Just got back from Le Web 3. Of course, a pan-European pile on happened, with people upset that the second day of the conference was overrun by politicians. While the content could have been structured better, consider the greater context. France's presidential election is this spring, they only happen every five years, and this is the first to be impacted by social media. During the last US presidential election, had one of the candidates speak at one of the usual conferences, we would be ape-shit with glee. Even if he spoke in French.
But perhaps because the politicians were speaking in French, and less to the former audience than the current one through TV cameras, bloggers from other European countries were offended. Upstaging other good content with an already overbooked schedule was a real tradeoff. But again, I stand by my friend Loic's decision to break the mold of the event.
Personally, my panel was the worst moderated experience I've ever had. Frustrating given the amount of travel time to have someone added to the panel during the panel, have someone moderating that didn't know the topic and have it steered to events in general and social marketing. There were good themes to explore in Reid Hoffman's talk, so much to explore with the enterprise topic, and I think we got in some valuable comments regardless. I noticed my panel was an exception.
I'm sure few can complain about the value of the hallway conversations. And for folks coming from afar, Paris is always a wonderful experience. I'm pleased with the Socialtext Unplugged feedback, met some good people and spent some great time with the usual suspects in unusual places.
