Upcoming events (Oct-Nov 2011)

Upcoming events I will attend/speak at:

Wired Conference (Oct 13-14)
Looking forward to attend the first edition (firsts are always special) of the Wired UK conference, curated by the great Monique Van Dusseldorp.

Swiss ICT Awards (Oct 18)
I will attend Switzerland’s largest ICT prize in Luzern, hoping to maybe bring a trophy back home :)

HEG Genève (Nov. 3)
I will teach a 3 hours course on managing innovation at the HEG Genève. This is part of the (many) teaching assignments the Lift team took for 2011/2012.

Forum économique de Glion (Nov. 11)
I will attending the forum for the first time, participating on a panel about entrepreneurship.

Solvaxis Userday 2011 (Nov. 24)
I will keynote at the Userday, presenting the latest technological developments and trends. Join me at the Stade de Suisse in Bern on November 24.

If you would like me to speak at your event, please contact me.
 

Speaking at Interfacing Innovation

I will speak in Brussels on April 21-22 at Interfacing Innovation, a conference co-organized by the European Journalism Center and the European Commission to explore the history of innovation, links between education, entrepreneurship and innovation, and the social impact of technological innovation. The speakers lineup looks intriguing, many journalists of course, but also some architects, graphic designers, researchers, entrepreneurs, etc.

Check the conference program, and if you would like to attend contact the organizers.

Video of my “next 10 years of the digital revolution” talk

Thierry Weber filmed my recent speech at the EPFL, a short talk I had a lot of fun to prepare and give. Check it out, it’s in French but the Apple video is really funny!

^{Sorry for not embedding the video directly, but our WordPress MU doesn’t tolerate embeds for some reason…}

L’age du peer

Rezonance met enfin a disposition les vidéos des first tuesdays (merci Florent!). Si vous n’y étiez pas, la présentation d’Alban Martin sur l’économie du gratuit était passionnante, et c’est suffisamment rare pour le signaler, fourmillait d’exemples concrets de réussites via les nouveaux business modèles du web.

La table ronde qui a suivi – et a laquelle Geneviève Morand et Florent Bondoux ont eu la gentillesse de m’inviter – était elle aussi très intéressante et m’a permis de rencontrer l’inénarrable Richard Collin (vidéo ici).

A nice day in Zurich

I was in Zurich today to share my thoughts on the state of the web with thirty consultants of McKinsey. Every time I present, the first words of Scoble’s presentation at LIFT06 always come to my mind: “there is always much more intelligence in the room than on stage”. So I was a bit stressed as you can guess, thinking that what Robert was talking about is probably truer than ever when the room is filled with professionals of the world’s most prestigious management consulting firm.

I tried to come up with an overview of the moment’s important trends, trying to pass one key message: the web is out of it’s silo, it’s time to take it out of the IT department and embed it in your organization, because it is probably affecting almost every aspect of your business.

I posted my slides on SlideShare, mostly to test drive this service Alex has been telling me about.

I then met with Patrick Hofer of Tweakfest. He is preparing one heck of a show in Zurich (Steve Wosniak is coming to Switzerland!), and it felt great to sit down with the only other guy in this country who was unconscious enough to start a tech conference. We decided to explore ways to collaborate, so expect some news on this side soon.

AdTech à Paris les 6 et 7 Mars 2007

Je parlerai sur le thème “Web 2.0 : bulle ou développement durable ?” le 7 mars 2007 à Paris, dans le cadre de la conférence AdTech.

Cette événement va réunir pas mal de grands noms, et il semble qu’en tant que speaker j’ai 5 invitations gratuites donc faites moi savoir si vous souhaitez venir, je pourrai peut-être faire quelque-chose pour vous qui sait ;-)

Interviewed

I had an informal chat with Bernard Rappaz from the Swiss public television (TSR) about LIFT. I tried to explain how I think this country has all it needs to succeed in the upcoming economy, where ideas and people are the difference makers. If you speak french, the cameras were rolling and you can watch the video here.

The TSR has a really cool comment system, where you can post video follow-ups directly on the website if you have a camera. See it in action here (at the bottom of the page)

Vers un nouveau crash internet?

J’ai participé jeudi soir dernier au débat organisé par la Télévision Suisse Romande dans le cadre de l’excellente émission Nouvo, laboratoire de la vénérable chaîne publique Suisse pour tout ce qui touche aux nouvelles technologies.

Quatre acteurs d’internet ont débattu le 2 novembre � Genève sur le thème: le web 2.0, une vraie révolution ou une nouvelle bulle spéculative?Voir la vidéo

Mes premiers pas � la télévision, média peut-être en perte de vitesse mais toujours aussi impressionnant de ce côté-l� de la caméra.

My SHiFT talk: the lessons of cocomment.com

I just finished my talk at SHiFT, I was quite nervous by the fact Euan was talking at the same time than me but people showed up to listen to the lessons learned on the cocomment project.

I am pasting my notes below and you can get the slides (with comments) by clicking here.

What I learned with coComment.com
A few lessons from a wild ride.BEFORE YOU LAUNCH

• MERITOCRACY
We now live in a meritocracy. Money, VCs, and the press no longer decide what will be successful. Great products/services with intuitive designs that solve a real problem win.
You might make it big. It’s possible!

• PRIVATE ALPHA � PUBLIC BETA
Don’t turn private alpha in public beta. Bloggers need the scoop. help them build trafic, but when the time is right for you.

• PREPARE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Use wikis for everything, prepare for peoples contributions. Either they’ll do it on their site (nobody’s interest) or on your, where the community will benefit. Prepare to channel all the energy

AFTER YOU LAUNCH: DISCUSS

• BLOG, BLOG, BLOG
blog, blog, blog, tell your story. you can’t control the conversation so improve it, humanize your company, show who you are.

• FEAR THE HYPE
keep the hype down, don’t use codes or closed system because people who haven’t tested will talk about you anyway, very often over hyping and creating huge expectations.

• FLATTEN YOUR FEEDBACK
don’t over-react, look at big picture. keep track of everything in a wiki, then look at the big picture on a weekly basis. Don’t act on the last thing you read.

• IGNORE RELIGIONS
don’t get into religious fights. some people will never like you

• RELATIVIZE
aggression will always look worse than it is. don’t take it personal. Feel like you’re a trophy and there are wose position

• BE PATIENT
be patient, let passionate users do the talking for you, don’t panic. Always wait one day before answering an attack

• GIVE BACK
people give your their attention, give them back your. Link, promote, buy tshirts, etc..

• BITE THE BULLET
Take the blame when you f**** up.

• BE ACCESSIBLE
be accessible. don’t separate the company from the users, everybody should participate in the conversation. Every member of the team should have an email address available on the website.

• CARE ABOUT THE SILENT MAJORITY
care about the silent majority. check your mails, check your stats (google analytics on site stats), understand all users, not just bloggers

AFTER YOU LAUNCH: GROW

• BE FAST
Move fast, really fast. Our competitor registered his domain name 4 hours after Scoble blogged us.

• COCOON CORE USERS
Capitalize on core users. WordPress: 100 core users, thousands of regular user. Outsource specialized documentation, prioritization, translations, widgets

• CONNECT WITH COMPETITORS
Meet your competitors, connect to them. they have the same problem than you, are probably much more transparent than you think. it will give you ideas.

• LOVE GOOGLE
Don’t fear google. If they step in your market it’s a sign you are, well, in a real market. And that might get you a call from Microsoft and Yahoo.

• THINK OUTSIDE THE (TOOL)BOX
Don’t focus only on user requests. Users help you think inside the toolbox, your job is to grow the toolbox.

• WEB2.0
Don’t care about the web 2.0 standards. Do things if they make sense, not because they are a web 2.0 standard (if such a thing ever existed…)

• TAKE RISKS
It’s not because every move you make it commented and analyzed you should stop taking risks. Risks are what took you there, keep on taking some. The web allows to come back very easily.

AFTER THE LAUNCH: MAKE MONEY

• FLEX YOUR ADS
Put the ads day one, even if you’re ok with losing money. they are part of the design, that’s it. ads are also the only safe metric when it comes to page views

• GET YOUR ASS KICKED
Meet the VCs, any VC. they’ll help you define your business model and challenge you

• INVENT METRICS
Create metrics: technorati, delicious, # users, g-metrics.com, you will need metrics.

ADVISES FOR INTRAPRENEURS

• FORMALIZE POST-LAUNCH
Prepare what happens next before it happens.

• PREPARE FOR POLITICS
Everybody loves you now, you’re not alone anymore!

• FOCUS
Don’t eat the cheese

That’s it. My talk is behind me so I can now relax and enjoy the great program Pedro and his team have put together. Seems like these guys won their bet, SHiFT is a success so far!

Speaking in September

I will be speaking at two events in the coming weeks, first on a panel about Web 2.0 in Lausanne at the IMD alumni club (more info here, click on Guest to pass the ridiculous first screen), then in Lisbon at SHiFT, a conference I already told you about earlier this year, where I will share some of the lessons learned on the coComment project. I intend to talk about working with European surroundings and perspectives in the fast moving, no rule is the rule, expect everything web 2.0 environment.

Let’s have a coffee if you are attending any of these.