morning [en]

I’m at LeWeb’12 in Paris, if you’d missed the news. I arrived late at the main stage, after dealing with the inevitable “badge drama” that shows up on the morning of the first day. (A few of the badges for official bloggers couldn’t be found…) After that I headed upstairs to the official blogger lounge so I could power up a bit and check it out “live”.

I arrived in time to catch the second part of the NASA talk about Curiosity Rover (@marscuriosity). Read Rachel’s live-blogged notes. The video footage of the touchdown on Mars and the reaction of all the people working on it was very moving.

SmartThings. Now that was interesting. (Not that NASA wasn’t but… in a different way.) How about providing a single centralized interface (on your phone) for interacting with physical objects? Obvious example: a light switch. Less obvious example: getting an alert when the liquor cabinet door is opened. And how about adding layers of intelligence so that an event can trigger another? Example: turn the lights on when the front door is opened.

I’m only scratching the surface here, but I’m feeling the same inkling of excitement as when I was listening to the talk on 3D printing at Lift earlier this year. The code is simple, I feel like tinkering. It feels like a playground, like the web felt to me 14 years ago and social tools 8 years ago.

SoundCloud CEO made a great point about the importance of sound, and this vindicates a point I’ve been trying to make since the early days of videoblogging: sound allows you to do something else while you’re listening to it. Video? Not so much. You’re watching video, or you’re not. It’s hard to watch video and do the dishes at the same time. Possible, though. Watch video and drive? Nope. But you can listen to audio during that time. Which makes me think: should I be doing more video, or more audio?

The big surprise of the morning for me was charity: water. I’d heard about it, of course. I’d heard about people giving up their birthdays. But from where I stood, it sounded like another of these American charity/volunteer/cheesy thingies. Listening to Scott’s story on stage though, I’ve been turned. I especially like their 100% model: 100% of donations go towards the “core charity”, and the organizational costs are covered by private donors, foundations, sponsors…

I remember from my brief experience with Wildlife SOS in India that it’s way easier to find people to give money to feed or save the bears, than it is to find people to provide money to pay salaries or a new computer that’s needed for the office. The 100% model helps solve that problem. You need to be good at marketing and fundraising, though 😉

Another thing Scott managed to do is create a strong non-stuffy brand. Charity: water is a non-boring charity — which is maybe why I perceived it as “very American” through the lens of my Swiss values. But actually, upon looking closer, it’s great.

The 100% model and use of “modern” technology (GPS trackers! Google Maps!) means it’s possible to introduce traceability for all their actions. You can actually pinpoint where each donor’s money goes, and nobody feels kind of “cheated” of their desire to make a direct difference in people’s lives because their donation went towards paying for software licenses rather than actually building a well.

No live-blogging, you’re asking? Nope, but definitely pretty much live-storifying of all the coverage provided but the wonderful official bloggers at the conference.

LeWeb'12 Official Blogger Coverage [en]

[fr] Les articles publiés par les blogueurs officiels à Paris, LeWeb'12.

I’m collecting photos, posts, videos and the like produced by the official bloggers during LeWeb’12 Paris. You can follow the conference live online if you’re not here in Paris with us.

The storify below is a work in progress. Check back regularly!

[View the story “LeWeb’12 Official Blogger coverage” on Storify]

LeWeb’12 Official Blogger coverage

This is not really a story because I’m dumping articles, videos, and photos in here as I manage to lay my hands on them. This should, however, be representative of the kind of long-lasting coverage Official Bloggers provide at the LeWeb’12 conference in Paris.

Storified by Stephanie Booth · Tue, Dec 04 2012 03:04:13

Benjamin Cichy (NASA): ‘Ontdekken zit in onze natuur’ [leweb] | Wilbert KramerWat heeft Mars te maken met de ‘Internet of Things’? We wisten vroeger niet zoveel over Mars. We dachten dat Mars net was als de aarde. Toen kwam de ‘space age’: de vraag ‘is er leven op Mars?’ kwam op. De eerste twaalf missies naar Mars zijn mislukt.
LeWeb 12, The Internet of Things, or life really | Arne HulsteinAs most of you will know by now, I am currently in Paris at LeWeb. Interestingly enough, I have been at main stage for about an hour and a half now, and I have just been listening breathlessly. There have been some great speakers and some great subjects.
LeWeb 12: NASA and Mars | Licence to RoamLIVEBLOGGED = there will be mistakes Benjamin Cichy, Chief Software Engineer, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Talking about Mars. For years we knew little. It could be like earth. It had seasons, polar ice caps, had winters and summers. It could have had a rainy season.
LeWeb 2012: Tony Fadell (Nest Labs) en Xavier Niel (Iliad Group)LeWeb 2012: Tony Fadell (Nest Labs) en Xavier Niel (Iliad Group) Geplaatst op 4 december 2012 door Jeroen in Internet, Internet of things Na de officiële opening door Geraldine en Loic Le Meur wordt LeWeb 2012 afgetrapt met een gesprek met Tony Fadell, CEO en co-founder van Nest: een slimme thermostaat.
LeWeb 2012: Apparaten aansturen met je hersenen – Ariel Garten (Interaxon)LeWeb 2012: Apparaten aansturen met je hersenen – Ariel Garten (Interaxon) Geplaatst op 4 december 2012 door Jeroen in Internet, Internet of things Arial Garten is CEO van Interaxon, een bedrijf gericht op "thought controle computing". Thought controle computing is het aansturen van apparaten door je gedachten aan uit te lezen.
La competencia de Startup de #LeWeb12 ya inició | Valeria LandivarLos invito a seguir en vivo la competencia de Startup que acaba de iniciar en el Salón PlenaryII en LeWeb.
Descubre las 16 semifinalistas de la competencia de Startup de #LeWeb12 | Valeria LandivarComo cada año LeWeb organiza la gran competencia de Startup, la participación es gratuita y los 16 finalistas reciben dos entradas para asistir al evento y la invitación a tener un espacio en uno de los salones de LeWeb y así poder presentar a los participantes una demostración de sus productos, lo que les da una gran visibilidad ya que no solo periodistas de todo el mundo participan en este evento sino también grandes inversionistas.
¿No pudiste ir a Paris? #Leweb12 será transmitido en vivo en Youtube | Valeria LandivarSi quieres disfrutar de este evento en vivo, es posible de seguirlo gracias al canal que los organizadores han creado en Youtube: youtube.com/user/leweb Si quieres participar a la conversación puedes hacerlo en Twitter con el Hashtag #LeWeb12 y visitando la pagina oficial en Facebook y Google+
Loic y Geraldine marcaron la apertura de #LeWeb12 | Valeria LandivarLoic y Geraldine son las dos personas que lideran el gran equipo que organiza LeWeb’12 Loic inicio dando la bienvenida a todos y explicando las maravillas que la gente ha creado para conectar nuestro mundo real con el mundo virtual. El hablo sobre los productos que estaremos viendo este año de la mano de empresas innovadoras que subirán al escenario.
Opening Le Web ’12: "Internet of Things gaat verder dan je smartphone" | Wilbert Kramer"De Internet of Things gaat verder dan jouw smartphone.", aldus Loïc. Drones, de FitBit (moderne stappenteller), Withings (een weegschaal met Wifi) en de headband van Interaxon (gedachten lezen), die vandaag geintroduceerd wordt. Dat belooft wat! This entry was posted in Le Web ’12 by Wilbert Kramer. Bookmark the permalink.
LeWeb 2012: Tony Fadell (Nest Labs) en Xavier Niel (Iliad Group)LeWeb 2012: Tony Fadell (Nest Labs) en Xavier Niel (Iliad Group) Geplaatst op 4 december 2012 door Jeroen in Internet, Internet of things Na de officiële opening door Geraldine en Loic Le Meur wordt LeWeb 2012 afgetrapt met een gesprek met Tony Fadell, CEO en co-founder van Nest: een slimme thermostaat.
LeWeb Paris 2012 Unofficial Official Blogger Partyjvthekke
LeWebLeWeb Paris 2012: behind the scenes tour en blogger party Geplaatst op 4 december 2012 door Jeroen in Internet Morgen is de eerste dag van LeWeb 2012 in Parijs. Na LeWeb London, ben ik dit jaar ook in Parijs geselecteerd als "Official Blogger".
Marie Pourreyron’s photos on Google+LeWeb (12 photos)
Here at #leweb with @loic kicking off talking about the "Internet of Things" #ob http://instagr.am/p/SzxJhiSrT9/ Chris Heuer
Чем заняться Лайфхакеру в ПарижеЧем заняться Лайфхакеру в Париже 4-го по 6-е декабря в Париже пройдёт крупнейшая европейская интернет-конференция LeWeb 2012, и Lifehacke…
LeWeb’12 Behind the Scenes for Official Bloggers | Climb to the StarsVisite derrière la scène pour les blogueurs officiels. [en] So, the spirit for me this year is "more posts, less blabla" – keep the long …
Content from LeWeb’12 Behind the ScenesSets let you organize your photos on Flickr. Explore the 25 photos in this set.
Follow the official bloggers on Twitter, and see who they are!
@anca_foster/LeWeb_Paris12 on TwitterInstantly connect to what’s most important to you. Follow your friends, experts, favorite celebrities, and breaking news.
@tixx/LeWeb12 Bloggers on TwitterInstantly connect to what’s most important to you. Follow your friends, experts, favorite celebrities, and breaking news.
@ramonsuarez/LeWeb12-bloggers on TwitterInstantly connect to what’s most important to you. Follow your friends, experts, favorite celebrities, and breaking news.
Official bloggers | LeWeb’12 Paris

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes for Official Bloggers [en]

[fr] Visite derrière la scène pour les blogueurs officiels.

So, the spirit for me this year is “more posts, less blabla” — keep the long rambling ones for… I don’t know when, and just publish stuff as it comes up.

I’ve just uploaded the blurry (inevitably, with low light and fast-moving official bloggers led through the venue by Loïc) photos I took during the behind-the-scenes visit we organize every year for official bloggers.

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 2

Loïc very kindly walks us through the unfinished venue. I really appreciate (and the official bloggers too) that he takes the time to do this. We get to see the stage and lounges before everybody else, ask him and Christophe (the producer) questions, watch everything be built before our eyes, and check out places which will be out of bounds once the conference starts.

Incredible to imagine all the work that is done during the night so that everything is ship-shape by the time LeWeb stars the next morning!

So, here are some of the photos I took with a few comments.

Setting for official speaker photos:

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 13 -- Official Photo Shoot Setting

The speaker lounge:

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 20 -- Speaker Lounge

The official blogger lounge (sporting a satisfying amount of power strips and ethernet cables, thanks ESPN!)

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 21 -- Official Blogger Lounge

Post-It portrait of Marissa Mayer in the making:

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 24 -- Marissa Mayer Portrait in Post-Its

WordPress!

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 23 -- WordPress Booth

Behind the stage. In the dark. Lots of screens. Shiny tech.

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 12 -- Backstage; Geek Paradise

Even better: in the Tardis-like video bus behind the venue

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 14 -- Inside the Video Truck

And yeah, the stage!

LeWeb'12 Behind the Scenes 7 -- Stage and screens

Hope you’ll enjoy LeWeb this year if you’re here. I’m definitely excited to be tomorrow!

Here We Go Again [en]

[fr] Des nouvelles du front.

Here we go again. My last post dates back to November 19th. This would seem to say the after-effects of the Back to Blogging challenge were short-lived! Not quite, though, because I’m writing today, and nearly wrote Tuesday, and am still focused on writing shorter.

The week before last was module 2 of the course on social media and online communities that I direct at SAWI. That means 4 days in the classroom, although I’m not teaching all the time (about two-thirds of the time I’m watching somebody else teach, and learning stuff!), with a conference and networking event by Rezonance on the Thursday night. (Needless to say I had other stuff going on the other evenings.)

The module went great, I was very happy — and from what I heard the students were too — but it was utterly exhausting.

Early this week I finally managed to extract myself from the nightmare of dealing with IRCTC Customer “care”. This is the blog post I started writing, and might finish at some point. Endless to-and-fro e-mails, disastrous user experience, crappy website, ridiculous security rules… I’ll spare you the details for the moment. Weeks of frustration were suddenly solved when I accepted I would get nowhere through official channels. An Indian phone number from a friend in Delhi and a few confirmation codes by IM later, I was finally booking train tickets for my January holiday.

I’m heading to Paris tomorrow for LeWeb, like each year. I’m looking forward to it! Maybe tomorrow or later today I’ll write a post on how to pitch me (or how not to pitch me). Short version? Do your homework. Know that I’m not interested in breaking news. I like cool new toys but what is cool for you is not necessarily cool for me. The main thing that interest me? People. What I’ll do for a friend, I won’t for a stranger. My contact page is harsh, but still stands.

Other than that I’m having some drama with the cats and the concierge. Three cats in my building go out. Tounsi, Quintus, and my neighbour’s Salem. (All the others are indoor cats.) One or more cats are spraying in the corridor. We don’t know who it is. All three cats know how to sneak into the building in between somebody’s feet when they walk in. So there are regularly cats hanging out in the corridor. I clean any markings I find with water, but unfortunately they leave stains (attack the flooring?). So my concierge is asking me to “make an effort” but won’t tell me exactly which effort I’m supposed to make (yeah, prevent my cats from being in the corridor; I’m already doing that).

 

A Conference Where I Hardly Knew Anybody! [en]

I had a really lovely time at Coworking Europe — it was actually very relaxing to be at a conference where I hardly knew anybody to start with. I got to know the two people I’d already met a bit better: Ramon Suarez of BetaGroup Coworking in Brussels, and Linda Broughton who founded and ran Old Broadcasting House coworking in Leeds, and was also one of the speakers at Going Solo.

It was really a change to not have the pressure of wanting to catch up with an inordinate amount of people I already knew and liked and would end up spending only a few minutes with, as it often is when I go to my “usual” conferences Lift and LeWeb.

A conference full of “new people” is like a library full of unread books. I certainly missed out on getting to know some other great people, but I did get a chance to hang out with and get to know some really lovely people I hadn’t even heard of before coming to the conference.

I love how the world is always ready to present you with new stimulating encounters. I personally like taking the time to know people a bit and tend to hang out with the same crowd throughout the conference. This is fine if you don’t know too many people. It can be very frustrating if the people you’re not hanging out with are also people you already know and appreciate and aren’t spending time with during the one occasion in the year where you have a chance to. And then I end up writing posts like this one.

It was also really nice to be in an uncommercial conference. To have a day of unconference included (I ended up hosting a session, something I absolutely hadn’t planned to do, and did on the spur of the moment because I wanted us to question the assumption that “more” is always “better” (more people, more money, more networking). I got the same kind of “high”, inspiration and remotivation that I got from my participation in Startup Weekend Lausanne earlier this year. I think I need to start going to slightly geekier events again. Like Paris Web.

Some of the people I met and got to spend a little time with, in addition to Luis and Linda: Rebecca, Stefano, Julie, Philippe, Anna, Tony, Adam, Pierre, Nicolas, Pascale, Anna… and a few more of you whose names I can’t recall right now or never learned. Say hi in the comments!