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[Le Web 3] Loic Le Meur’s Reply and My Thoughts

Posted on December 18, 2006
Filed Under Le Web / Les Blogs |

First of all, Loic Le Meur has replied on his blogs to the blogstorm of comments around Le Web 3. You should head over and read that first.

I am glad Loic has said sorry, and he’s looking to move forward. That’s good. Personally the main issue I have is that Le Web 3 turned into the Daily French Politics. Le Meur knows how politics works, and should have been able to recognise that this was going to be the news cycle of the day, that Candidates A and B spoke to ‘those internet people who represent 60 million people’ and that our attendance would count towards their views.

By all means lets involve politicians, but at exactly the same level as Hans Rosling (”The Real World and Why It Matters,” the one with the popualtion data and stunning graphs) or any other speaker. After all, Loic feels that the old media ‘Press Badge’ was the correct decision, as to engage the press we must use their rules. I agree 100%. If the politicians want to engage us, then they should do the same as everyone else. Add them to the Wiki. Put them on a panel. Let them interact. Let them be part of the story, not the whole story. What I feel we as attendees wanted from Le Web 3 were conversations. We did not get conversations from the French politicians, we were preached to, and used to further their goals, not the collective conference goal. For that reason I still feel the event was percieved by the mainstream media outside the conference as a political rally.

With hindsight, I think that the appearance of Shimon Perez was correct - it was relevant, he did take questions, and he was well received. The French Presidential Candidates was a step too far.

Can I see Loic’s point of view on making the decision to invite all three when Perez was confirmed? Yes. But this is why it is vital to have an organising committee, a committee that can step back from the view of one person and make a collective judgment and try to look at all the angles. On my understanding, Le Web 3 was effectively a one-man show, with no-one to hold back on Le Meur’s enthusiasm at ‘a totally cool idea.’

I’ve been there. I’ve helped organised conference programs (NotCon2004 notably, but there are others). And I’ve made wrong decisions as well. Admittedly not in front of 1000 people, but making a super bad judgment call when chairing a panel at Open Tech. My split second decision resulted in a conference attendee loosing his iPod shuffle and the incredibly valuable data stored on it. How you deal with issues like this is vitally important. In my case it was an immediate apology at the conference to the person in question, followed by a full and frank blog post as soon as possible, along with dialog in private. This resulted in a happy conclusion. But I have always delivered what was promised to the audience, to the people paying good money in good faith, and I have always taken on board all their comments and critique.

Do I see that in your blog post? I’m not sure. I see a huge explanation of the process (which was required). I also see a willingness to make the same decisions again, which worries me. I see you accepting the arguments. But I also see you dismissing points with the bluster of the righteous man. I urge you to take on baord all these comments, reply to them in public or in private, and allow us the opportunity to see that you are taking on board the views of some of the world’s leading new media communicators. We’re smart people too.

As you rightly say, people “invested their time and money to join LeWeb3.” They entrusted you with that time and money to put on the conference you advertised - not the conference you wanted. I think this is where there has been a fundamental breakdown in communication. When you look at the number of blog posts after Le Web 3, something has gone seriously out of whack to provoke that amount of discussion. You may well have had positive feedback in private, but the perception (and perception is everything in the communication game) is that you did not deliver what was expected.

I’ll now address the issue of moving speakers around. Let me open with two quotes from your post. “…but if we bloggers and technology entrepreneurs cannot be flexible, who can?” and “With …major politicians at the peak of a presidential campaign you do not choose the hour they arrive.” In my opinion, if the politicians are entering our arena, then there needs to be some give and take on both sides.

You note that I was unhappy at being moved, but other speakers were more understanding. Of course I was unhappy. At short notice I had to rework a presentation geared towards “When Will Virtual Life be Better Than Our Real Life?” to a panel called “The Future of Gaming.” I like to think I can work well under pressure, and can improvise something memorable, but it would have been great if at some point you could have acknowledged that effort that was required of myself and others (such as Danah Boyd: “I had to figure out how to cut my 30 minute talk to 15 on the fly on stage and I feel like I wasn’t as clear as i wanted to be.”)

Furthermore, again to quote yourself: “I thought I did not have to ask the participants and I would introduce Shimon Peres as a surprise. I had no idea of the criticism I would get and was only trying to do good and provide value.” Please do not mix the issue of Peres and the French Presidential Race. These were two separate packages, and I honestly believe the flak is coming from the latter. The conference was surprised but coped with the former - that is not the problematic issue. Note that Peres received the standing ovation, no-one else.

[deep breath]

Would I attend Le Web 4? Probably, because I doubt that the same mistakes would happen again, and meeting people in the flesh allows much more business to be done than by electronic means. I would want to see some things though….

Additional Thoughts and Links:
Shel Israel sums it up in less words, and a better metaphor:
I enjoy both rock and symphony. But if I went to a rock concert to discover the lead off group was a string octet playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I would be confused and disappointed. As so many of Le Web 3 attendee seem to have felt.

Tom Morris:
I didn’t want politicians excluded. I wanted politicians to be subject to scrutiny through having a lot of questions. The only way to do that is to have three or four panels with a lot more time given to Q&A… Ah, but food and networking do not justify a bad conference experience any more than the chance to chat to interesting people on the train is a justification for the trains breaking down.

Loic Le Meur (via GTalk):
I’ve also spoken briefly this morning (Monday 18th Dec) with Loic over GTalk, and he appreciated the comments on this blog. He asked me to append that he “…was in a hurry for a meeting but really insists we have a deeper conversation to make it better [next] year.”

Nicole Simon:
I suggest - even if you cannot stand the topic anymore - to go through his listed links which are from both side of the spectrum. (It is also worth noting what he leaves out, but that is a different story.)… Looking back on this I think most arguments have been posted and written up which is why I would like to move on.

Comments

6 Responses to “[Le Web 3] Loic Le Meur’s Reply and My Thoughts”

  1. Loïc’s answer - Licence to Roam on December 18th, 2006 0:48

    […] Update: Ewan’s response (He was a speaker). […]

  2. leafar on December 18th, 2006 0:48

    Ewan, I will roll my sleeve with you … even for a three person fight on stage (or not). I’ve watched you change your pitch with jonas … coding it in html on the fly … and I must say I was impressed.

  3. cruel to be kind on December 18th, 2006 1:23

    One opinion per person should be enough, shouldn’t it?

    I was still in the middle of putting together some texts from the more positive side for Leweb (especially the ones having more suggestions to improving a conference like this as it is worth noting) when i saw that Loic actually has answered some of th…

  4. Kris Tuttle on December 18th, 2006 14:12

    If you violate trust and the basic tenant of allowing for an exchange it’s a little hard to recover! ;-)

    Clearly any event like this needs a qualified program committee. I hope the lesson is learned but I agree that it’s not clear from reading Loic’s blog post.

  5. Shoob » Blog Archive » links for 2006-12-19 on December 19th, 2006 17:27

    […] [Le Web 3] Loic Le Meur’s Reply and My Thoughts Une excellente synthèse sur la réaction publique de LLM et le décallage avec les commentaires partagés par de nombreux bloggueurs. […]

  6. Are Six Apart losing it? at Tom Raftery’s I.T. views on December 20th, 2006 12:39

    […] See also Ewan Spence’s excellent response to Loic’s post. Technorati Tags: blog, leweb3, Loic le meur, movable type, sarkozy, shimon peres, Technology, typepad, vox, wikiBookmark at these sites:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]

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