Les Blogs - Monday second half and party
Citizen journalism and mainstream media. Interesting folks from Global Voices Online whose mission is to be sort of mediating blog for other blogs outside America and Western Europe. Rebecca who defines herself as “recovering TV-reporter-turned-blogger” had a nice position at CNN but gave it up because she couldn’t do stories like she wanted and the editors wanted her to cover stuff more like a tourist. So now she is doing research and Global Voices.
The Good, Bad and Ugly about investing and money. I couldn’t figure out which was which of the guys on stage. 2.0 buzzwords flying around. Too bad Om couldn’t be there.
“How do blogs influence politics”. Some French guy who is battling the government about something I couldn’t quite understand, something about battling the local government and bashing the mayor every day… but at the same time he is a journalist by profession and socialist party member? “Fair un don - that means Paypal in French.”
Blogs and education. Ewan told how they are experimenting with blogs, like in some classes some guys blog something and other guys blog and comment back and the whole thing becomes kinda fun and interactive.
Now that was it about the day program. On to the evening party. We also had an opportunity to visit the International Herald Tribune newsroom — sadly I had to miss it, I was kinda worn out and wanted to change clothes (otherwise I should have gone straight to the dinner with all my stuff and suit and this would not have been fun at all). So drop by the hotel, change and on to the dinner party.
At the restaurant door, the guy asked us for tags, which we had of course all smartly left back at the hotels. Still got in. Same people, mingling, chatting. Talked to quite a few people but will dig through business cards and recollect at a later time. Met the same BBC folks who I had met at London geek dinner in June and talked quite a bit about where Skype is going. One interesting thing they said about brand positioning and open source, “you guys are where Internet Explorer was a few years ago. Look at Firefox and its dynamics now.” Certainly has an element of truth to it although not so black-and-white.
The theme of the day was “WHERE IS THE FOOD??????!?!?” At lunch, only small snacks and candies/chocolates. And wine. Dinner started out the same. And quite few tables and chairs, clearly not enough for 200 people. Small stuff and drinks. We expected some more to come up, but as time went on, it became clear that that was it. Sigh… at least they had an open bar.
Quite a few people didn’t like smoking that was all over the place. Shel Israel told that’s one big culture difference between California and France — back in Cal, no one in tech industry really smokes. And somewhere around 11, they turned up the music and down the lights so it suddenly became a disco. I was kinda worn out so didn’t stay out long and straight to bed at hotel. That’s paying off well today, I’m good and fresh. Today will be interesting.
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