LeWeb3

The LeWeb3 was one of the most professionally produced conference I have attended in several ways.
The video projection was the best I have seen and the audio was top notch with very engaging musical intros.
I also liked the schedule with lots of time for networking in the coffe and lunch breaks. The lunch offering was a totally staggering buffet of french gourmet cuisine at it best. A two hour lunch break with hundreds of small dishes makes it easy to relax and network!

Most of the speakers were very inspiring and I liked the mix of key notes and panel discussions. But the conference format was still 1.0, (OK, more like 1.4) it is now time at least for internet conferences to live like they preach and move to 2.0! (See my separate blog about this.)

Some of my notes from LeWeb3:

Hans Rosling
his presentations at TED have made him world famous, don't miss them!
"Storytelling works! There are 10 000 watchers for every clicker"
"Just putting facts on the internet does not work, storytelling does!"

Panel: The Internet's impact on design
This was a somewhat confused panel discussion, as it consisted of very different types of peope that did not know anything about each other.
Rafi Haladjan, the creator of the smart online rabbit Nabaztag (rabbit in Armenian). This rabbit is much more interesting than it looks, since it is a good example of an important trend: EVERYTHING will be internet-connected, not just computers and mobiles. The moderator missed this trend and Rafi should have demoed the rabbit. (I have just ordered one to get the feeling)

Panel: Monetization in the Web 2.0 world
A trio of entrereneurs presented their models, it showed just how difficult it is to come up with ways to earn real revenue.
A successful blogger mentioned that he made $25 last month from Adsense ads on his blog...
Another entrepreneur reported having bought a Facebook ad campaign with 1 million impressions that generated just 3 (three) clicks.
My conclusion: Nobody knows what will be the keys to monetization, but ads as the only revenue model is not working now and probably not in the future either, as the competition for ad dollars increase tremendously.


Panel: making things personal: investing
Morten Lund, Danish entrepreneur and investor
"I believe in revenue and profit" (applause from the audience).
"I don't invest in porn and entrepreneurs that are assholes"
"I go for stupid things that make real money online like nails, eye glasses, socks"

Another investor gave the tip: "Don't invest in companies selling to big companies, since big companies never buy anything! They have like 18 month selling cycles..."

Why Enterprise 2.0... isn't
JP Rangaswami from British Telecom Design was very inspiring:
" I don't worry about Google's policy of letting their employees use 20% of their time for their own projects.
I worry about the other 80%! Why do they still have the punch-clock thinking?
At my office, we focus on the output rather than the input!. What do I care when or where my people are doing their work?"

Evolving entrepreneurship
Martin Varsavsky came on stage with the message that there are indeed investement opportunities also in Europe, and that our 22 languages can be turned into something good. He also mentioned that 17% of Googles total revenue comes from the UK market alone!
His blog is a must fo everyone interested in internet-related entreprenership and international business.

The Future of TV
This is my own favourite topic, excellently moderated by Jeff Pulver, http://pulver.com/ a very energetic and typical American (Hawaii shirt and all)
"TV got the idea of Web 2.0 first and they have corrupted it! Using audience phone-ins and user-generated content such as American Idol..."
Also in the panel was the experienced blogger Robert Scoble, his videoblog at http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/

Other interesting video services that were mentioned:
Asterpix, a new, highly interesting video site reviving the old concept of "Hypervideo", (interactive video). There are clickable areas in the video that lead to notes and links. You can also see annotations in a list and use them to navigate inside a video clip. Very smart!
http://www.blogtv.com/
http://www.kyte.tv/
http://dotsub.com/


Janus Friis (co-founder of Kazaa, Skype and Joost) made one his his rare appearances. Being an unusually shy Dane, he gave an inspiring, laid back and personal tale of the serendipity of his entreprenurship, from Kazaa to Skype to Skype. He and Niclas have disrupted the music industrcy and the telephony industry and they are now re-inventing television, not a bad feat! See also his blog

Also interesting is the fact that they have invented nothing new, they "just" saw that nobody was using the existing technologies to make really simple solutions and then market them. When Skype was launched, it had been possible for years to talk via MSN chat, but Microsoft had not realized that this possibility could be used to replace telephony.
But Joost is a more complex service, since it depends on offering good content and therefore deals with hundreds of programme rights holders around the world. But the biggest obstacle to overcome before Joost is a Skype-like success will probably be to make people more active in their viewing habits. Coach-potatoes are more common today than the stats show, even among the young!

Also, there is a link missing that can enable us to watch Joost on our big-screen TV in company of our friends and relatives. I see two ways for this:
1. come up with a simple Joost set-top box that connects to the TV (or have Apple integrate Joost in a smarter Apple TV model)
2. Integrate Joost into the digital cable TV offering from the triple-play operators.


The only mishap at LeWeb3 was the strange ending. The last two sesssions was somewhat disconnected from the conference topic and the speakers suddenly found themselves alone on the stage. One of the speakers that I wanted to hear, (David Weinberger) was inexplicably dropped from appearing on stage. All this caused the energy in the room to drop at the end and people left the conference with a feeling of anti-climax.
A grande finale session with uplifting foresights into the future was sorely missed!

Presentation skills Do's & Don'ts

Updated Dec 16:
I have been to five international conferences lately; The Future of Web Apps in London in October, and in November Beyond the Printed Word in Dublin and SIME and Hubbub in Stockholm and LeWeb3 in Paris

The first two had a conventional setup with a moderator who introduced the speakers, and then let the speakers talk for 20-40 minutes, most of them using Powerpoint to illustrate their talks. I found that the majority of the speakers had interesting things to communicate, but the way they performed their presentation effectively eliminated most of the value for me in the audience.

SIME used a different method, relying on a moderator that held discussions with 1-4 invited speakers on stage. I find this approach much better, as it tends to focus on the issues and not on the speakers and the history of their companies etc. But it of course puts a lot of responsibility on the moderator who must be able to distil the value out of each speaker, but Ola Ahlvarson did a great job of this at SIME. The only thing I missed was visuals, displaying the websites etc as they are discussed. Using a combination of voice, pictures, video and text is always preferable.

Hubub was a super-low budget but high-value conference, run by a talented group of college students, see my separate blog.

Since so many conferences suffer from these problems I felt that I must share my thoughts on how to hone your presentation skills.
Comments are welcome and please help me add to this list!

The importance of presentation skills
It is very sad that so many influential, bright minded presenters with a deep expertise in their fields lose their audiences due to their poor presentation skills.
It is also question of respect for the audience. People pay a lot of money and travel from far away to attend conferences, so their time should not be wasted. Both the organizers and the presenters need to do everything they can to add value to the delegates

For the professional speaker

Do's

1. Think carefully before the event: what does this audience want to hear?
   
   
2. Hint: they are not interested in hearing how great you or your company are, they want to learn new things that can make THEM more successful.
   
   
3. Start by urging the audience not to take notes, say that you will post you presentation online immediately afterwards.
   
   
4. Keep an eye contact with the audience, and move around the stage. Use a remote clicker to control your presentation. Remember that 70% of your communication is in your body language!
   
   
5. Speak slowly to increase the understanding and respect for what you are saying.
   
   
6. Be visual, use pictures and videos that illustrate your points. Read my lips: less text, more visuals!
   
   
7. Avoid monotony by using variation and surprises in your slide styles during your presentation.
   
   
8. Engage the audience! Ask questions and have them put their hands up. But don't insult them with silly game play.
   
   
9. Focus on 1,2 or maybe 3 things that you want to talk about. Explain the problems you are working with and then tell and visualise the solutions in several ways.
   
   
10. Construct your presentation based on classic drama:
    Start with a Set-up, then Present the problem(s), then proceed to the Confrontation and finally the Resolution. This has worked for thousands of years!
    
    
11. Hire a speaker coach that helps you trim you body language and voice.
    
    
12. Use a spell checker on all your slides. Takes a minute, improves your image.
    
    
13. If you present in another language than your native, consult a language tutor to improve your pronuncation as much as possible. Getting your message out is about being understood and respected.
    
    
14. Test your presentation on other people beforehand and videotape yourself. Listen to their feedback and watch yourself: would you understand and appreciate your presentation?
    
    
15. End by slowing a slide with your contact details and the link to your presentation on an internet service like Slideshare. Post it there together with an edited speaker script. Make sure that all the links to web sites that you have mentioned are active.

Don'ts

1. Don't read word by word from your script. You will sound like a robot and miss the all-important eye contact with the audience.
   
   
2. Don't try to cram a 45-minute presentation into a 25-minute time slot by speaking at machine gun pace. You might just as well stay at home.
   
   
3. Don't read from text bullets in Powerpoint. If you have to use text bullets, keep them very shirt and very few per slide, then first let the audience read it and then, on your own words, expand on the subject.
   
   
4. Don't use complete sentences in your slides. Your voice should tell the story and the slides support it.
   
   
5. Don't start immedialtey to talk on top of your slides. Let the audience interpret the slide for a while, then add your comments.
   
   
6. Don't use hard-to-read fonts or garish backgrounds that obscures the text.
   
   
7. Don't use cute or unusual photos that are not illustrating exactly what you are talking about. It distracts the audience, nobody will hear what you are saying.
   
   
8. Don't use texts that fly into the slide or ANY other disturbing transitions. You're not running an amusement park, the interesting stuff should be in you content, not in your fireworks.
   
   
9. Don't waste you audience's time by presenting the history and organization of your organisation. Unless it is essential in order to understand your presentation, which is very seldom.
   
   
10. Don't mention tips like "be sure to check out the website www.fancynewstuff.com, it has great features" without displaying a slide with both a picture of the web site and the URL in big letters + a sign noting that the URL will be in your posted presentation.
    
    
11. Don't hide behind the computer or speaker stand. Make sure the audience sees you and maintain eye contact with them

For the ambitious seminar organiser:

Do's

1. Be fanatic about keeping the time schedule. First of all, don't delay the start because there are many people still arriving at the door on the official starting time. Start on the official second! This is paying respect to all the people that made the effort to be there in time, instead of letting the latecomers make everybody suffer.
   And make sure that each speaker understands the time frame given, so that they don't try to run their usual 40-minute speech in their 20 minute time frame!
   
   
2. Try to have more on-stage discussions/conversations and fewer stand-alone speakers.
   
   
3. Use runners that hands out microphones to the audience, time is crucial.
   
   
4. Use back channels that enables both the audience in the hall and the internet visitors in the outside world share their questions and comments. Let the backstage people extract the best questions and send them immediately to the moderator using an IM client. These questions are often better than the questions from the audience in the room, since it is easier to formulate in writing than standing up with a microphone.
   
   
5. Videotape and/or write a blog from all the speeches and put them on the conference web site with a searchable index of content.
   
   
6. Use name badges that can be easily read from 2 meters in low light conditions. Put large national flags in colour on the badges so that you also can see the nationality of the delegate.
   
   
7. Offer free wireless internet all over the conference.
   
   
8. Offer electrical outlets for as many seats as possible.

Don'ts

1. Don't allow the audience to ask more than one question at the time. Neither the speaker nor the audience can remember two questions.
   
   
2. Don't allow the audience to pose long-winding comments or questions that are more about presenting themselves. This steals the show from everyone else.
   
   
3. Don't allow one person to pose more than two questions per session, and not more than one at a time.
   
   
4. Don't use badges on a long string to hang around the neck. They hang too low and often sho the blank backside, and they get hidden under the jacket, (if you must use them, print the name on both sides).