LeWeb3 was a success. Period (and i am not the one who says it)

Important update 18/12: Loic Le Meur gives a very detailled feedback (here in French). a must read (specially the comments, trolls aside)

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I have been curious to gather some feedback around LeWeb3 to check if as many bloggers seem to think, the event was a total failure.

Here are some (very influential) people that claim it was a great event (some in french sorry) 

• Blogonautes
• Lorenzo
• Tristan Nitot
• Embruns
• Patrice Cassard
• Barrablog
• Gapinvoid
• Zephoria
• Jacques Froissant
• Pierre Chappaz
• Julien Cordorniou
• Pascal Rossini
• Jeremi Berrebi
• Fred Destin
• Group reflect
• Fred Destin
• update David Weinberger (thanks Laurent for pointing)
• update Emery
• update MarketingRama
• update Gnispen
• update AllPeers
• update Presse-Citron
• update Ross Mayfield
• update Eran Lagon
• update David Hornik
• update Jonas Luster 
• update Paolo Valdemarin
• update Jeff Clavier
• update Rodrigo Sepulveda
• update Sebastien Robert
• update Down the avenue
• update Alternative numerique
• update LifeBlog

 

I am still in shock in front of the extreme and ridiculous violence of the reactions just because one hour of the programm was not matching part of the audience (and i could argue with that) and wifi did not work the first day (just like in most event of this kind). It just sounds like the whole event was about this. And between us the risk taking of bringing politicians made possible the Shimon Peres session that ended up by a standing ovation. Ok the event was not perfect. But it was good. Period.

But what makes me really furious is reading all those reviews of people who have not even been there, critizing for free thinking they can represent those who were.

Come on guys, back off!

The positive side of this polemic is that leweb3 is number 1 technorati request!

PS: did not have the time to scan all of them. if you read other positive blogs please add in comment

Comments

[Laurent Gloaguen]

You may add David Weinberger :
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/leweb_politics_across_the_cult.html

[Julien]

Codorniou, not Cordorniu ;-)

[ouriel]

Laurent > thanks
Julien > sorry. fixed. mixed with the famous catalan cava brand ;) was good to see you even shortly. next time let s try to discuss a bit more

[SupportFreeSpeech]

And still no word on the Sam Sethi / TCUK scandal...

Everything is right, "Mrs the marquise"!!!

[ouriel]

Here is a word: your IP address tells more about you than what you think, mister anonymous commenter. So stop harrassing me with your comments.

[alan patrick]

I wasn't there, but it has been quite interesting analysing the diffrences bewteen those who did and did not enjoy it.

The "did enjoy" camp are by and large (to me anyway, reading the blogsites) less techie (errm...and more of them are French so maybe its more relevant?), so seemed quite interested in the politics - and I agree that 2 hacks (that you could always Tivo them by leaving) is a reasonable deal to get a free Shimon Perez.

The "did not enjoy" camp by and large have 3 major criticisms

- Crap WiFi on day one.
- Corporate takeove of what wsa last year more of a Geek event
- Stuffing politics into a diffrent agenda than that they had paid for - in other words poor expectation management.

What interests me hugely is that I think quite a lot of the heat generated has been that the Politicians came to a new media event and treated it as Old Media, and there, I think, is the reason to really take aim at Le Web 3 and say "sellout". Fortuntely, the blogosphere has reacted quite violently to this - the vox populi has been let out the box, as the technorati search indicates!

Also, in the UK, as you are no doubt well aware, this whole event had far more severe repercussions, both career wise and in breaking the principle of free speech and no censorship in our blogosphere.

[ouriel]

interesting review alan. i would not try though to put too much theory into it. If you leave aside those negatives which i do not contest, this is a great event. I think criticisms went way over their initial purpose. Specially when those came from people not attending the conference and enjoying the human networking, and excellent panels that were there (not mentionning the food and other things)

[Nicole Simon]

"Just because there was a rotten egg in your meal - how can you go and claim it had any influence to the rest of it!"

Ouriel, an event is not a success for me just because you say so, especially not when you try to ridicule everything what my point is about it. You are absolutly rightful to say that it was a great event for you and some people you found.

Besides playing "look, do not take those other people seriously because i say so" you should also have mentioned how most of the people writing about how they did not like it also tried to do something useful out of it for other events and such.

As long as you claim "it was successful period" I will stand up and say "and it was not".
Btw - my main point is getting local content in french withoug proper connectoin to the rest of the conference as well as the spirit which this event was supposed to be.

It shows a lack of understanding on your side not even trying to see the point in it.

But then again - you obviously are french or at least do speak french so there was not much bothering you about this as well as you might actually be interested in what he said and should be accustumed to what is said to be the french way of "if power says it is so, then you have to do so"

The world is bigger than that and you just claiming it is different reminds me of the people claiming that the world is flat and the sun circles around it.

[ouriel]

Nicole

I will not try to convince you. I do not agree with you like many others as you can see. I think your criticism goes way too far and obscure the outstanding quality of the event.

[Ian Fenn]

Thanks for including me in this post, but I'm afraid I wouldn't describe Le Web 3 as a success. There were some good elements, but in my original post I was simply trying to explain why a significant amount of people found the event to be a failure. And I would count myself and the two clients I accompanied as amongst those people. Sorry.

[ouriel]

indeed that was a mistake with another link :)

out of curiosity, out of 1300, can you quantify significant amount?

[Ian Fenn]

A couple of additional notes: The key issue was the disruption to the programme caused by the introduction of the politicians. They spoke for 90 minutes or so which meant other sessions were cancelled or cut considerably. In addition to this, several key speakers expected - Michael Arrington, Neville Hobson, JP Rangaswami - didn't appear (and this wasn't announced until the last minute, if at all.) This all followed the lousy moderation of the panels and sessions on day one. And for what it's worth, the standing ovation wasn't spontaneous - it was requested from the stage. Sadly I therefore think it's not as important as your post would suggest.

[Ian Fenn]

Where are you getting the figure 1300 from? How many PAYING attendees were there? Journalists and people such as yourself who gained free entry should surely not be included?

[ouriel]

So what is the answer to my question?

[Ian Fenn]

Ouriel, I need you to explain what you mean by 1300 people. I was working on the basis of a smaller total number of paying attendees. So, are you saying that there were 1300 attendees who paid to be there? If not, how many paid attendees were there? Then we can work out what a significant number is.

[ouriel]

Iann give me a break. You either have a number or you don't.

[Ian Fenn]

How about you give me one? You put the 1,300 figure out there - I'm asking you what it means. I'm happy to attempt to provide a firm number - from analysis of the 3,700+ technorati posts - if you can give me the parameters we're working within. How many paying attendees were there? There wasn't 1,300. If I had free entrance like you, then I might well have regarded Le Web 3 as a success. I can certainly understand why you might have found Le Web3 a success personally. You are Loic's friend and you know many of the people who participated. The food (at least on day one) was indeed very good. The audio visual side of things was also great, translation headsets (and lack of) aside. We share that view. I'm sure you had a fine time, but that does not mean Le Web 3 was a success PERIOD, as you suggest. I don't know Loic, but I do respect him. (I sent him an email after day one asking for tighter moderation of the panels and his response was to his credit). I also believe he set out to do the best he could with Le Web 3. Unfortunately things went wrong, and for some people - including my two non-blogging, non-techie clients - the event was not a success. I think it's a shame Loic hasn't yet acknowledged that on his blog, or even posted something that says 'Thanks for the feedback on Le Web 3. I'm thinking it over and will come back to you soon.'

[ouriel]

ian i invite you to read this post and as the conclusion suggests "if you want an adventure without risk just go to disneyland paris"

http://gnispen.blogspot.com/2006/12/when-i-went-to-lesblogs-in-march-of.html

[Ian Fenn]

Ouriel, now you're just being insulting - and we've never met! The focus of Le Web 3 - and the risk in attending - was never explained. All attendees had to go on was the programme - and that was torn up at the last minute. My clients attended the conference at my invitation to develop their understanding of social networks, etc. They were particularly keen to hear from the speakers I mentioned. They also wanted to see Ewan Spence's presentation, which was dropped at the last minute. In the end, due to the programme changes, they learnt very little. So, the conference was not a success for them. You are assembling a list of posts from people who found the event a success. Many of those posts are from friends of Loic who were speaking and/or received free entry. I could compile a similar list of all the negative posts, removing those from people who did not attend, but I do not believe this would be helpful. The list would still be bigger than yours. But what would really be the point? The person we need to hear from now is Loic.

[ouriel]

The one insulting are the one taking the criticisms out of proportion. I stick to what i said, i do recognize i am biaised. and i still maintain this event was as a whole a success and although you might have a point, your balance is not fair. I am not sure i want you to agree with me.

the intention was not insulting but just making some humour about your serious assesment

[Ian Fenn]

Why is my balance not fair? I have no axe to gride with Loic, so this has nothing to do with personalities. I can also recognise the good of the conference. There were three sessions or part-sessions I enjoyed. But sadly the overall conference on balance was not a success for me or my clients.

The blog post that mentioned disneyland also mentions that you should allow chefs to experiment with their cuisine. I'm both a web professional and trained chef. In closing, please be rest assured that there is no better example of project management than a well-run professional kitchen. However, such a kitchen is unlikely to totally switch its cuisine at the last minute, long after the restaurant's patrons have ordered!

[ouriel]

sorry you feel that way.

[Ian Fenn]

So am I... and that my view seems to be shared by a so many bloggers... But I would like to see Loic come out on top of this. I am annoyed as you are with the posts that have become personal... and the criticial posts from people who didn't even attend. As I said in my own blog post, Loic also deserves some credit for what he achieved, even if a vocal proportion of the audience didn't appreciate it. Getting Shimon Perez, the a-listers like yourself, yes, even the politicians, in the same room is no mean feat. I really would like to Le Web 4 next year - just with better panel moderation, more focus, and fewer last minute changes to the programme.

[ouriel]

let s hope it will be. Loic is probably the only one in europe capable of such a performance. And i bet it will be much better than this year.

[Ian Fenn]

Agreed. And hopefully soon we will hear that from the man himself. Let's hope so.