Back to Being a Low-Tech Audience [en]

[fr] Dans une conférence où beaucoup de blogueurs sont présents, on a besoin de pauses-blogging 😉 -- et peut-être aussi de présentations qui tiennent bien dans un billet? Suivent quelques suggestions pour les personnes qui font des conférences -- sachant que je ne fais certainement pas tout ce que je dis.

Running a bit late for Emmanuelle‘s talk on anonymity online, I decided to go in without my laptop, which was in the other room. Decision also fueled by my earlier cogitations about my decreasing attention span.

Well, there we are: I was more attentive and took notes on paper.

I was telling Robert that conferences like this lacked blogging breaks. The audience is in the real-time information business if you have lots of bloggers in the room, so if you don’t want them to spend half the talk time uploading photos, chatting, and writing up blog posts. So, how about give us blogging breaks, and plan post-sized talks? Wouldn’t that be neat?

For many people, the most interesting moments of a gathering like this is around and outside the talks. Try to change the balance a bit? I know there are organisational imperatives, but I’m sure a solution could be found.

Other than that, some ideas for speakers (and I’m aware I don’t do what I preach when I’m giving a talk):

  • Give me an outline of the talk, paper would be best (I’ll get lost somewhere else by trying to find it online). If I tune out of your talk for a minute (and I’m bound to) I need a chance to tune back in. An outline will help with that.
  • Be theatrical, keep me listening, or make me participate. Effective use of slides is good, but I don’t know how to do it so I won’t give you any advice on the topic.
  • Don’t talk to fast, particularly when the audio in the venue isn’t too good. Articulate. (Yeah. Sorry.)

Update: I took hand-written notes of Robert’s talk too. Lesson learnt.

My Notes of Robert Scoble's Talk

Now let’s see if you can decypher my handwriting!

LIFT'06 Photographs [en]

[fr] Les photos de LIFT'06 aujourd'hui sont en train d'être mises en ligne à  vitesse tout petit v. Merci de votre patience.

You probably noticed I’ve been uploading LIFT’06 photographs to Flickr since yesterday. I took a whole bunch of really fun photos last night, but upload is slow as slug, so I don’t know when they’ll be up. Thanks for your patience!

Cosy Geeking
Robert and Anina geeking away

Almost all of my photos are CC-licensed. Feel free to use them on your blogs if you’re speaking about the conference — a mugshot or two does tend to liven-up text-only conference notes.

Bloggy Friday ce soir avec la LIFT'06-fête [fr]

[en] Bloggy Friday: join us at the LIFT'06 Closing Party!

Pour être dernière minute, c’est dernière minute, mais vous le saviez déjà : le Bloggy Friday a lieu ce soir à  Genève, et l’idée serait qu’on se retrouve lors de “l’after” de LIFT’06. Lieu communiqué dès que je serai au courant plus tard dans la matinée. Dans le pire des cas, il suffit de venir trainer devant le CICG dès la fin de la conférence.

Mise à  jour: 9h30 à  l’Ethno Bar, 1 rue Bovy-Lysberg.

Tonight!

Mise à  jour 04.02.06

Un gros pardon pour le lapin posé aux blogueurs romands qui se seraient pointés hier soir. Les Romands de LIFT sont gentiment rentrés chez eux les uns après les autres (c’était deux journées super crevantes). J’ai quant à  moi tenu bon jusqu’au moment où j’ai réalisé que j’avais de nouveau oublié d’échanger mon ticket de parking, et que j’allais me retrouver avec une facture salée.

Devant ma fatigue, la perspective du week-end qui m’attendait, et le trou qui s’annonçait dans mon compte en banque, j’ai préféré rentrer. (J’ai eu de la chance, un ange muni d’un ticket de parking a croisé ma route, ça s’est donc pas si mal fini que ça.)

Donc, si vous vous êtes pointés à  l’Ethno Bar et que vous n’y avez pas vu de têtes familières, désolée. J’espère que vous aurez quand même saisi l’occasion de faire connaissance des geeks internationaux présents!

LIFT'06 Notes [en]

[fr] Mes notes (brouillon) de la journée à  LIFT'06.

Here are my draughty notes, as is, pretty incomplete and not necessarily intelligible. Use if you wish.

Attention Span and Partial Attention [en]

[fr] Est-ce que l'habitude du multitâches devant l'écran m'a fait perdre mes pouvoirs de concentration? J'ai du mal à  suivre les conférences, alors qu'avec dix ans d'uni, on pourrait considérer que j'ai de l'entraînement...

I spent ten years at university. During those years, I attended lectures on a variety of subject, sometimes from 7am to 8pm, taking notes and understanding most of what was said.

What’s wrong with me now? I can’t seem to follow most of the talks given here. I remember having the same problem at BlogTalk 2.0 a couple of years back. Is it the partial attention thing, because of course, I can’t follow what is being said when I’m typing up a post or chatting in a backchannel. Or uploading photos.

Should I put the computer away and take notes by hand? My writing sucks now, and RSI clearly will prevent me from taking notes during two whole days.

Is it worse that that? Have years of multitasking in front of a screen impaired my ability to concentrate and focus on a single thing? Have I lost the power or the will to concentrate? That, I have to admit, is a scary idea.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just poor audio output in the room (thanks, Jérôme, for making me feel less alone about this) coupled to my usual not-so-good audio input, plus, in some cases, the fact I’m not used to following English spoken by non-native speakers (particularly francophones, because I usually speak French with them)? And the fact that I’m tired?

Oh well. It’s probably a mixture of everything. I wonder if I shouldn’t have posted this on the Cheese Sandwich Blog — but it’s a little late for that.

After Lunch [en]

[fr] Un bon repas, un peu de difficulté à  suivre les conférences (problèmes d'audio dans la salle? mes mauvaises oreilles?)

Had a nice lunch with Robert, Anina, Anne Dominique and Ben. Food was nice, conversation too, but God! am I tired. (And I don’t even have jetlag to blame.)

Cory Doctorow talking

Cory’s talking about DRM and stuff. It’s interesting, but I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a real audio quality issue in the room. My hearing is not quite as good as the average person’s, but it doesn’t usually make it difficult for me to follow talks like this. I know I also tend to have trouble “catching” the train of words to follow what somebody is saying. (Call it “keeping in tune” with what is being said, if you like.) So maybe I’m suffering from a conjunction of “could-be-better” audio quality and “could-be-better” ears and listening skills.

Is anybody else in the room having difficulty understanding the speakers?

I think there is weird stuff going on with the wifi too. Is it hopping? Jumping? Flickering? I’m hardly seeing anybody on Bonjour — they come and go — and uploading photos to Flickr is really slow. Are any naughty bloggers in the room using the wifi for P2P stuff?

(And just in case you’re thinking I complain too much, I’m having a really nice time here; I’m just looking forward to being able to re-listen to some talks through the audio and video links made available.)

Break Impressions [en]

[fr] C'est la pause!

1. The whole place is teeming with journalists.
2. Sitting in front of Robert was not a good idea if I wanted to spend a quiet break at my place.

Maslow Reloaded

Update: 9 people in the backchannel after the break! We’re growing! Join us in on chat.freenode.net (IRC)

First Impressions of LIFT'06 [en]

[fr] Premières impressions de LIFT'06.

Venue: not too much trouble finding it, that was nice. Laurent himself at the ticket desk, that was nice too. Robert Scoble looks younger than I expected (I’m sitting right in front of him, didn’t do it on purpose, promise!).

In Line for LIFT'06

Missing in the conference room:

  • water (no drinks allowed apart from water, and all I have in my bag is orange juice, and I’m really thirsty) Update: thanks to David Galipeau, I’ve found the water fountains now.
  • more power strips (yeah, I know)

Missing online (update)

  • backchannel? (I’m sitting in on chat.freenode.net, just in case)
  • live audio?
  • people using Bonjour/Rendez-Vous… (I’ve opened and announced a document for collaborative note-taking in SubEthaEdit… just in case, feel free to join if you’re at the conference).

I have a huge problem: I totally suck at understanding non-native speakers talking in English (particularly francophones). Isn’t that amazing, given I’m a francophone myself?

LIFT'06 et Bloggy Friday [fr]

[en] LIFT'06 STOP BLOGGY FRIDAY STOP SEE YOU GENEVA STOP PLEASE COMMENT STOP

Très bref pour cause de surbookage. Bloggy Friday comme annoncé, vendredi à  Genève — peut-être qu’on combine ça avec la fête de fin de LIFT si on a le droit. Qui veut rejoindre le Bloggy Friday? Et chers lecteurs, qui sera à  LIFT, histoire qu’on rate pas une occasion de se croiser en chair et en os, le nez vissé à  nos écrans de laptop? Mettez un mot en commentaire.

Mon numéro de tél. mobile est disponible sur demande si jamais.

(PS: si vous avez un canapé inutilisé du côté de Genève, ça m’intéresse…)

Radio sans moi et deux blogs à  visiter [fr]

[en] A radio show on blogs without me (I was busy teaching) and two Swiss politically oriented blogs worth visiting.

Très rapidement (mais alors très, parce que là , j’ai assez de boulot pour me garder occupée ces deux prochaines semaines même si je n’enseignais pas), notons une émission sur la RSR1 ce matin, qui portait sur les blogs.

On saluera deux faits:

  • le sujet tournait plutôt autour du blog politique/blog d’entreprise, plutôt que l’éternel blog d’ado
  • comme j’enseigne entre 9h00 et 9h30 le lundi matin, l’émission s’est faite sans moi 😉

On saluera aussi la personne responsable du site internet de la RSR1, à  qui l’on rappellera en passant que l’attribut id doit être unique sur une page. <DIV id=smallbold align=left> (sic) à  perte de vue sur la page, ça ne le fait vraiment pas. Ah oui, et j’ai remarqué (deux-trois autres personnes aussi) que le serveur ramait passablement. Une petite cure d’amaigrissement à  coups de standards web serait peut-être à  conseiller.

Une mention cependant pour la possibilité de télécharger la chronique en MP3.

J’en profite pour vous envoyer vous balader sur deux sites romands “politisés” (prenez-en de la graine, vous autres, on en veut plus comme ça):

Mise à  jour 04.02.2006: merci à  Flippy, qui me dit les avoir eu via Fredoche, pour ces liens. Faites circuler!