Whilst everyone that was present at the Paris Seesmeetup has gone home to their day to day lives the images taken are still doing the rounds. I noticed that two of my images were included in Loic Le meur’s blog. Normally all the Francofous should be able to name every shown. Can you?
Looking forward to many more seesmeetups to come.
richard - Dec 1, 2008
Dan: I will do, decided to start a new blog at the same time, in parallel with this one. I’ll keep an eye on your blog by the same opportunity. Dean: It was nice to meet you outside of England for a change, away from the usual anglo saxon environment. I did create a secondary twitter account but for the moment I don’t use that one much although I may need to push it back into service for those that don’t like me to saturate them too greatly. I’ll let you know when it’s up and running once more.
Leweb for me was about two things, meeting my seesmic friends and meeting new people. It’s through meeting friends that are familiar to me on the web that I had the best times. In particular I enjoyed meeting with Alex, nutrisionist 2.0 as is mentioned in his tagline. What was great about meeting him is the amount of hours we spent just chatting about one thing, then another. It was fun to get to know the person behind the persona. What was also fun was meeting someone like Tiil. I hardly knew him until Leweb but he’s a friendly person as well with some interesting ideas and a different point of view to my own. In particular it was interesting to watch as he described Seesmic to people that were not yet familiar with the social network. Of course there’s Marion. She’s the one that asked me whether I actually wanted to come to Leweb and for that I’m grateful. It’s not often that you get invited to such an exclusive event to meet with so many interesting people. After this of course there’s Whitt and Clare. During the actual conference we didn’t get to chat much but over the past few hours we were in Paris enjoying some organic food before some macaron at Ladurée and some very thick hot chocolate. That was a nice place. What was interesting about this meeting, aside from the food was the conversation, just hearing about things from a different angle and seeing why certain people should be appreciated more than we give them credit for. Of course it was a pleasure to meet KDFA. He’s often on seesmic filling the timeline and he’s known for “Le Bar est ouvert”, an occasion which happens on a daily basis when he opens a bottle of wine and the community follows suit for a more convivial atmosphere. Then there’s Dean. I know him from a few meetings in London and at a podcamp in England and he’s another interesting person to talk to. Another person that has some ideas and is trying them out. He’s the one that got John Cleese to give an interview to seesmic in seesmic style rather than the traditional kind. Then there are Seb and Virginie, two seesmicers I see a lot because they live just 20 minutes away by car. They were both working on providing some coverage of the events in the form both of pictures of participants and the layout as well as of interviews that should be online shorty. Then of course you have Valvert, Baptiste, Patrice Gabin and many other seesmicers who were present as well. They’re interesting to meet. I also met some other people of interest working on a number of projects. Kate carruthers is an Australian friend I’ve been tweeting with for many months now and I finally got to meet her at Leweb and that meeting was pleasant. We sat in one of the lounges and it was an opportunity to discuss the social media and explore, at least to some extent how we picture the word within a broader context. Two words she liked to use together were Social computing. It’s not that I understand in depth what she means but it’s nonetheless an interesting branch of thought to be explored, in parallel to my own ideas. Sandrine Passeriaud is a person I’ve met at a number of events in London but I never really got to chat to her till leweb. It might be because, as we were in a french speaking Environment, and away from London, we felt more comfortable. That’s another occurence I’m happy about. Taylor Barr was often present on the seesmic booth but I didn’t make one connection yet. The day before he was meant to fly out to Leweb his plane was cancelled and so he was delayed. We exchanged a few videos on the topic and it’s only two days later, during the seesmic dinner that we understood that we actually knew each other from seesmic. That’s why seesmic is a great tool. It’s about meeting a few people you may not have known beforehand, even if at first hand you don’t remember why you knew someone. Hermione was one, Stephanie booth was another, then people like Dan martell. We talked as we walked from the seesmic post Leweb dinner to the techcrunch party and that was long enough to get an understanding of what we both do. I’m speaking about this because I didn’t stay more than twenty minutes at the techcrunch party because it was overcrowded and I was too tired to spend much time present there. As much as networking is about the event and the organised parties, it’s also about the walking from one location to another. There are many more people I met but I’m pretty tired now and I wanted to mention by name or nickname those that I found most interesting to meet during Leweb. If you’re not mentioned it’s not that you’re not interesting. It’s that I need to get to know more of what you do before being able to speak with any authority on the topic
Tomorrow I will be in Lausanne once more, this time to meet the people from Bloggy Friday. It’s Switzerland’s bloggers and social media types coming together for a chat and the traditional fondue (or so it’s been for the past few weeks) and an opportunity to hear about new projects. Last month it resulted in me hearing about minsh and going to a demonstration of what the website will provide for users of twitter. i’m not going into details just yet but when it comes out some people might find it quite interesting. The second event is the TGIO (Thank goodness it’s over) party for the National Novel Writer’s month and the Swiss writers that participated. it’s a sleepover right next door to where I live and that will be interesting. The main event comin up is of course LeWeb which I will be attending this year through a great piece of luck. I’m looking forward to the presentations and meeting many new people. It should be an interesting to pick up ideas for how to develop and re-wrte some parts of the book I’m currently working on. The culmination of the week of course will be on Friday when 30 of the French Seesmic community will meet for a dinner. In all it’s going to be a very social media week and it’s refreshing for it to take place in a place like Paris. I will take some video and photographs and blog what I think is of interest. For now it’s a restful evening whilst looking forward to the fun week ahead.
No face to face meeting but I appear in the seesmic plug by Ijustine for the Macbreak Episode . It’s quite amusing to see me in the same video clip as her :-) [caption id=“attachment_851” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“it’s a good laugh to see me appear on macbreak weekly. “]
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This morning I spent three hours chatting to people in Australia, Sweden and France via both twitter and plurk and it felt great and the reason for this is that it was personal. We hear so much and read even more about the social media and the social web but there is one fundamental flaw and oxymoron in this vision. That is that there is an utter lack of the social aspect. Everyone is here, trying to promote their work, their brand, their friends and everything. They re retweeting what other people say and do to promote work. They are promoting things that they think can promote a person’s value. The trouble is that how many of these people do you know as friends. Do you know anything than their marriage, their recent hirings or their job. Do you know where they’ve been out with friends? I could name a hundred locations where podcamp have been, where tuttle have gone and many other things but I couldn’t tell you where more than two or three people like to go for drinks or good food. That’s because the social media are hidden. Everyone is hiding their real identity, their real friendships and their real passions. That’s why some of them have a public twitter account and a private one. That’s why there is so little conversation left on twitter. That’s also why you want to have 20,000 followers. The truth is that if you use the social media as a professional tool, as a branding tool then you might find work, and you may find those who provide you with an increased profile but is that what the web is really about? How many of you will send more than two tweets to anyone except for work? How many of you will spend an hour just chatting? You see for most of the people I follow on twitter it’s about work and nothing else. Sure there’s the charity for breast cancer and the organ donation drives that give good results but what about the mondane conversations? That’s lacking on twitter. That’s why plurk is more fun at moments. In reality if what you called the social media were truly social then I would have had nothing to write and dream about in my nanowrimo effort. That’s why I lampoon most of you. You haven’t understood the social nature of the social web because for you it’s a work tool, not a play thing. Learn to play with the social media and you will get a lot more out of it. You will build friendships and the transparency will result in some positive things. I’ve seen the Francofous community, how it grew, how it meant there were many meetings and how they talked behind closed doors. i’ve also seen the consequences of the lack of openness and what it can do to people’s involvment in the communities they’re part of. How many francofous still use seesmic for example. Of those I follow I see just one person still on seesmic. Plurk at the moment is more social, you see conversations between friends and they have fun. it’s about funny images, it’s about night shifts, it’s about waking up, or going to sleep. In general it’s just a convivial social space where no one is using the network as a professional tool. I’m not saying that you should be social all the time, what I’m saying is that you need to think about how to give time to the communities you’re part of. Ping.fm, hello text and others provide no value to those that are listening. Engage with your audience on a personal level. SHow them that you’re interested in the individuals, not the professionals.
In 1999 I decided that I would spend 21 days without touching a computer once. That’s because I was in Tanzania for a trip during which we helped to build schools for children in the area. I had decided to do that because so many spoke about the illness of spending too much time online, of internet addiction. I came back from that trip realising one thing. It’s a way of life, not an illness or an addiction. It’s also based on how easily you can meet people and how open the community is. Look at the university environment. Some people would come to university for the lesson and leave straight after that. They would never once take advantage of the social elements that university would provide them with. As a result they would be isolated and to some degree solitary. Other people would come and participate in everything, go to the student theatre, participate in the student theatre, help post grad with their work. These people would gain a lot from university. They would learn about team work, they would see who has which skill and more to the point they coul go out at any time and meet so many people that they could spend five hours chatting to one person after another without difficulty. That’s what you get from social media, especially in a place like London or if you’re ready to travel. Join myspace and it’s all strangers with unusual nicknames so it’s daunting. Go a little further and you find facebook. That’s a nice place. That’s a place where those from an international or certain age group can find all their peers. That’s the case for people like me. As a result the community which they had known in the physical world is also online. It’s an extension of the social scene, come there as much to discuss past events as to plan new ones. it’s a place to share all the material from a night. That’s what student magazines and radios attempt to do, to bring the community to you whilst you’re “alone”. You’re social without being social. Of course there’s another dimension. That of social networks like twitter or seesmic. Both of these communites are interesting because you start off not knowing anyone, either in the physical or online word. As you spend more and more time chatting to these people, via text with twitter or video with seesmic personality comes through. Some people always joke and are fun. Others are serious, always into their work and showing their innovative ideas. Occasionally the “meetup” occurs and to some people that’s a daunting idea. If I speak to some friends they would never ever think of meeting someone from the online world because of all the negative stories that are blown out of proportion but as long as you’re wise enough those online friends you meet online may become good friends in the real world. That’s what happened for me after meeting many social media friends at tweetups and podcams, seesmeetups and more, even bloggy fridays to name a local event. Those people that I had only seen or read were now there in person “with feet” as some joked, “in 3d” as others would joke. Finally it’s possible to chat with them, to share a drink and a meal. With some people you find that a strong and enduring friendship will form in the physical world. That’s when you know it’s a community worth being a part of. In particular I’m thinking of what twitter used to be and what seesmic is. It’s a way of meeting people around the world before you travel. I really enjoy it, that’s why i spend so much time in this world. It’s not about being at a computer. it’s about having a conversation with people I hope to meet in the physical world for real friendships and real “vécu” as it’s called in French. I’m in social media for all those fun meetings in the physical world. The more time progresses and the more I enjoy this lifestyle. That is in fact why the mobile web is so important to me. I like it, I think it’s going to expand. How about you? Do you feel the same about social media. Are you using it the same way? Is it just a business tool? Think about it because what you get out of it will be affected.
richard - Oct 5, 2008
I asked a friend how to get the invite so I’m not sure how to do it but when I find out I’ll let you know.
Richard, you’ll have to tell me how to join Phreadz. It’s quite Mission:Impossible ! Do you have invites ? Am i not francofou enough? Too young to know how to fly?
The Francofous are part of the seesmic community and can be differentiated by their ability to speak french and their avatars. Originally formed around Seesmic and twitter they are now migrating to both plurk and phreadz, two services I have talked about in the past. What is nice about this community is that it’s a core of 20-30 early adopters who move and try new communities as a group rather than individuals. What this means is that whereas in previous years we would jump from one community to another, start without knowing anyone and over weeks and months get to know people here we have a core of people moving with the times. Of course I speak about the Francofous this way but they’re not the only ones. Many of my English and international social media friends are doing the same thing, moving from one fesh community to another to see what the strengths and weaknesses are. They’re also testing out the sites, seeing what works and what doesn’t. They’re illustrating how many of you will use these sites once the barriers to entry have come down. There’s another factor that’s important to take into consideration. Those who are early adopters are used to using twenty to thirty sites several times a day from google reader to plurk, to seesmic, to phreadz to gmail to flickr, youtube, dailymotion, vimeo and many more. At the same time most of my university friends are happy with facebook and gmail. They’re lucky, everything they want can be found in one place ;-). How far are these communities from the mass of mid to late adopters? Quite a few months to a year ahead of the pack.
Today I met, Gael Métroz, a guy who decided to travel along the trail of Nicholas Bouvier shortly after his studies. It was an opportunity to try the seesmic style of interview at the City Club in Lausanne. The idea is simple. Those doing the interview have a laptop with a webcam and a good internet connection. They go to film an interview with the laptop and the audience themselves ask questions from the person appearing. It was the first time that the people I was with tried this style of interview and it was a good experience. Nomad’s land - Gael Métroz
What was also a nice experience was getting to talk with Gael, getting a more personal view than if we had watched the interview on television. It’s a more relaxed, and in this case, less rushed interview, more personal less formal. I hope that we get to do more of these events.