Summary of LeWeb3 2007 suggestions/input from the facebook group

Thank you so much for all your feedback about LeWeb3 in facebook and elsewhere. I would like to announce that Cathy Brooks, who was behind the startup room last year, has now taken an active role preparing LeWeb3 with us this year. Cathy will be in charge of the program as well as helping on the overal conference management, please help me welcome Cathy.

Cathy just wrote a great summary of all your suggestions as well as a few thoughts we had ourselves to prepare the 2007 edition, please keep sending us ideas, we love them all and we love you all.

I have just posted it to the facebook group.

Best, Loic.

LEWEB3 – 2007
Conference and Program Suggestions/Input

Structure, flow and infrastructure

* A few people indicated they might want a longer session or two, but for the most part consensus is to follow the model of short (15 minutes or so), intense, individual presentations.
* Panel discussions do have some support, but only if they are on particularly hot or controversial topic. One idea was to group the individual presentations by theme or topic and then gather the individuals from the sessions in that section for a panel.
* There were several suggestions to creating an overall theme or dividing the overall program into sections each with a theme so that there could be more consistency in the program by keeping points together and allowing for a better flow of “conversation” on topics. What themes do you like? Some ideas we have so far include:
o Global transformation
o Digital society – rebooted
o The Innovation Ecosystem – Evolution or Revolution?
* Also to maintain consistency and flow, suggestions were also made to utilize the Pecha Kucha format.
* One thing on which everyone agrees – shorter sponsor presentations.
* Suggestions to have very cheap or free access for students and the youngest entrepreneurs. Perhaps we can find a benefactor who would put forward a “scholarship” fund for which people can submit applications (video or written)?
* The start-up corner was well received last year, and this year people would like to see more of the videos from that room. There will be considerably more structure around the Start-up Corner planning this year … overview on that coming in the next several days.
* Color coded name badges, by topic that your interested in. When there are break out sessions, you go to a color-coded area of your venue and meet up with other people that are interested in the SAME things as you.

Tools

* A number of people offered great suggestions for tools we can utilize:
* Polling method for Facebook at https://secure.facebook.com/add_poll.php
* There’s an offer from a journalism school to set up a temporary live information website on Web3 event in all its dimensions.
* Suggestion to use a web-based agenda management tool where attendees can "post" their requests and get a chance to meet someone who can help them
* Suggestion for an electronic jobs board to help those at the conference looking for work to connect. Perhaps blending this with the agenda management could be useful.
* Request for a better method for communicating on site other than the back channel. The suggestion was to check out GroupSystems (origin: Univ. of Arizona.) It’s based on OpenLaslzo and “truly internet enabled.”

Content ideas

Types of sessions and speaker selection

As noted above, consensus is to cut out or at least substantially cut back the number of multi-speaker panel sessions. Instead we’ll focus on individual presentations or perhaps tandem discussions (two opposing views on a subject). We also will be considering how to group the individual presentations, ideally into different themes to be set by the topics we evolve.

In terms of the kinds of speakers, there was considerable input that we should open an opportunity for average people who have a topic idea to submit them and have a chance to speak. We are considering different avenues for this and would love your suggestions on ways to orchestrate this. Should we have people submit their ideas by video, we can post those and then have everyone vote in advance?

Topics

* Concrete strategies for using social media tools to grow enterprise collaboration and really harness collective intelligence.
* Green technology - nergy, energy efficiencies and IT’s increasing carbon footprint
* Religious leaders and how they deal with the Internet – thinking about having
* Judaism, Catholicism, Buddihism, Muslim – who would lead Internet religion
* Virtual goods, world & economy - Bootstrapping - building the most effective and cheapest bootstrapping budget
* A round table on "is the VC eco-system moribon in europe, where are the angels and emerging team that make the US environment so vibrant, is it almost impossible to innovate here?
* Non-commercial use of "social computing"...and the neverending topic of a collaborative world!
* The impact semantic web will have on traditional broadcasting and innovative ideas of convergence
* The state of broadband in Europe and the US
* How Web 2.0 has transformed our day/life at work. Preferably hearing from NON-technology company CEOs. Dialogue between geeks and non-geeks
* Communities – what does this really say about our society? We all want to be a part of all of them and none of them…
* How about a panel of VCs vs Angel Investors, with companies that have experienced both…
* How technology is effecting our society for better or worse, especially on a global level…changing habits, what has been the most habit altering technology tool of the past year…collaborative, twitter, fring, etc.
* Life hacking – how do you live a better life?
* What if a content valorization would be actually based tomorrow on how it can help a brand to better address individuals through communities or social web sites, to build image, awareness and stronger relationship? Titles propositions:The future of content production and distribution; Brandmedia;How to develop your content value
* Leverage the super knowledge of the participants to launch a collaborative social initiative sharing all the best practices in the social entrepreneurship
* Game on – an onstage competition of top gamers
* Gambling, sex and drugs – how the Internet has helped build billion dollar industries.

Speakers suggested by this group:

* Don Tapscott
* Andrew McAfee
* An Estonian and Russian Internet guru to fight it out recent cyber war.
* MJ, the head of cambrianhouse.com
* Pierre Levy
* Susan Wu
* Raphael Koster
* Mark Zuckerberg
* Jason Calacanis
* Ted Murphy
* Jyri Engestrom
* Ed Kozel
* Kaiser Kuo
* Terry Semel

Speakers we’d like to have

We are already in touch with quite a few of these, but if anyone has connections to anyone on this list, please email Cathy Brooks (cathy@otherthanthat.com). We may already have contacted them, but more points of contact in this is always good!

* Phillippe Starck (confirmed)
* Esther Dyson (confirmed)
* Joi Ito (confirmed)
* Richard Branson
* Bono
* Charles Simonyi
* Someone from the Fraunhofer Institute

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