I was invited by Fred Destin and Alex Hoye to join the advisory board of SeedCamp, one of Europe’s hottest initiative to promote entrepreneurship. SeedCamp and I share a large number of values, like a strong belief that Europe has all the tools to shine on the international scene (see my 2006 post titled Europe, the other Silicon Valley). I will be in london participating as a mentor on the Tuesday, Sept. 16th sessions. See you there!

I am happy to see that one of the web’s most “false good idea” (literal translation of the French’s “fausse bonne idée”, I hope it works in English too ;) is getting abandoned, and I am talking about the useless, unclear and largely unused tag cloud. After the official death of web 2.0 at Lift07, that is another reason to rejoice for hype busters of all kind.

Update: I added SeedCamp and Mastermundo.

I will be speaking at these great conferences in the coming months:

• SeedCamp (Sept. 15-19)
  I am a proud mentor and advisor for Seedcamp, an intensive week long event held in September in London targeted at young entrepreneurs from across EMEA.
• PicNic 08 (Sept 24-26)
  Amsterdam’s craziest conference is back, featuring an intense program with tons of people I look forward to meet like Clay Shirky and Ethan Zuckerman. That will also be an occasion to have a chat with former Lift speakers like Ben Cerveny or Rafi Haladjian.
• Mastermundo Creative Conference (Sept. 27)
  Mastermundo is an intriguing conference organized in The Hague by the Royal Academy of Arts.
• World Women’s Forum (Oct. 21-23)
  I am honored to be one of the few men invited to speak at this big Seoul event that will welcome speakers like Mia Farrow or Maud Fontenoy around the theme of “Women as Agents of Change: Building a Diverse and Sustainable Future”. I will share my experience of building a business using social technologies with women entrepreneurs of the world.
• International Congress & Convention Association Congress (Nov. 4)
  I will be part of a session on 21st Century Events where I will present to fellow conference organizers how Lift is using new technologies to organize an original and unique event.
• EIBTM (Dec. 2-4)
  As part of the annual EIBTM technology debate, I will sit down with Corbin Ball (CMP, Corbin Ball Associates) to discuss how social networking sites and virtual worlds can be used in the meetings industry.

The O’Reilly empire shared the themes of the 2008 Radar. Radar is the blog exploring the most important social changes that can be expected in the coming years. The themes are:

Bio
Synthetic Biology
Neuro-Everything
Personal Genomics

Real World
Physical Web
Neo-Geo
Clean Energy Tech

Web
Web Ops
Social Networking
Web 2.0
Money/Web

People
New User Interfaces
ARGs
Digital Democracy
Overload

Hardware
Make
Materials Science
Art and Technology

Strength in Numbers
Collective Intelligence
Open Beyond Source

Link

Some of these things will be covered at Lift Asia 08 (Social Networking, Money/Web, Digital Democracy), and some have been covered during past events (Overload at Lift07, Art and Technology ever since we introduced Lift experience, Clean Energy Tech at Lift08). It is interesting to see a consensus among the people who, like us via Lift, are trying to predict what the future will hold. It comforts me in the idea that some of these trends we are identifying will really change society.

As I head to the Seoul airport to fly back to Europe  (I will spend the next 9 days there, before promptly coming back to Korea) allow me to paste the Lift Asia program in case you haven’t seen it. I just rewrote it completely and it looks exciting, a good mix of Asian and Western speakers, great social events, time to visit the country, and a (rare) occasion for me to speak at my own conference as the event’s theme needs a bit of explanation! Original page is here. Register at only 250/650$ until the end of the week.

The program of Lift Asia 08 is built around one main theme: beyond the browser. We will discuss the upcoming changes that the internet, now moving past the browser and into objects, cities or robots, will soon generate in our society.

Thursday Sept. 4

[13:00 Doors opening and coffee]

14:00 Welcome Speech by Laurent Haug (Lift) and Seo Young Roh (Nabi Art Center).

14:15 Session: Beyond the web we know
What can we expect from the web in the near future, what comes after web2.0?
Laurent Haug will explain the vision behind the main theme of the conference, and what a mature web means for our society.
Then Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen Design (USA) will share his perspectives about how the web becomes a “richer” media through the use of information visualizations.

[15:30 Break and Lift experience]
The breaks will be dedicated to networking and inspiration, with comfortable sofas and warm coffee dispatched among the various art installations created by the Nabi Art Center. Meet other lifters, take a break, write your ideas and get ready for the next session!

16:30 Session: Virtual money
Recent changes in the digitization of money are less perceptible than more glamorous technologies, but they are of considerable importance. This session will explore the upcoming cashless economy with international expert David Birch (Consult Hyperion, UK) and American science fiction writer Bruce Sterling (initiator of the cyberpunk movement, writer on Wired).

[17:30 Break and Lift experience]

18:00 Sustainable Development Evening
The traditional session on our planet’s biggest challenge, organized in partnership with WattWatt, will welcome American gadget guru Dan Dubno (Gizmorama, USA) and Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis who will explain how one can travel the world in energetic independence.

[19:30 Cocktail and Dinner]
Lifters are invited to share a cocktail and dinner at the magnificent Hyatt hotel, on the terrace overseeing the ocean. Enjoy international wines & dishes and take the chance to meet participants from all over the globe.

Friday Sept. 5

09:00 Session: Aiming for a better society
How can technologies help us shape a more inclusive and sustainable society, as well as take advantage of the world’s diversity? Wonsun Park (The Hope Institute, Korea) and Raphael Grignani (Nokia Design, USA) will address this question alongside a final speaker to be announced soon.

[10:30 Break and Lift experience]

11:30 Session: Networked city
The new digital layers provided by ICTs on contemporary cities have now become reality. What does that mean for its inhabitants? What changes can we expect? How will ubiquitous computing influence the way we live? « Everyware » author Adam Greenfield (Nokia Design, Finland), as well as architects Jeffrey Huang (EPFL, Switzerland) and Yang Soo Yin (The Living, Korea) who will provide their vision on this not so distant future.

[13:15 Lunch]

In the purest Lift tradition, Swiss Chef Roland Hini will prepare a Swiss meal where dishes imported directly from the Alps will be served. Expect to discover new tastes like Gruyère and Roesti!

14:30 Open Afternoon
Present your company, moderate a workshop, introduce your ideas to the world. The floor is yours, make your propositions!

16:30 Session: The future of social worlds
Social networks and Massive Multi-Player games are now merging in a new category of digital entertainment platforms with new business models, reaching consumers via different screens. What does the usage of such platforms tell us about new forms of socialization? Where is gaming heading? What are the new opportunities?
Joonmo Kwon (Nexon, Korea) will share his profound experience in this field, and present the vision he has for his 300 millions customers strong company. Then Jury Hahn (Megaphone, USA) will talk about the latest and most innovative forms of social mobile entertainment, using cell phones as the main platforms.

[17:30 Break and Lift experience]

18:00 Session: Techno-nomadic life
The wireless and mobile technologies have freed us from the tyranny of “place”, but what are the new constraints? What is the new behavior? Is the mobile web going through the same process as the Web of the 90s?
Star design researcher Jan Chipchase (Nokia, Japan) will present some insights nomadic work/life practices enabled by mobile technologies, while i-mode father Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University, Japan) and Christian Lindholm (Fjord, UK) will talk about the future of mobile services.

[19:00 Cocktail and karoake]
The day will end in style at a karaoke party where Westerners will try to challenge the unequivocal Asian domination on this soon-to-be-Olympic discipline.

Saturday Sept. 6

10:00 Session: From robots to networked objects
Current robots are going beyond the traditional anthropomorphism and start to communicate. What can we expect? What’s hot in that domain that we will soon see all around us?
Japanese inventor Tomoaki Kasuga (Speecys, Japan) will show his latest robotic creation, while researcher Frédéric Kaplan (EPFL, Switzerland), known for his work with the Sony Aibo, will talk about the future of robots as part of our daily life. Legendary French entrepreneur Bruno Bonnell, founder of Infogrames and former CEO of Atari, will close the session by presenting the differences between the Asian and Western perception of robotics.

11:50 Conference wrap-up
Various speakers and members of the audience will be on stage to provide their vision on the conference, the ideas and insights they will take home, and their wishes for the next editions of Lift.

[12:30 End of conference]
See you at Lift09 in Geneva!

[13:30 Social Activities and visits]
In partnership with Jungtour, we will encourage Lifters to head for a visit of one of the many attractions in Jeju like the Stone park, some of the world’s most beautiful golf courses, and the teddy bear museum!

I finally took a bit of time off in Seoul, a day spend with Moka and Alexandre trying some of the things one has to try in this city. We started with a trip to Dr. Fish, a weird bathtub-like hole in the ground crowded with little fishes (Garra rufa and Cyprinion macrostomus) eating anything that looks like human skin. It is one of the weirdest sensation I have experienced, and even if the treatment aspect is not that obvious this was worth the try.

Then a fabulously clear day made us go to Seoul Tower where the clean air allowed us to see miles away:

Tomorrow work resumes and I will start the day with Swiss chef Roland Hinni to discuss the logistics of organizing a Helvetic lunch at Lift Asia. Aside from being a chef and university professor, Roland also has a TV show on Korean Television and I look forward to hear from him what we will be able to serve our guests. We received a grant from Présence Suisse, the organization promoting Switzerland across the world, and therefore are able to bring Gruyère and Salami to Korea!

Then Tuesday will be a key day. Our partner Daum is launching a major promotion campaign, and we expect the ticket rush to start. Koreans register for events extremely late. It is a cultural habit due to the fact that in this country things can change radically from one week to another, so fixing your schedule too much in advance can be a bad idea. We will see. First year registration patterns are always weird.

And for those of you still hesitating about coming to Korea: as last month’s Wired taught us plane tickets tend to be cheaper between eight and two weeks before departure! So if you haven’t booked your flight for Seoul you can still do it at a very low price, Finnair still having seats from Geneva at 1286CHF. I start to know this city quite well and promise personal advices to all the westerners who will dare coming to Lift Asia!

I am back in Seoul for the final preparation of Lift Asia. Things are going very well, with cool partners and participants signing up. In Korea long term is one month, so the registration boom is still ahead of us and should come next week with an intense promotion campaign on the various Daum websites. As I get to know more and more people here, Seoulites take me to amazing places, the latest being Koraebul, a mythical sashimi place serving whale and live shrimps. See for yourself, this country has pretty amazing dishes to offer. The shrimps are less spectacular than live octopus, but slightly better.

As I am a fan of Thalassa, the french TV show that profiled Koraebul’s boss, we got to try ten years old oysters, and it was another fabulous dish that you can not find anywhere else. This kind of experiences abound here in Seoul, and I am looking forward to share a few addresses with all the foreigners who will join us at Lift in the early days of September.

PS: and if you speak Korean we now have a translated version of the Lift website!