Month: November 2007

Did you read my list 10 rules – How to attend an O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo conference which I posted earlier today?

Well, No. 10 went like this:

10. Think positive! It really makes all the difference! Sometimes you stumble into an inspiring session by accident.

Guess what? This just happened. The very last keynote of this Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin was a blast:

Don Tapscott on Wikinomics

For me, it was simply the best session on the entire Expo.

• It was bleeding-edge
• It was thought-provoking way beyond “hey, let’s have a tag cloud and user profile pages”
• There were lessions learned: You actually took something home
• It was sharply focussed
• and last but not least: very well delivered and entertainingly presented

Thank you Don for this session and the organisers for selecting him as a speaker. This was definately my personal highlight of this conference and made all the week in Berlin worthwile. Let’s just hope the organisers of Web 2.0 Expo learn from the feedback they encouraged all the time, the quality is out there.

1. Think positive!
2. Don’t go to the sessions on topics that you are interested in. I know, it’s tempting, because you want to learn, but trust me, don’t.
3. If you did go there anyway, do not ask the speaker an interesting question. He/She does not know the answer anyway, or otherwise it would have been included in the talk.
4. Don’t expect something other than lightweight talk, which is outdated roughly two years. No or maybe low expectations increase the subjective value of the conference.
5. Accept cultural differences. Wanting a balanced view is sooo European. Instead think about what you can learn from seeing only chances and opportunities.
6. If you go to a session that you have absolutely no clue on => number four is not a problem and you will get new ideas.
7. Socialize! Most people don’t know about the quality of those speakers, because O’Reilly has a good name. Capitalize on that! It means, that lots of interesting people will attend. So you have great guys (and even girls) to meet.
8. If you want dialog on things in sessions, check if there is a Barcamp the weekend before. The open-minded speakers of the Conference will already be in town and hold a session there for free.
9. Bring your own food, coffeine (and probably chair and table).
10. Think positive! It really makes all the difference! Sometimes you stumble into an inspiring session by accident.

Just a short reminder to those who have not yet tried out the Showcase of Microsoft Photosynth: Now is a good time to check 🙂

The presentation at the Keynote area looked amazing and promising a whole new way of navigation through the uncountable mass of photos nowadays.

This is a snapshot of what was voted highest at the writing of this post (wednesday, 1400).

So far, the coffee problem and the slide problem have been solved (thanks), and the rating of sessions is correct, as far as I have attended them. However the sessions that are not listed here, are most likely not listed here for a reason.

• No coffee..help!
  
• Designing for a Web of Data
  
• Make sure that all attendants can get the slides
  
• Keynote : Creating Passionate Users
  
• Scalable Web Architectures: Common Patterns and Approaches
  
• Poor lunch quality
  
• Creating Passionate Users
  
• Short on Cycles, Long on Storage
  
• Trends in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing

Check out the official voting feedback portal for conference attendees.

In the liability for user-generated content a question and answer happened something like this:

Question:

Content Owners have a hard time, when they have exclusively licensed content e.g. to Pay-TV, when it keeps popping up at youtube and other plattforms every other second.

Answer by Andreas Weigend:

Well, business models become obsolete all the time!

Web Design Patterns: