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).

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.

Je parlerai sur le thème “Web 2.0 : bulle ou développement durable ?” le 7 mars 2007 � 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 ;-)

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)

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.

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!

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.

Update: I added a few more points to the end of the post. This list might grow as the discussion around this theme continues. Thanks for the comments!

I am speaking tonight on a panel with Pascal Rossini and Thierry Crouzet about the connectors, the generation that “silently, without demonstrating or asserting, is changing all the established codes”. An important and impassioning subject as it is a real revolution we are witnessing at the moment. And it is not only happening at LIFT or reboot, but in our daily life.

I wrote down a few ideas to clear up my mind before the talk, here they are:

Connectors brought some new rules:
• there aren’t six degrees of separation like before, but only one. All connectors are accessible via Google and email.
• the connector’s world is flat, old hierarchies are dead.
• the connector’s world is a meritocracy, everybody can stand out with creativity or work.
• english is everybody’s language, an interface between people around the globe
• relations are now bidirectional, unilateral communication – ignoring the other part’s feelings – is dead.
• machines (computers, mobile phones) are the number one socialization tool, and these offer some interesting and new possibilities (familiar strangers, meetic, urban seeder )

What are the consequences of this shift?
• Internet is the new silicon valley.
• meritocracy is a reality for enterprises, creators, artists, etc… Take coComment that goes in seven days from a Swiss chalet to Wired.
• network is the new job security (as hugh told me over lunch last week, great quote)
• our identities are more and more forged by our relations rather than by what we are
• a global culture is emerging, we have never had that much in common (google is the obvious example). At the same time, nationalism is re-emerging again a little bit everywhere…
• rules will completely change in the coming years, the third wave is here. This will notably impact our businesses that will have to rethink marketing, recruiting, work-life balance, work organization, management, etc…

Why is the revolution happening now?
• internet of course, it created an almost universal link between all of us.
• the education and information level has never been that high, and citizens increasingly want to have their say and become consumactors.

This sounds too good to be true, what’s wrong?
• the entry barrier to the world of connectors is relatively high. One billion people use the web out of six billions human beings. That’s a long way to go, and a decent education is still not a given in most countries.
• Nicolas Nova was telling me he was skeptical this model could self organize and scale. I tend to agree with him and think connectors are more an emerging elite rather than a phenomena coming to every single person on this planet.
• we tend to have more relations with people through computers. We communicate more with those that are away than with those in our immediate vicinity. Sociality is getting less and less human, and we’re losing a lot of richness and diversity in the process.

A few more points:
• Network is stronger than geographical positions.
• Confidence (and relationships) is this world’s most valuable intangible asset.
• The intention economy is here.
• Innovation will come from everywhere, especially from the bottom. Hierarchies are dangerous.
• ideas are snowballs. A leader is a person whose ideas will be picked up and relayed by others. You can’t lead by imposing ideas anymore.
• I fear for my privacy. Privacy and identity will be a major challenge for the connected world.
• The fact my life is archived – whether I like it or not – freaks me out.