Just under three weeks to go until Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris – and the event is certainly shaping up into what will likely be the most significant meeting of its type in Europe in 2005. There are some impressive speakers and participants who will be there. If you’re interested in being part of discussions […]
Category: Europe
Winter weather arrives
Sitting in my hotel room in Strasbourg, France, late evening, catching up with email (always a constant task!), I look out of the window to a world of white. Yes, it’s snowing here. I arrived in Strasbourg late this afternoon after a pretty pleasant drive down from Amsterdam. About 700 kilometers and four countries in […]
Snowed under – a literal tale
“Winter weather arrives,” said the headline of my late-evening post on Thursday. The light covering of snow in Strasbourg didn’t really match the optimistic headline, but my journey back to Amsterdam last night certainly did. After a relatively uneventful journey up the A61/E42 autobahn in Germany, the first heavy snow started falling about 20 kilometers […]
Who cares about Windows XP N?
CNET News: A major U.K. retail store and three of the largest PC vendors worldwide still have no plans to sell the version of Microsoft Windows that does not contain its media player, five months after the version was released. Microsoft started offering Windows XP N, a version of Windows without a bundled media player, […]
IABC Europe conference kicks off
Arrived in Paris late last night, ready to participate in the IABC Eurocomm conference which formally kicks off today and runs through tomorrow. I’m moderating the opening session discussion panel on the giant global focus group. No prizes for guessing what this is about at a conference full of communicators! So, my fellow conversationalists – […]
Les Blogs 2.0 kicks off today
The Les Blogs 2.0 conference in Paris formally starts today and runs until Tuesday evening. The event is completely sold out. Lots already been going on over the weekend, judging from the rapidly-growing Technorati tag list. What’s the event about? Absorb this, from Loic’s opening remarks: […] We believe there is a revolution going-on. We […]
Reflecting on Les Blogs 2.0
Worthwhile being there is how I’d sum up my experience of Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. I didn’t get there for day 1, arriving only in the evening (and so made it to the blogger bash), but I did spend day 2 listening, learning and conversing. Meeting new people, and re-meeting […]
The Quaero oxymoron
If you’ve been following the story of the Franco-German Quaero project – a planned European multimedia search engine, the answer to Google and brainchild of the French government – you’ll know that European politics have contributed to the mire it’s been in for some months. The Quaero website used to be online and provided useful […]
Eclectic Copenhagen
What do you get when a group of opinionated communicators with blogs get together? A real mashup of opinion, commentary and very lively conversation, that’s what. So it was on Saturday in Copenhagen when I was fortunate to meet with The Copenhagen Bloggers, the cream of the Danish blogosphere who you see in this photo. […]
The road to transparency at Davos
The 2006 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum begins today in Davos, Switzerland. The organizers say there will be 2,340 participants from 89 countries including 15 heads of state or government, 13 union leaders and over 30 heads of non-governmental organizations. This year, 735 participants are at the CEO or Chairman level. What makes […]
Choice podcasts from Davos
I’ve spent a little time today listening to a few of the audio recordings from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Interesting listening, many of them, even though they are recordings of speeches and sessions which you can read about in mainstream media reporting. The really interesting ones, though, are the informal and […]
Pricey freedom of the press
BBC News: Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla Foods says the ongoing boycott of Danish products in the Middle East had so far cost it between £40m and £50m. As the Muslim world refuses to buy Danish goods in protest over cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, Arla is losing £1m a day. Arla has also had […]
Never mind the Superbowl, what about the 6 Nations Rugby!
What a tremendous weekend for contact sport! While every American I know was glued to the TV (or plugged in to the net) yesterday for the Superbowl – in case you didn’t know, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 – there was some fantsatic rugby going on in Europe throughout the weekend. Three […]
If I were an architect
If I were an architect, I wonder what my critical eye might make of the design of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, through which I travelled yesterday. It’s one of the ugliest airports I’ve ever been to, a sprawling mass of bare concrete that evokes an absolute air of coldness. As you ride the […]