Tag: leweb3

Conference Experience Evolution and The Paradox of Choice [en]

[fr] Mes réflexions sur l'expérience vécue lors de conférences comme LIFT08, LeWeb3, SXSW, BlogTalk, à la lumière de ma lecture du livre The Paradox of Choice. Surcharge cognitive et sociale, trop de décisions à prendre. Evolution également, entre les premières conférences où je ne connaissais presque personne, et où l'accent était mis sur "faire de nouvelles connaissances", et les dernières conférences, où je me rends compte que je ne peux pas passer du temps (ni même parfois dire bonjour) à toutes les personnes que je connais déjà.

There’s a lot going on in my head these days, and unfortunately I’ve been too [busy/exhausted](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/02/25/stalling/) (that damn anaemia is still around, fwiw) to blog about it. Since a week or so before LIFT08, actually, I feel like I’ve been desperately running behind the train, and the distance between my hand and the handlebar that will allow me to climb back on is just increasing.

One book I’ve been reading these last weeks (months?) is [The Paradox of Choice](http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688). If you haven’t read it yet, take a few minutes to order it now. It’s turning out to be a really important book for me, on the one hand for understanding a few things about how the world we live in functions and affects us in the areas of freedom, responsibility, and of course, choice — and on the other hand for understanding myself.

I suffer a lot from having too many options to choose from: I’m really bad at being a “satisficer” in certain areas (somebody who will be satisfied with an option as long as it meets certain criteria) as opposed to being a “maximizer” — wanting the *best* option available. In particular in my professional life and my intellectual pursuits, each choice is agonizing, because my brain wirings keep me very focused on everything I’m possibly missing out upon each time I pick a particular option over others. I do my best to tone this tendency down, of course, but it’s there.

There’s a lot I could comment upon in relation to this book and all it is helping me understand (it delves deep into the mechanisms of choice, and that’s fascinating), but suffice to say right now that it’s colouring a lot of my thinking in general these days.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is conferences. Obviously, as a [conference organizer](http://going-far.com/) ([Going Solo](http://going-solo.net/) early bird price ends soon, by the way!), it’s on my mind, but I’ve also been attending quite a few conferences recently and reflecting of how my experience of these events has evolved (due to [“burn-out”](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/10/06/too-many-people/), increased [network and public profile](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/02/11/from-lift06-to-lift08/), and maybe other factors).

For online people like me, conferences are an occasion to see their usually scattered network of relations (friends or business contacts) coalesce in one single geographical location over the space of a few days. It can be very exciting, especially when you get to meet many of these people offline for the first time, but it can also be overwhelming. During my first conferences, I also got to know a lot of new people. People I wasn’t interactive with online. People who “grew” (ew) my network. People I liked and decided I wanted to stay in touch with. People who were interesting business contacts.

As conferences went by, I would find myself in a crowd of more and more people I already knew and appreciated and wanted to spend time with. I think [FOWA](http://futureofwebapps.com/) last November was a breaking point for me — I realized that it was impossible for me to catch up with all “my people” there in the space of two short days. It was quite distressing to realize this, actually.

A few weeks after that, I was in Berlin for [Web2.0Expo](http://climbtothestars.org/tags/web2expo/). A bit burnt, I took things way more lightly. Attended a few sessions. Didn’t even show up on certain mornings. Hung out with people I met there. Didn’t try to blog all the sessions I attended. It went much better.

Conferences are hard. There is a lot of intellectual stimulation (sessions and conversations), and a lot of social stimulation too. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I already feel life is simply too full of interesting things and people. In my everyday life, I struggle with the feeling that there is “too much out there” for me to “deal” or “cope” with — and a conference just concentrates this feeling over 2-3 days. Lots of fascinating (hopefully) sessions to attend. Great corridor conversations. Old friends to catch up with. New friends to make. Business contacts to touch base with. Dinners, lunches and parties. Take photos, blog, video the sessions or interview fellow attendees. To do all that well, you’d need to be superhuman.

I had two “different” conference experiences during these last six months, and they were LeWeb4 and LIFT08. Both times, I attended the conference with a rather clear [business objective](http://going-solo.net). It was tiring, but less overwhelming, because I’d decided in advance what I was in for. LeWeb4 (LeWeb3 actually, 2nd edition — don’t ask me why) actually turned out better than LIFT08 for me, because I simply didn’t attend any sessions (aside from half of [JP](http://confusedofcalcutta.com/)’s). At LIFT08, I had a press pass, so I did feel pressure to live-blog — and also, it’s my “home conference”, and I really like their programme. I was also [giving a speech](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/02/07/lift08-my-going-solo-open-stage-speech/), so, although this conference experience “went well”, it was [overwhelming](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/02/11/my-lift08-recap/).

So, what am I learning about conferences? They’re “too much”. So, you have to go to them knowing you’ll miss out (which brings us back to what The Paradox of Choice is about). The more connected you are, the more socially unmanageable it’s going to be. People you won’t see. Not saying goodbye. Not spending as much time as you wanted with certain people, but in exchange spending more time with others. So, I’ve come to accept that. I don’t know who I’m going to be able to catch up with. I know I won’t be able to catch up with everyone. I do my best not to plan — and if there is a small number of people (1, 2, 3) that I really want to see, I make plans with them, and that’s it.

The sessions are also “too much”. You can’t sit in sessions for the whole day, take notes, blog about them (or whatever you do) and then do the same thing the next day. Well, you can, but chances are your brain will fry at some point. I know that I can’t do it for two days in a row. At [SXSW](http://2008.sxsw.com/interactive/), I decided at one point to officially give up on attending sessions. I felt bad, because there were lots of them which sounded interesting, and lots of people I wanted to hear, but I also felt relieved because all of a sudden the pressure of making choices had been removed. If I happened to be hanging out with people who went to a panel, or if I stumbled into one — well, good. But I wasn’t going to make decisions about them other than on the spur of the moment. That worked out pretty well.

I did the same for the parties. Too much choice => I refuse to agonize on decisions before the last moment. All open. Go with the flow.

So, bottom-line: very little planning, lots of improvisation, and setting low expectations about doing precise stuff or hanging out with precise people.

To change the subject a little, I noticed at LIFT08 how at one point, there seems to be a physiological limit to taking in new people (certainly some relation to the [Dunbar number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar’s_number) department). At LIFT08, I was just so socialed out (or over-socialized), between running around promoting Going Solo and being the object of some attention after my speech ([watch video](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8270350768335569204)), that I realized at some point that I was doing horrible things like:

– trying to hand out moo cards twice to people I actually already knew (in this case, it was [Robert](http://scobleizer.com/)) in the space of a few minutes
– asking people for their name 3 times in a row
– forgetting I’d talked to people, even when they took the trouble to remind me what we had talked about a few hours before
– and of course, totally not recognizing anybody I’d been introduced to recently or at a previous conference

In this kind of situation, you can do two things. “Fake it”, as in “oh, hi! how’s business, blah blah blah” and hope that the person will drop enough info to help you out, or just fake it till the end. To be honest, I hate the idea of doing that, and I can’t bring myself to do it (plus, I’m sure I’d be quite bad at it). So, I prefer the second option, which is being honest. I apologize for not recognizing people (mention that I’m [hopeless with faces](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/12/14/badges-at-conferences/) — people who know me can attest), explain that I’m over-socialized and have simply been meeting and interacting with too many people. In my experience, this approach works out fine.

There’s also a lot to be said about “micro-fame” — the first couple of conferences I went to, the number of people I “didn’t really know” who were interested in talking to me (as in “walked up to me to introduce themselves”) was close to zero. Today, people show up out of nowhere, know me, want to speak to me. Friends want to introduce me to people they know (which is good, by the way!) My first conferences involved a lot of just meeting a nice person or two, and hanging out with them for the whole conference. This is more difficult today (except maybe at small conferences like BlogTalk) because I just know too many people (or too many people know me).

There also seems to be a subculture of highly-travelled, highly-conferenced people I’m suddenly finding myself part of — and I’m sure it would be worth taking a closer look to what’s going on here (hmm… [a conference](http://going-far.com), maybe?)

I’ll stop here, after dumping these thoughts in this not-very-organized post. It felt good to write all this down. If you have comments or thoughts, agree or disagree, experiences to share — my comments and trackbacks are yours to use.

Similar Posts:

News from LeWeb3 [en]

[fr] Je suis à la conférence LeWeb3, et pour une fois, je ne suis pas en train de bloguer les sessions. Je suis ici pour une autre raison: entamer des discussions avec des sponsors potentiels pour la conférence-événement que j'organise début mai. Je vous dirai plus à ce sujet dans un futur billet, mais si vous me voyez au Web3, n'hésitez pas à venir me demander, je vous en parle volontiers!

This is going to be a quick and dirty posting. Lock up your sheep and warn Grandma.

The reason you haven’t seen much liveblogging from LeWeb3 is that I haven’t really been attending the sessions. To be honest, not many seemed that interesting to me (I’m aware, this year, that I’m not the target audience, so that’s OK with me). But aside from that, this is the first time I’m coming to an event with an explicit goal other than “watch interesting talks” and “catch up with friends and make new ones”.

Remember, some time back, when I told you I was [starting a company](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/13/im-starting-a-company/)? Well, things are starting to warm up and take shape. I’ll blog about it in more detail (probably on the train going back home this evening), of course, but here’s a tidbit for those of you I haven’t yet had a chance to speak about it directly.

LeWeb3 2007 marks the beginning of my discussions with companies interested in sponsoring the event that I will be holding early May. And so far, honestly, I’m really excited about how people have reacted (potential partners *and* attendees). But as I said, more details in a bit.

Back to LeWeb3: first of all, I’d like to say I wasn’t really planning on attending as I had been quite disappointed with last year, but following the [nasty things I said about the event last year](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/12/12/le-web-3-et-sarko/), Loïc kindly invited me to come and see for myself that he wasn’t going to do “les mêmes conneries” twice in a row (his words) ;-). So, thanks for the invite, and here are a few complaints and praises.

– The wifi was flakey yesterday, though not as bad as last year. I had a bit of trouble logging on right now, but finally made it. – The food is delicious, as it was last year. I think a buffet for lunch is a really good idea.
– I didn’t like the first rows being reserved for the press — it did eliminate any impulse I might have had to liveblog.
– I like the venue. The lobby is arranged carefully, with enough small tables to fill in the empty space and encourage people to congregate.
– Shuttle bus: great. Really.
– Badges with information printed on one side only. Really. Stop doing that, conference organisers. Specially if the hangy-thing for the badge is meant to swirl around.
– Good to have video of talks in the networking area. I can write this post and keep an eye on it so I don’t miss [Doc Searls](http://www.searls.com/). (You don’t want to miss Doc. Or [David](http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/).)

Don’t hesitate and come up to speak to me, specially if you’d like to sponsor my event (I’ll tell you all about it). I’m **not** [suffering from conference overload and oversocialisation right now](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/10/06/too-many-people/) and quite happy to network and chat.

Similar Posts:

Disturbed About Reactions to Kathy Sierra's Post [en]

[fr] Comme cela avait été le cas lors de l'affaire SarkoWeb3, la blosophère s'est maintenant emparée de la triste histoire des menaces reçues par Kathy Sierra, telle une meute affamée et sans cervelle. Hypothèses présentées pour faits, coupable car non prouvé innocents, noms, déformation d'information, téléphone arabe, réactions émotionnelles trop vite bloguées et sans penser... tout y est.

Encore une fois, je suis déçue des gens.

Since I [read](http://twitter.com/stephtara/statuses/13216861) and [posted](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/03/26/death-threats-in-the-blogosphere/) about [Kathy Sierra’s latest post](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html), and stayed up until 3am looking at blog post after blog post pop up on [Technorati](http://technorati.com/search/%22kathy%20sierra%22) and [Google Blogsearch](http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22kathy+sierra%22&btnG=Search+Blogs), I’ve been growing [increasingly uneasy](http://twitter.com/stephtara/statuses/13328601) about what I was reading in the blogosphere.

Like many other people I suppose, I was hit with this “tell me it ain’t so” feeling (denial!) that makes one sick in the stomach upon reading that Kathy had cancelled her ETech appearance out of fear for her safety. My heart went out to her. Of course, I felt angry at the people who had cause her such fear, and I also felt quite a bit of concern at seeing known blogger names appear in the context of this ugly affair.

And then, of course, there was the matter of getting the word out there. I [blogged it](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/03/26/death-threats-in-the-blogosphere/) (and blogged it soon — I’ll be candid about this: I realised it was breaking news, heck, I even [twittered it](http://twitter.com/stephtara/statuses/13216861) before [Arrington did](http://twitter.com/TechCrunch/statuses/13218961)!), and although I did use words like “horrible” and “unacceptable” (which are pretty strong in my dictionary, if you are familiar with my blogging habits), I refrained from repeating the names mentioned in Kathy’s post or demanding that the culprits be lynched.

One of the reasons for this is that I had to re-read some parts of Kathy’s post a couple of times to be quite certain to what extent she was reporting these people to be involved. Upon first reading, I was just shocked, and stunned, and I knew I’d read some bits a bit fast. I also knew that I had Kathy’s side of the story here, and though I have no reasons to doubt her honesty, I know that reality, *what really happened*, usually lies **somewhere in between the different accounts of a story one can gather from the various parties involved**. So I took care not to point fingers, and not to name names in a situation I had no first-hand information about, to the point of not knowing any of the actors in it personally.

In doing this, and taking these precautions, I consider that I am **trying to do my job as a responsible blogger**.

Unfortunately, one quick look at most of the posts coming out of Technorati or Google Blogsearch shows (still now, over 15 hours after Kathy posted) a [collection](http://digg.com/tech_news/Death_threats_against_bloggers_are_NOT_protected_speech_Kathy_Sierra) of knee-jerk reactions, side-taking, verbal lynching, and rising up to the defense of noble causes. There are inaccurate facts in blog posts, conjectures presented as fact, calls to arms of various types, and catchy, often misleading, headlines. I tend to despise the mainstream press increasingly for their use of manipulative headlines, but honestly, what I see some bloggers doing here is no better.

Welcome to the blogmob.

The blogmob is nothing new, of course. My first real encounter with the mob was in [May 2001](http://climbtothestars.org/writing/kaycee/), when Kaycee Nicole Swenson [died (or so it seemed)](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2001/05/16/kaycee/) and somebody [dared suggest she might not have existed](http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/7819). The mob was mainly on MetaFilter at that time, but there were very violent reactions towards the early proponents of the “hoax” hypothesis. Finally, it was demonstrated that Kaycee was *indeed* a hoax. This was also my first encounter with somebody who was sick and twisted enough to make up a fictional character, Kaycee, a cancer victim, and keep her alive online for over two years, mixing lies and reality to a point barely imaginable. I — and many others — fell for it.

Much more recently, I’ve seen the larger, proper blogmob at work in two episodes I had “first-hand knowledge” about. The first, after the [LeWeb3-Sarkozy debacle](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/12/12/le-web-3-et-sarko/), when bad judgement, unclear agendas, politics and clumsy communication came together and pissed off a non-trivial number of bloggers who were attending [LeWeb3](http://www.leweb3.com/). There were angry posts, there were constructive ones and those which were less, and then the blogmob came in, with hundreds of bloggers who asked for Loïc’s head on a plate based on personal, second-hand accounts of what had happened, without digging a bit to try to get to the bottom of the story. Loïc had messed up, oh yes he had, but that didn’t justify painting him flat-out evil as the blogmob did. In Francophonia it got so bad that this episode and its aftermath was (in my analysis) the death stroke for comments on Loïc’s blog, and he decided to shut them down.

The second (and last episode I’ll recount here) is when the whole blogosphere went a-buzz about how Wikipedia was going to shut down three months from now. [Words spoken at LIFT’07](http://www.liftconference.com/blog/?p=312) went through many chinese whisper (UK) / Telephone (US) filters to turn into a [rather dramatic announcement](http://www.901am.com/2007/wikipeda-could-shut-within-3-4-months-wikimedia.html), which was then relayed by just about anybody who had a blog. Read about [how the misinformation spread and what the facts were](http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/02/the_wikimedia_c.html).

So, what’s happening right now? The first comments I read on Kathy’s post were reactions of shock, and expressions of support. Lots of them. Over the blogosphere, people were busy getting the news out there by relaying the information on their blogs. Some (like me) shared stories. As the hours went by, I began to see trends:

– this is awful, shocking, unacceptable
– the guilty must be punished
– women are oppressed, unsafe
– the blogosphere is becoming unsafe!

Where it gets disturbing, and where really, really, I’m disappointed and think bloggers should know better, is when I read headlines or statements like this (and I’m not going to link to all these but you’ll find them easily enough):

* “Kathy Sierra v. Chris Locke”
* “Kathy Sierra to Stop Blogging!”
* “Kathy Sierra hate campaign”
* throwing around names like “psychopath” and “terrorist” to describe the people involved
* [“Personally I am disgusted with myself for buying and recommending Chris Locke’s book…”](http://blogher.org/node/17319#comment-16756) and the like
* the assumption that there is a unique person behind the various incidents Kathy describes
* taking for fact that Chris Locke, Jeneane Sessum, Alan Herrell or Frank Paynter are involved, directly, and in an evil way (which is taking Kathy’s post a step further than what it actually says, for the least)
* …

In [my previous post](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/03/26/death-threats-in-the-blogosphere/), I’ve tried to link to blog posts which actually bring some added value. Most of the others are just helping the echo chamber echo louder, at this point. Kathy’s post is (understandably) a little emotional (whether it is by design as

I’d like to end this post with a recap of what I’ve understood so far. (“What I’ve understood” means that there might be mistakes here, but I’m giving an honest account of what I managed to piece together.) I’m working under the assumption that the people involved are giving honest accounts of their side of the story, and hoping that this will not unravel like the Kaycee story did to reveal the presence of a sick, twisted liar somewhere.

– Kathy has been receiving threats. Some in the comments of her blog, some by e-mail, and some in the posts and/or comments of meankids and unclebobism, sites which have since then been taken down.
– Meankids was set up by a bunch of people (including Chris and Frank at the minimum). It was closed after going overboard, and the same people opened Unclebobism as a replacement. (Details about exactly what went in internally are not clear. See posts by [Kevin Marks](http://epeus.blogspot.com/2007/03/death-and-rape-threats-are-criminal.html), [Frank Paynter](http://listics.com/20070326984) and [Chris Locke](http://www.rageboy.com/2007/03/re-kathy-sierras-allegations.html) for source information.)
– Stowe says this [doesn’t fit with the personal knowledge he has of Jeneane Sessum and Alan Herrell](http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2007/03/kathy_sierra_de.html). Other people like Lisa Stone also report phone contacts with Jeneane, and [it seems she is not directly involved in the acts Kathy describes](http://blogher.org/node/17319) (though it definitely seems she had something to do with the two sites meankids and unclebobism, if only in [linking](http://allied.blogspot.com/2007/03/bigger-than-twitter-its-twatter.html) for the second). **Update:** Chris gives details on her (indeed) [very minimal involvement](http://www.rageboy.com/2007/03/brief-addendum.html).
– Frank Paynter [apologized early on](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64434246) on Kathy’s blog, then explains that this whole thing is [an experiment in anarchy gone overboard](http://listics.com/20070326984).
– [Chris Locke](http://www.rageboy.com/2007/03/re-kathy-sierras-allegations.html) denies being directly responsible for any of the threats Kathy mentions, and owns up to two direct comments about Kathy on unclebobism.
– Alan Herrell seems to have shut down [Raving Lunacy](http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/)
– Kathy ends her post with “I have no idea if I’ll ever post again. I suspect I will. But for now, I have a lot to rethink.” — this seems to point to her taking a break, not abandoning blogging.
– “Joey”, the author (?) of one of the threats Kathy received, comments on her blog: [one](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64459820), [two](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64463926), [three](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64466218), [four](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64468260), [five](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64468722); he says the threat was not towards her but some other person he called Kathy (?!). See also [Brent’s response to the first comment](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html#c64460850). I have to admit some skepticism here. He could be a simple troll. But again, not to be dismissed without taking a good look.
– **Update 28 May 2007** Alan Herrell reports being victim of identity theft. E-mail made public by [Doc Searls](http://doc.weblogs.com/2007/03/28#whatItIsnt).
– **Update 29 May 2007** Jim Turner gives a way better account than I have here of [what we can make out of the story for the moment](http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-1-dissecting-the-creation-of-the-kathy-sierra-blog-storm-4/) — part 2 is due to follow and here is part two: The Sierra Saga Part 2: Big Bad Bob and the Lull Before the Kathy Sierra Blog Storm.
– **Update 1 April 2007** Jeneane Sessum publishes a few words [about the whole mess and her name being dragged in the dirt](http://allied.blogspot.com/2007/03/just-few-words.html).

Please, Blogosphere. Keep your wits. This is a messy ugly story, and oversimplications will help nobody. Holding people guilty until proven innocent doesn’t either. (Trust me, I’ve been on the receiving end of [unfounded accusations](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2005/02/23/reponse-a-luc-olivier-erard-la-cote/) because somebody didn’t hear my side of the story, and it sucks.)

The problem with bullying is that perceived meanness isn’t the same on both sides. Often, to the bully, the act is “just harsh” or “not to be taken seriously” (to what extent that is really believed, or is some kind of twisted rationalisation is not clear to me). To the bullied, however, the threats are very real, even if they were not really intended so. Bullying is also a combination of small things which add up to being intolerable. People in groups also tend to behave quite differently than what they would taken isolately, the identity of the individual tending to dissolve into the group identity. Anonymity (I’ve blogged about this many times, try a search) encourages people to not take responsibility for what they say, and therefore gives them more freedom to be mean. Has something like this happened here?

If you have something thoughtful to say, then say it. But if all you have to say has already been said out there ten times, or if you won’t take the trouble to check your sources, read carefully, calm down before blogging, avoid over-generalisations, and thus avoid feeding the already bloated echo-chamber — just go out for a walk in the sun and let the people involved sort themselves out.

The word is out there, way enough, and I trust that we’ll get to the bottom of the story in time.

**Update: I’m adding new links which actually add something to this story to [my first post](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/03/26/death-threats-in-the-blogosphere/) as I find them, so check over there for updates.**

Similar Posts:

Why I Got Lost in LeWeb3 Videos [en]

[fr] Petit tour des problèmes d'ergonomie qui ont été la source de mon billet précédent concernant vpod.tv.

Right, I’ve somewhat figured out how I managed to [get lost in the LeWeb3 videos](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/01/20/videos-leweb3/) and not find things like permalinks or slider bars.

When you’re on the [fullscreen page](http://my.vpod.tv/channel.html), no controls are clearly visible. Where is the pause button? There is “launch your TV” (tried that, but never go the answer to what it does, too slow to load for me) but that’s about it. When you click on individual videos, the URL never varies from http://my.vpod.tv/channel.html. Well, I poked around as I could, and gave up.

One thing I had overlooked was the four little icons near the bottom of the video which is playing (you can click on all the photos I’m showing here to access notes and extra info):

20070121-vpod-fullscreen-navigation

Which one would you click on? Well, after I really started to suspect there must be a way out, I tried them all. The third one was the most interesting to me:

20070121-vpod-fullscreen-menu-buttons

To be fair, when you mouseover the buttons, some text is displayed. For example, text for the four buttons in the first photograph is “Sound”, “Video Greeting”, “Menu”, “ShowHide”. Unfortunately, you **do** have to mouseover to get to that information, as the icons themselves are not all self-explanatory. I definitely do not expect to find a menu listing of useful stuff I might want to do under the vpod.tv logo.

One shouldn’t expect a site user to drag his mouse over every portion of the screen which might be clickable to see what it is. Scanning available options is a job meant for the eye, not the hand. To make matters worse here, the mouseover text takes roughly twice the time a normal “title” tooltip would take to appear (on my system). A good two seconds. Who knows — I might even have mouseovered those icons and come to the conclusion there were no tooltips, when they didn’t appear after the expected delay.

The problem repeats itself. Look at the vertical bar of icons in the screenshot above. Have a guess. What do you expect them to do? Well, here is what the tooltips say, from top to bottom: “Share”, “Get link”, “RSS feed”, “Info”, “Flag it”, “Help”, and “About us…” — you’ll notice that the same vpod.tv logo is used for the “About us…” link as for the “Menu” one. It makes much more sense for “About us…”

In short, [rather poor usability](http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html) for essential navigation items and functionalities on a page like this.

Now, I’m still hunting for a permalink to the video I’m watching, remember? “Get link” sounds like a good one, though “Info” is tempting too (chances I’d click on that directly if I start mouseovering from the bottom, which would be logical as that is where my cursor was).

20070121-vpod-fullscreen-getlink-dialog

Bingo! There’s my permalink. Let’s click on it.

20070121-vpod-video-page-info

Well, that worked as expected. I get to see the video, I can display useful information about it, and I can even download it. Nice. The only sad part is that the URL in the address bar has changed from http://portal.vpod.tv/leweb3/69391 to http://portal.vpod.tv/#page:player. What a pity!

A slider bar appears when I put my mouse over the video, and there is a pause/play button. I’m still not sure if such features are available in the [fullscreen version](http://my.vpod.tv/) and I couldn’t find them, or simply not available. The slider works, but unfortunately doesn’t tell me which moment of the video I’m aiming for, so it’s a bit hit-and-miss if, say, you want to jump to minute 8 of my video to hear me try to talk (hint, hint).

So, I started watching [my panel](http://portal.vpod.tv/leweb3/69391). The sound is good, and that’s pretty cool (as I heard that it was almost unintelligable during the conference for people who were listening in on the stream). Unfortunately, somebody must have been a little overenthusiastic about compression and the small amount of key frames, because LeWeb3 speakers seem to all have contracted a really horrible skin disease which makes unsightly blemishes appear on their skin at regular intervals:

20070121-vpod-compression-illness 20070121-vpod-compression-illness-scott

Seems like [Scott Rafer](http://rafer.wirelessink.com/) and I should both go and see a dermatologist pretty quickly, doesn’t it?

Similar Posts:

Vidéos LeWeb3 [fr]

[en] LeWeb3 videos are online. Can't use them. Gah.

Ah oui! j’oubliais. Parlant [LeWeb3](http://www.leweb3.com/), les [vidéos sont a disposition](http://www.loiclemeur.com/france/2007/01/toutes_les_vido.html) — mais arghl! je proteste:

– pas possible de télécharger les vidéos pour les voir offline Si, on peut.
– pas possible de faire un lien vers une vidéo particulière Sisi, on peut.
– pas possible d’avancer ou de sauter à un point défini dans une vidéo Sisi.
– je ne trouve pas la vidéo de la [conférence de danah](http://steph.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/le-web-3-danah-boyd/)
– le plein écran, franchement, si ça veut dire “pixellisé et plein d’artefacts”, je m’en passe — je préfère petit et net à grand et flou (voir ce que fait [PodTech](http://podtech.net/home/) en comparaison)

Je suis peut-être bicle, hein…

*(Ma table ronde est la… 18ème vidéo environ, si j’ai bien compté: “Have communities replaced the Media”.)*

Edit 21.01: bon, donc, merci de m’avoir répondu. Je vais faire une petite enquête interne pour tenter de saisir pourquoi j’ai raté tout ça!

Similar Posts:

Interview "LeWeb3" en ligne [fr]

[en] Interview (in French) I gave at the end of LeWeb3 last month in Paris.

Pour mes lecteurs francophones qui s’inquiéteraient (comme [Isa](http://isablog.wordpress.com/)) de la récente anglicisation dramatique de mon blog, je tiens à vous rassurer: je change de langue comme de chaussette, et des fois je porte la même paire pendant un peu trop longtemps. OK, mauvais exemple, mais vous voyez l’idée. En l’occurence, entre voyages en Angleterre et [aux Etats-Unis](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/01/12/im-really-liking-san-francisco/), ma vie a été très anglophone ces derniers temps.

Tiens, ce serait intéressant d’analyser (pas trop d’idée comment pour le moment) la répartition du français et de l’anglais dans mes billets au fil du temps.

Mais bon, pour le moment, je voulais simplement vous signaler la mise en ligne de [l’interview que j’ai donnée à Thierry Weber à la fin de la conférence LeWeb3](http://www.thierryweber.com/fr/2007/01/18/leweb3-itw-de-stephanie-booth/) à Paris le mois dernier.

J’ai des tas de choses à bloguer, et je vous promets que certaines en tous cas seront en français!

**Edit:** Oups, j’ai commencé par publier [me plaintes concernant les vidéos LeWeb3](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/01/20/videos-leweb3/) dans ce billet avant d’en faire un séparé. C’est mal! Désolée.

Similar Posts:

Arrived in the UK [en]

[fr] En Angleterre. Contente de voir que ça se calme un peu côté SarkoWeb3, et que je vois maintenant surtout des billets constructifs.

Just a note to say I’m safe and sound in the UK. I’m going through the latest on [LeWeb3](http://technorati.com/search/leweb3) and I’m really glad to see the mob has somewhat calmed down and I’m starting to see some very constructive posts popping up. I’m sticking stuff [in del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us/steph/leweb3) as fast as [Flock can synchronize my favorites](http://steph.wordpress.com/2006/12/13/when-does-flock-synchronize-my-favorites/).

I’ll write more on my views about the whole mess in the coming days. For the moment I’m recovering from too many weeks of madness.

Similar Posts:

Le Web 3: Recap [en]

[fr] Résumé (sans les liens, cliquez dans le corps du billet):

Positif: atmosphère et gens sympas, bon réseautage, excellente nourriture, voir des anciens amis et en faire de nouveaux, Hans Rosling (et danah bien sûr), bon choix du lieu de conférence, en-cas dans le hall, et un compliment concernant ma brève prestation sur scène.

Négatif: mauvais wifi, fête trop bruyante, récupération politique (même si je pense que Loïc pèche plus par excès d'enthousiasme pas toujours bien placé, et par manque de "sensibilité clients", comme lors de l'épisode Ublog), niveau un peu "grand public" des présentations, pas de fête de clôture.

En somme, contente d'être venue malgré les déceptions, mais pas certaine que je remettrai ça la prochaine fois.

Right, in telegraphic style, here’s a wrap-up of how my [LeWeb3](http://www.leweb3.com/) went.

**Positive:** overall nice atmosphere and people, good networking, excellent food, saw old friends again and made new ones, was blown away (like many others) by [Hans Rosling’s presentation](http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling&flashEnabled=1) (both by the numbers he gave and the [software](http://www.gapminder.org/). I liked the venue, thought the sizing was right (small enough to encourage people to communicate, without being cramped). Break food/drinks were nice (even if there was no [bottled water](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/02/02/first-impressions-of-lift06/)). Somebody said [something nice about my brief panel contribution](http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2006/12/le_web_3_the_ol.html). Impressed at Loïc organising something this big in so little time.

**Negative:** [bad wifi](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/12/11/wordpress-dreamhost-wifi-arghl/), [noisy party](http://twitter.com/stephtara/statuses/973263), [political takeover](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/12/12/le-web-3-et-sarko/) (though I do believe that Loïc messes up more by excess enthusiasm and some lacking in customer care skills — like with [Ublog](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2004/07/21/u-blog-six-apart-and-their-angry-bloggers/) — than because he’s a “bad guy”), not being in the target audience (topics were a bit too general for me), and not having a good-bye party or some chance to say good-bye to people (people left little by little and I hardly got to see anybody before they left).

Overall, I’m glad I came, but I’m not sure I’d come to this event again.

Similar Posts:

Michael Hampton is My Hero of the Day [en]

[fr] En principe, les problèmes de serveur sont résolus. Retour à la normale aussi vite que j'arrive à transférer les données avec la connection wifi très approximative que nous avons ici.

[Michael Hampton, also known as io_error](http://www.homelandstupidity.us/) just saved my life today by solving the [encoding problem on my new hosting](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/12/11/wordpress-dreamhost-wifi-arghl/). It seems something went wrong when I imported my SQL dumps into the new database. Solving the encoding issue seems to have solved the “can log into admin but can’t do anything” WordPress issue (if someone can explain why, I’d be interested).

And [danah](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/) is my heroine of the day, because after a morning of [politicians](http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2006/12/le_web_3_hijack.html) and [WiFi fighting](http://annedominique.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/leweb3-day-1-joies-et-frustration/), it was nice to hear an [interesting talk](http://steph.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/le-web-3-danah-boyd/).

Similar Posts:

Le Web 3 et Sarko [fr]

[en] Not impressed by what Sarkozy said. I tried translating in the IRC backchannel. Seemed mainly like electoral blah-blah to me. Note to conference organisers: don't do this. Don't mess up the program for last-minute political celebrities who won't take questions, and won't even speak in the language of the conference. Update: check the sarkoweb3 tag.

Sarkozy a bouleversé son emploi du temps pour venir parler à Le Web 3 (tout comme Shimon Peres (orth?) et l’autre candidat dont j’arrive pas retenir le nom Bayrou), et nous aussi, on a bouleversé le nôtre pour l’écouter. Ca commence à ressembler à un défilé de politiques plutôt qu’à un truc de geeks. Déjà qu’à mon avis beaucoup des sujets sont très généraux (bien pour les médias et le grand public, pas très instructifs pour nous)…

Bref, le discours de Sarkozy ressemblait à mes oreilles à du blabla électoral standard (certes, c’était sur sa vision d’Internet, il est resté dans le sujet) — mais bon, j’ai quand même préféré l’autre qui a répondu à des questions du public, même si ce n’était que moyen et assez consensuel.

Conseil pour organisateurs de conférences: ne bouleversez pas le programme pour faire intervenir des célébrités de dernière minute, surtout quand celles-ci sont d’un intérêt local (50% de la salle n’en a probablement rien à faire de la politique française) et parlent sans traduction dans une langue qui n’est également pas comprise de tous. J’ai fait une traduction “à l’arrache” de ce qu’il disait dans le canal IRC… en espérant que ça aura été à certains.


Update: collection de liens avec le tag sarkoweb3.

Aussi, si vous avez une ligne de 40Mb, c’est cool, mais assurez-vous que les bornes wifi tiennent le coup. Aussi… (c’est pour Laurent)… où sont les fontaines à eau dans la salle? ou les bouteilles?

Oui, je suis de mauvaise (48h à tenter de remettre mon serveur debout, tout en voyageant et avec un accès wifi à peu près impossible, stress accumulé, etc etc). Bah.

**Update:** lire aussi Anne Dominique, [“Loïc Ministre?”](http://annedominique.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/leweb3-day-2-loic-ministre/)

Similar Posts: