{"id":12256,"date":"2012-06-19T11:58:19","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T10:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=4029"},"modified":"2012-06-19T11:58:19","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T10:58:19","slug":"chaotic-leweb-london-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/chaotic-leweb-london-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"“Joyfully Flexible” LeWeb London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lewebbanner\"<\/p>\n

LeWeb London<\/a>\u00a0is happening today, in a truly beautiful\u00a0venue<\/a>\u00a0in central London. This is (probably) the first of a series of posts from the event (battery permitting).<\/p>\n

\"leweb\u00a0\"le<\/p>\n

The day opened with a hip-hop violinist and an intro from Loic and Geraldine Le Meur. The signature style of LeWeb events is “flexibility” with what seems to be a deliberate attempt to differentiate from more “traditional” industry conferences.<\/p>\n

Faster Than Real Time \u2013 Or Else<\/h3>\n

Loic explained the chosen theme of the conference, \u201cFaster Than Real Time\u201d:<\/p>\n

“To me, it means that there is data everywhere \u2013 everything is gathering data, and it\u2019s being streamed, available for new kinds of applications, that will predict<\/em> what\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s about getting revealing hidden<\/em> information in real time\u2026 how many of your friends are here, is there a free hotel nearby, etc.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"loic\"<\/p>\n

The first session of the day was a basically a advert for London as a home for entrepreneurs \u2013 and given the traditional English\/French rivalry, one of the participants got in a dig against French President Francois Hollande\u2019s economic policies \u2013 \u201cwe invite all you entrepreneurs fleeing Paris to come to London\u201d.<\/p>\n

Next, two partners from McKinsey delivered a presentation on the value of big data for organizations, but suffered some problems. The first was a gap between the contents and the the audience.\u00a0The LeWeb audience is a \u00a0tough crowd: an audience that prides itself in being \u201cfaster than real time\u201d themselves, in being \u00a0aware of what has already been swirling around the web. And\u00a0McKinsey\u2019s use of \u201cconsultant-speak\u201d didn\u2019t help (Danvers Bailleu on twitter: \u201cMcKinsey are just making up silly words: \u2018nowcasting\u2019 \u2013 really?\u201d).<\/p>\n

Presenters at LeWeb have to bring genuine news or deep personal insight that can\u2019t be found elsewhere. As analyst Tom Rafterty<\/a> pointed out \u201cFor a lot of attendees the main value of going to LeWeb will be the conversations in the corridors\u201d<\/p>\n

The second problem wasn\u2019t that the power for the microphones (and online feed) cut out, leaving the presenters trying to shout to make themselves heard.<\/p>\n

\"oliver\"<\/p>\n

Next celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver and Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom came on stage.\u00a0Jamie Oliver was clearly very clued in about social media use. He uses it the same way as most of us \u2013 sharing pictures of food<\/a>, etc. \u2013 with the slight difference that his life is a lot more interesting, and he has a lot more followers. He was most at ease when discussing how to use social media to improve food awareness. He using his status to \u201cto ‘stir the pot’ of food corruption,\u201d championing better school dinners and reducing the use of \u201cpink slime<\/a>\u201d in food.<\/p>\n

For me, the real lesson of the session was that Jamie Oliver is a natural communicator, and that is a skill that has served him well, and one that entrepreneurs at the show should try to copy \u2013 for example, he completely outshone the Instagram CEO with his more earthy (and quotable) style:<\/p>\n