I am in Vienna attending a Lift@home event organized by a local team of entrepreneurs and academics. Second talk of the day is Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives founder Michel Bauwens. John Thakara pointed in advance to this talk, he was right. Michel put some words on things “you don’t need a PHD to notice” but that, brought together in such a comprehensive way, connect into something powerful: a name for this movement most early adopters are feeling without being able to explain it further.

2 fundamentally wrong assumptions in our society:

- We think earth resources are infinite. But an infinite thinking within a finite system is wrong.
- We think we have to make cooperation difficult to make collaboration happen.

There is now a conscience that these assumptions need to change, and collaboration and openness are a key answer. Steps to make this happen:

1. identifying key aspects of openess (participation, transparency, “shareability”, access)

2. finding enablers of openness (a common language, assets, etc): definitions, code, licences, standards

3. infrastructures of openness: open meeting spaces, open territories (Regiowiki), open hardware (Arduino), open objects (eCars - Now), etc.

4. Practices of openness: open software (Linux), open designs (Honeybee Network), open knowledge

5. Domains of openness: education, science, business, government, spirituality (interesting to imaginea user generated religion…)

6. Products of openness: Open course ware, open books, open journals

7. Open movements: OpenMaterials, OpenCoalition

8. Open consciousness…

You can see Michel’s talk as a mind map here.

We are getting better each year at bringing startups to Lift. In 2010 we are creating an integrated offer, with tickets + space to demo products and services to the audience + a chance to hit the big stage alongside Neil Rimer of Index Ventures fame, all this for 1′250chf.

I hope those of you who have startups in the region will enjoy this offer. For international entrepreneurs, get in touch with the team we will try to find a solution to give you some advantages too.

Lift@home is one of the most incredible journey we have engaged in, an almost total loss of control where we encourage our community to organize events in their own living room around an as simple as possible set of guidelines. A timeless idea (examples that come to mind are scouting, tupperware, Barcamp or TEDx) and good people resulted in fifteen events organized around the world, in cities like London, Seoul, San Francisco, Barcelona, Lausanne, Geneva, Toronto and more.

The Christmas break is coming, and the agenda gets clearer as several events are in the works (Berlin, Maastricht, New York) but not yet announced. I have already said it on the Lift blog, but I also want to encourage the readers of this column to propose events. We want to see your crazy ideas in action, the formats you wish we would use at our big conferences. We want to hear the people that inspire you, those entrepreneurs, researchers and creators only you know. We want our people to get together to brainstorm and share between the Geneva, Marseille and Korean conference.

Lift@home makes it easy to run an event: you get a website to publish your programme and manage registrations, a poster you can customize and print, easy mailing to your participants, and the attention of a growing community of pioneers.

Take your chance, in five minutes you can know the thrill of running your very own conference, and gather the brightest minds around you!

I look forward to welcome you at Lift10 next May, our largest ever conference promises to be amazing :)

Lift10 will welcome 1000 participants from 40 countries to explore the most overlooked aspect of innovation: people. Known in the techno-parlance as users, consumers, clients, participants, prosumers, citizens or activists, people ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects. They adopt or refute, promote or demote; embrace, reject, or re-purpose. Their approaches are unique, influenced by cultural and generational diversity. A decade after the rebirth of user-centered design and innovation, it’s time to explore the myths and uncover the reality behind the “connected people”.

The conference will host sessions on:

Generations and technologies
How to go beyond the usual clichés on generations, with Seniors unable to use technology and Millenials ruining their future careers on Social Network? How to take a generation’s specific needs into account? Who are really the “digital natives”, and the “grey generation”?

The redefinition of Privacy
What is privacy in the 21st Century? Is personal security threatened by the massive collection of personal data by CCTV, GPS, mobile phones and web browsers? What is the situation in 2010? What are the implications?

Communities
Since 2006 Web 2.0 has celebrated the so-called “amateur revolution”. Did this revolution really happen? What did we learn in the past 5 years? Are we reaching the limits of web 2.0? How to create value for all parties involved?

Politics
Beyond the much talked-about political campaigns on Facebook, how to turn users into engaged citizens in public action? What are the opportunities and challenges of this evolution of politics?

The old new media
Newspapers are struggling, TV is not sure of what the future holds. What is at stake nowadays when informing, reaching and involving people? Did the so-called “old media” evolve? What will the media landscape look like in ten years?

Stories
Lift traditionally closes on a session dedicated to inspiring projects and perspectives. The speakers provide a unique point of view sure to make participants react and come up with new ideas of their own.

This year, the format will also evolve a lot, with the most notable changes being a totally new way for the audience and speakers to interact (more on this soon), and a new agenda based on the previous years feedback. Workshops will be spread more wisely, sessions will be more interactive, you will be able to travel on Wednesday morning and leave on Friday early afternoon, and much more. Check the full program here, and the first ten speakers!

We look forward to welcome you in Geneva :) Do not forget to register early, it helps us and you pay the cheaper early bird price!

This is one of the projects that kept us busy all summer, after several requests from all over the world asked us to organize local, smaller scale events: Lift at home is our answer, an exchange of value between the conference (offering attention, support and online tools) and members of our community (who keep the conference alive all year by running small events).

When the idea came up, we thought “wow, this is really innovative and smart”. But quickly we found out that we had not invented anything: Tupperware has been doing for years. And since 1907 a famous movement has functionned in a similar way, groups of people getting together following guidelines expressed in a book. It is of course Scouting. Scouting spread all around the world based on Baden Powell’s book. So if you thought Barcamp and Pecha Kucha’s concept of decentralized events was new, unfortunately it is not really. Welcome to the frustration of living in the 21st century, almost everything has already been done :)

The differences Lift at home bring are still many, first and foremost our community: a group of diverse and exciting people from different cultural and social backgrounds who can transform any event in a great moment. Then there is a bottom up approach I believe separates us from the rest. We don’t impose much. Just no commercial content, no charge at the door. The format, length, theme, location, date, all the rest is up to you, and we do it because we believe that great things will happen. Great things that will then inspire our “big” events, and allow us to continue organizing one of the world’s most innovative conference three times a year in Switzerland, France and Korea.

Over my brief career as a manager, I have noticed two reactions to freedom. Some people see it as a paralyzing factor. Not having enough rules can make one feel like he’s risking too much. On the other side, many use freedom to have to push the envelope and invent the future. I bet the latter will happen. Time to run your Lift!

Lift Asia 09 will start tonight with the speakers diner, then the talks will kick off tomorrow morning at 10am (3am Swiss time). The team is busy with last minute logistics, printing badges, preparing the rooms, making sure the setup goes smoothly. Nicolas, Benjamin Joffe and I are giving talks at Daum, one of the conference partner for whom we organized a private event for the staff that can not attend Lift can still get access to some of the ideas and inspirations.

^{I heard the weather is quite cold in Europe, so I wanted to share a picture of the setting where Lift Asia 09 happens. Sorry :D}

This is the third year we organize the conference in Korea after Lift Asia 07 and Lift Asia 08, but only the second Jeju event with 400+ attendees. Lift is getting more and more understood and recognized, something that is not obvious as it is radically different from traditional Asian conferences. There is a clear jump in the quality of people attending. Several high level CEOs will be in the room, in this country it is a key indicator on how much credibility you have.

The program has been rocked by the last minute addition of the guys who helped take Korea from an industrial country to an internet powerhouse. The co-founder of Cyworld, the CEO of Neowiz (the country’s third largest internet company), the founder of Daum (first or second largest internet company depending on how you look ;), these guys are rarely on stage, and having them together for a fireside chat will make this even more special. They join speakers from all over the world, and a few rock stars like our friend Ida Daussy, one of the country’s most famous TV personality who will open with a pep talk about Korean and Western culture, and how they mix up during a conference like Lift.

The conference ends on Friday evening, see you on Saturday when normallife will resume. Rock on!

Yes, it’s a serious project, and Hojun Song will show it at Lift Asia 09.

After making the trip for the 15th time, I made a small video to show you what it’s like to fly to Seoul, and arrive in a completely different world.

Cross posted from the Lift blog, hoping to reach all the Swiss entrepreneurs who read my blog. The venture trip is a great initiative enabled by Alpict and allowing Swiss start-ups to reach the Korean market in ideal conditions. We do the legwork and open the right doors, the entrepreneur gets new clients and contacts.

Last year we organized a venture trip to Asia, helping Swiss start-ups (Poken, Arimaz, KeyLemon, Secu4, Lighthouse, Pixelux) develop and promote themselves on the Korean Market.

The venture trip resulted in more than half the start-ups developing strong ties with the country of the morning calm, some finding new clients, others new suppliers (especially if you work in electronics or robotics). All entrepreneurs gathered unique experience on how to do business in Asia, and met key actors of one of the world’s most interesting, homogeneous and innovative market on earth. Did you know Korea is beating exportation records right now, and that many think that the crisis is already over there?

So if you like the opportunity to meet potential clients, suppliers, partners, or investors, have us arrange the meetings and translators for you, and an opportunity to showcase your product and services at Lift Asia, submit your application. The deadline has been extended to accommodate the July vacationers :)

Look at the call for project and send us your application!

Are we one step closer to abandoning this planet to robots? Maybe. But don’t worry, that thing can “determine whether material that it ingested was animal, vegetable or mineral. […] There are certain signatures form different kinds of materials that would distinguish vegetative biomass from other material.”

The question is: before or after it catches a piece of food?

‘Flesh-eating robot’ is actually a vegetarian, say inventors

The machine’s inventors say that the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot – known as Eatr for short – does indeed power its “biomass engine” by digesting organic material, but that it is not intended to chomp its way through battlefields of fallen soldiers. […]

“We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”

Link (thanks Steve)

Reminds me of James Auger’s fly eating robots he showed at Lift09.