Amsterdam seems to be the ideal place for a conference at a human size. That’s really what hits me the most during this three days at TNW Conference: Everything was done to make the attendees, speakers and organizers meet, talk, interact and inspire each other.
Sometimes, you just have the feeling the stage could be the main in this kind of context. Of course, getting great insights and keynotes resonating like the one of Mark Randall is the key to make you feel overwhelmed when you finally go back to home, full of new ideas and energy to make your product, service even better.
And give you great validation of your vision: you can imagine the emotion for Guillaume and I when we listened Steve Burel explaining why experts have to find their digital embassies to interact and engage on the next web, to not make your content a “wet snow”.
You definitely come to conference for that. And if you have great news coming next week on your service, like for Scoop.it, it makes the event even better…
But a great conference for me is the one that allows me between the “official scene” to have amazing spontaneous meetings, like only life can do, helped by a context gathering people all ready to explore and focus on what could be the next web, or how to change the world !
I love after three days like this think about how life, professional, or personal one, is only about people you meet. I had the chance to share thoughts, just for the pleasure to think the world or why not, at the corner of a question, find an answer, change your point of view or get a new idea to explore. Dave Winer was someone I was really excited to see on stage, as he not only defined, but created many of the tools the world use right now to make sense of the web. But I definitely loved even more the human exchange we had the next day. Meeting this kind of innovators never let you indifferent. You bring something back, something you can really explain, just a supplement of thought, or soul, which is not far to be the same for me. I always have the impression my brain, is bigger when I talk with people far from my comfort zone: persons from different countries, different backgrounds or having different projects. Rudy De Waele did an amazing talk on how mobile technologies could change Africa’s fate. Talking with him afterwards made me realize even more the value of developing our “sense of the world”, trying to build generation that know they could do something for themselves, but as digital natives, could definitely build technologies that improve existence not only of your friends, but citizens far from you geographically, that need it, not only want it.
I love conferences also for that. The localization should disappear and become a detail as I explained to Rudy with a smile I want to be a COW, citizen of the world, even more everyday. That’s the biggest chance I had in my life.
TNW conference allowed me to do so, as you talk, laugh with people from all over the world, even if the last day, we all felt..a little bit English. TNW has a committed international team but never forget its roots, which is great. They build an authentic conference, with a human face and positive energy. Hermione Way, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive represented this organization with panache.
Conference beyond the network are also for me a means to stay curious, and never forgetting that all the real change makers were constant learners.
The Scoop.it team does not have any other ambition : make curation not a buzzword, but a change maker to interact and create knowledge on the web.
Attending TNW made us believe even more we were in the right direction; with you.
Axelle Tessandier
for the recap, my Scoop.it page, of course
Photo credit: Julia de Boar for TheNextWeb.com
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