horsepigcow

[part 2 of The Hole in the Soul of our Culture]

As I waited at the Paris airport (CDG) for my plane bringing me back home to Montreal, I typed the following into my phone to remind me of what I was feeling at that moment:

Any action that results in making money (or building numbers) is valued over actions that aren’t. Such as having an interesting conversation, helping someone out, learning empathy. Sure, these things can be valued…if they lead to prestige or wealth.

My entire trip to Paris – Le Web, my book event (big ups to Rodolphe Falzerana, Luc Bretones, Sophie Reynal and everyone who organized it), the HEC Digital4Change event (big ups to Olivier Maurel for this opportunity), my lovely lunch discussion with my dear old friend Stéphane Distinguin, staying with Emilie Dupré and William Hutter, being picked up at the airport (and getting macarons delivered) by Dominique Gibert, meeting young Alaric (gorgeous new son of Rodolphe and Morgane Falzerana), running with Emilie and William with a lovely view over Paris in Parc de Saint-Cloud, wandering Paris late at night looking for a cab in the snow with new friend Jason Gegere, attending a lovely dinner organized by Renee Blodgett, staying up until I had to leave for the airport talking with the amazingly inspirational Tariq Krim and all sorts of other magic moments I’ll never forget – was a whirlwind of amazing generosity, human connection and talk of changing the world.

This directly contrasts with my recent experience of the world, where raising funds for Shwowp has been a slightly painful experience (though learning, too), where only numbers and how we fit into current paradigms or not matters. What’s our traffic? Our traction? Can we offer more deals like Groupon? Are we using gamification? Are we too much like this and that and whose-it? I think in terms of how it will help people in the long term, how it will change the customer/vendor relationship, what we can build that will empower people and actually deliver something meaningful: all things that were talked about as important at Le Web, but don’t seem to be important to those holding power. When I hear someone like Mitchell Baker say:

“If you start something and everyone looks at you like you’re crazy, step back, you just might be on the right track”

…as she did at Digital4Change made my heart fly a little. Yes…that must be it. I’m on the right track and just too darned visionary. Right?

But me and my own struggles aside, I see this everywhere. I’ve been frustrated with this most of my life. The ‘success stories’ we hear about, the validation people seek for paying attention to anything, the justification for doing anything that means a damn requires some sort of big number or incredible buzz attached to it. But in reality, so many things that are truly successful today weren’t the result of numbers and buzz first, they were the result of doing something that positively impacted people’s lives. Who could have predicted Twitter would be so big that it’s practically a household name? Well, I did, but that’s beside the point. Most people didn’t. They thought it sounded stupid and inane. Foursquare? Initial reaction (other than those of us at SXSW who were playing with it) was ‘meh’. Matt from Kiva said everyone thought he was nuts. Mozilla has changed the world in unconventional ways. WordPress is still giving away their IP. Microfinancing? The Grameen Foundation has proven that lending money changes the world and makes a profit consistently (without bailouts). All of these started out as crazy ideas and have become huge success stories.

And by success, I mean impact on real human lives. Some make money, others sustain. But there are countless examples of social companies that make an impact and do well by doing good. They change the world, employ people, sometimes bring profits and continue to grow their impact. Contrast that to ‘for profits’ that have a fairly high failure rate – whether they take big money or not. [aside: someone has to have a link to a study where social business success is calculated]

But lets go back to the issue at hand. Even many of the companies I know and love have taken on the twist of highlighting the traditional metrics of success. I spoke to Georges Duverger (who I’m working on some cool projects with) about some of Twitter’s earlier design decisions and how it changed the raison d’être of the community. By choosing to demote @ replies (hide them from the public stream) and promoting RT’s (retweets), Twitter encouraged a growing cult of celebrity. What started out as a virtual water cooler where we could discover, join and debate conversations became a race for who could be retweeted the most often (to get ‘more followers’). When people introduce me, they love to mention my number of followers. I rarely check, though I know it means more to most people than the content I produce. “I have 35,000+ followers, bitches!” Whatever. Do I impact people’s lives? Inspire? Connect? Why am I still alone on a Friday night? Will it pay my rent next month? It certainly doesn’t help where it should help me (opening doors). It means way less than my real-life relationships. Twitter has become the new bullhorn for people. A promotional tool. Conversations have moved to Facebook, Quora and other networks that promote the connection over the status. With all the misgivings I have about Facebook, I actually like that they encourage me to weed out non-friends so my relationships are more manageable on there (ie. they don’t build me tools to scale more and more friends like MySpace did – they actually punish me for it, limiting the number of groups and friends I can connect to). I could never keep up relationships with 35,000+ people IRL. Nor do I really want to.

But it all comes back to what we value and why I think we have a hole in the soul of our culture. It isn’t merely the businesses and boardrooms where there lies an issue. It’s all around us. In North America at least. We pay lip service to wanting to change the world, to being better human beings, to ‘balancing’ our lives, but when it comes down to it, we tend to be more impressed with big numbers: 1 MILLION hits, 100,000 followers, $1 BILLION market capitalization, etc. When was it that Kevin from DIGG was on the cover of Business Week? 2006? “How this kid made $60Million in 18 Months!” How much is it worth today? Kevin would be the first to admit he didn’t have $60 Million in the bank in 2006.

I was happy to see an influential conference like Le Web focus on value other than money. I’m hoping it’s a trend. I think that, besides a few conferences like TED, SOCAP and Personal Democracy Forum, we tend to focus on the money and traffic numbers rather than real social impact. And to get to social impact, we need to do all of those things that don’t really have any ROI attached…like have conversations and help people and read stuff – some of it will ‘pay off’ and some of it will just be part of our human experience. Focusing on the wrong stuff will lead us to focus on the wrong stuff…if that makes any sense. Like the executives from day one continually repeating their commitment to user experience without, what it seemed like, having ever even had experience with users.*

Because, at the end of the day, our businesses aren’t the only entities lacking a focus on beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. Our entire culture is. Just visit Paris for a week. You’ll *feel* what I mean. It’s nothing you can assign ROI to because, well, it is a true experience, not a production.

* It would have been great to see any number of these execs responding to the naysayers on Twitter…setting up a meetup in Paris to get feedback…even just attending the after parties.

The title of this blogpost is liberally borrowed from one of my favorite business articles of all time written by Gary Hamel on the WSJ Blog. The part of the article that really grabbed me was this one:

Why is it that managers are so willing to acknowledge the idea of a company dedicated to timeless human values and yet so unwilling to become practical advocates for those values within their own organizations?

Some of the human values Hamel covers in the article are beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. I was so inspired by the article that I ended up structuring much of my new material around this core thesis: The companies who lead with human values are the companies who are going to win going forward. The ones that are inspiring us and growing at crazy rates (see Apple, Google, Foursquare, etc.) value human above all else.

I just returned from Le Web in Paris, where I saw the sharp contrast right before my eyes. Day 1 was mostly filled with interviews of those companies (mostly American) struggling to understand how to regain market share and customer trust. From the Microsoft WP7 Phone to MySpace to Nokia to RIM, I heard many murmurs around me in the crowd that people didn’t even want to listen anymore. They were waiting for Dennis Crowley from Foursquare or Mikael Hed from Rovio (maker of the uber popular game Angry Birds). Not that the audience was incredibly representative of everyone in the world, but I would say that I was sitting amongst the early adopters and taste makers of what is happening now and going forward. The thing I heard over and over from the companies, like Microsoft and MySpace, was that they were ‘focused on user experience’ to an almost eye-rolling level. Nobody defined what that meant and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to wonder how they could focus on the experience of the people they were so out of touch with (I plan to write another post on this soon).

Each of the speakers appeared smart and probably were users of social web technology themselves, but came across so fundamentally out of touch with what was going on around them. The mannerisms, the media training and the dancing around answers consistently spoke “corporate” even though they were dressed casually. A really significant question directed towards Paypal regarding Wikileaks and the controversy of removing the account resulted in a complete regurgitation of all of the press releases I’ve read before. Positive spin and corporate responsibility (not to customers, but to the corporation itself) bled through the human being addressing the audience.

Contrast this with the amazing heart and soul exhibited in the Day 2 lineup and you’ll totally understand where I’m coming from. My first stand-up-and-shout-YES! moment came listening to Alexander Tamas (DST International) who said:

“The urge to built something meaningful that changes the world is a life time chance.”

I nearly cried. Not another badge gamefication geo-location iPad/iPhone social recommendation deal-of-the-day coupon garnering social media impact measuring whatchamacallit. As Dennis said during his Q&A the day before, “We didn’t sit around a boardroom thinking, here are 10 ideas to build into a company. We like building products, and if it became a business? Great!” Not that I will poo-poo the money-making ability of companies who come up with a business idea in a boardroom that will make a gabillion dollars…I just want to see the world lean more towards Tamas’ vision of building a company.

An appropriate follow up to Tamas’ Q&A was Phil Libin of Evernote, a little app that helps users gather important stuff and notes. A simple idea with a humongous impact. Libin gave me my second and third ear-orgasm when he said:

“Never once were the companies we fixated on as our ‘competition’ relevant in the past. Don’t think about what other people are doing. Don’t look backwards.”

and;

“everyone asks about conversion rates. the short answer is ‘it doesn’t matter.”

I believe strongly that it is Libin’s insanely awesome focus on making something meaningful and useful (so useful that Evernote users are rabidly in love with the tool and report often that it ‘changed their lives’ for the better) that resulted in 5 million registered users (18k per day growth) and an entire book section devoted to maximizing Evernote in Japan.

Libin’s final remarks were equally thought provoking:

“The worst reason to start a company is to make money. If you want to save humanity (or the city of paris shutting down for one day because of 1 inch of snow), that’s a better reason.”

I instantly downloaded Evernote (yes…I’ve been holding out).

And on and on it went. Matt Mullenweg and Tony Schneider (Automattic) – more inspiration – then Mitchell Baker (Mozilla) who inspired me at Le Web, then blew me away later at Digital4Change (more later). A little later, the ever-inspiring Shai Agassi (Better Place), Jack Hidary (SmartTransportation.org) who gave me more yes moments with his car sharing ideas and then Mel Young’s interesting Homeless World Cup project. The singularity stuff was also incredibly thought provoking with Ariel Garten, Salim Ismail and Henri Seydoux.

I can’t pick a highlight. It was one cheer after another. A million brain synapses firing in all directions. I was so inspired I wanted to hug everyone in the room. After that morning and early afternoon, all hope was regained for me. Le Web gave me several “TED moments” – bravo Loic and Geraldine!

Unfortunately, I had to leave a wee bit early to go and moderate at the Digital 4 Change conference at HEC Paris. Because of my crazy schedule, I hadn’t sat down to really absorb what I was walking into. I shared a taxi with Cédric Giorgi, who was one of the most amazing co-moderators I’ve ever had the pleasure of co-moderating with. His presence helped keep me calm in the face of: OMFG, I’m moderating two panels with the likes of Mitchell Baker (Mozilla), Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize recipient & founder of Grameen Foundation), Matt Flanery (Kiva) and Walter de Brouwer (OLPC) amongst other notables. With my mind already buzzing from Le Web’s inspirational message, I thought I may collapse at any moment. It was such a GIGANTIC contrast from the ‘we are focusing on user experience’ PR spins the day before.

An entire day of how social business is changing the world (and the numbers are in and it’s working!) made me reflect hard on the hole in the soul of business as we know it. Between Hamel’s article, the clear evidence that social business works from Le Web and Digital4Change and Umair Haque’s recent post entitled “I’m Bored – The Significance Manifesto” I started thinking…this is more than just a hole in the soul of business. It’s a hole in the soul of our culture (and when I say ‘our’, I mean mostly North American).

I want to continue…but in order to make this easier on the eyes to read I’ll make my own observations a second post.

Part 2: here…

So far, the big highlight of LeWeb has been the interviews regarding the more popular gaming companies like Pet Society by Playfish and Angry Birds by Rovio. The numbers of people playing, paying for and getting excited by games are ASTOUNDING. Just a few numbers to chew on:

• Rovio’s various games sell 90 MILLION virtual goods PER DAY. Virtual goods are rarely cheap. Do the math!
• Angry Birds PAID version has been purchased by 12 MILLION people and the free version has been downloaded by 30 MILLION people. A loss of revenue? Nope. The free version makes Rovio $1M/month in advertising revenue.

It’s clear to me that gaming has broken past the ‘teenage boy’ barrier and has become very mainstream. The majority of gamers these companies are seeing are women who are 40+:

This is an amazing growth space…and I don’t see gaming going away any time in the near future.

Interesting to note…there were a gaggle of traditional press gathering around the stage all morning…but went away when the social gaming interviews came up. Just shows you how incredibly out of touch the press is with what’s coming down the pipe.

I’m in love with Paris…but who isn’t? It’s one of those cities that I long for no matter how much I visit it. And for a while, I went quite frequently. It just doesn’t get ‘old’. In fact, I love its old.

I still remember my first trip to Paris. I had a crappy Fuji SLR-type, but I took loads of photos. Amazingly, my lack of photography skills combined with the jet-lagged wandering about the city in the middle of the night culminated in some lovely moody shots…or at least I look at them and I’m back in that moment 5 years ago.

The reason I was in Paris for the first time 5 years ago was because of Les Blogs Deux…now evolved into Le Web, a conference produced by Loic and Geraldine LeMeur. It was a crazy, amazing time. I was pretty new on the startup scene, had moved to San Francisco only months before and Les Blogs Deux was only my fifth conference on web stuff I had been to (I lost count at 110 last year btw – I have a box of badges to prove it!). Truth be told, though, it’s one of my favorite conferences each year….even after al this time.

It’s not just because I love Paris, although that doesn’t hurt my burning desire to go each year. It’s about the people…the attendees. I love going to Le Web to get a new flavour of the technology/startup community: a European one. I don’t know if it’s culture or language or what that drives a unique perspective from European ‘geeks’, but they seem to think of the web and it’s direction in a more human way. There is a deep philosophy to it. It’s user-centric and revolution-based. A friend told me the other day that the French riot to make democratic change and it has worked for centuries. It’s how the people let the government know they won’t wait for change. As a Canadian, rioting has always seemed chaotic and maybe even futile. But when he described it and from the conversations with some of my favorite Parisians, I totally understood. A better way of life is worth fighting for and the French understand it. I truly think this translates into their startup culture.

Not to make grotesque generalizations, but the North American view of the web is focused more on commerce. There is revolution, obviously (or Twitter, YouTube and other such platforms that aid and abet revolutions for free would exist), but at the end of the day it is about Serviceable Available Market, monetization, traction and other such words that feel disconnected from the big picture of what is taking place online. Last year there was a bit of a stir up when Robert Scoble visited a bunch of startups and dished out advice. His advice is good…for competing in an American landscape. And, yes, startups are a business after all, but there was a disconnect for the French entrepreneurs with this point of view.

But this is the stuff I love about Le Web. It’s controversial because the conference is grounded in Europe with a mostly European audience and then you add a bunch of North American cowboys to the mix with our ‘we’ve come to teach you a thing or two’. And don’t even get me started about the Brits (who are from a whole other country of thinking as well). It’s bound to bring on a cultural clash or two. Or three. Or more. And somewhere from this drama and messiness emerges a beautiful experience, amazing friendships and a whole lot of great ideas.

I may tease Loic about the food and would still love to see fewer panels, but I wouldn’t miss this conference for the world. I can’t wait to see what kind of controversies brew this year. I’m sure they are exactly what the web…or le web…needs to continue to reach its full potential.

I had a great time in Paris and at Le Web last week. Here are my top 7 highlights and 3 lowlights:

Highlights

1. The Women Stole the Show. Keynote speaker Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (quite the title!) bowled me over with her progressive use of social media tools for connecting with her citizens and leading social change. Her delivery of her talk was utterly human and warm, her stories were rich and passionate and her humor was amazingly casual for a Queen. I’ll be sure to get behind her awesome project 1GOAL. Other highlights included danah boyd, discussing what we are missing with all of the radical transparency today (i.e. the pain, bullying and bad home lives we could detect through teens posts online and help them out). Incredible message. I also loved (and always love) watching Marissa Mayer being interviewed by Michael Arrington. Her passion and enthusiasm for the experience of Google users is amazing and she has an amazing grasp on the future.

   
   

2. The Company was Divine – One of the most important things about a conference is the hallway conversations. In order to maximize the interestingness of those conversations, the ‘right’ people have to be at your conference: the smart, the cool, the innovators, the creatives, the thinkers, the sideways thinkers and the fun seekers. I can wholeheartedly say that a great mix of those people were at Le Web. The brainiacs like Kevin Marks were present to make me think, the cool kids like Cathy Brooks were present to add prestige (that woman knows EVERYONE), the innovators like Stéphane Distinguin were hanging about, the creatives like Donna Jackson brought a fashionable air to the event, I’m always happy to see Dave McClure, who always makes me think, and Paul Carr, who brings his unconventional thought to the table, and, of course, I like to think of myself as the fun seeker at every conference (especially after a few glasses of champagne – dancing until 4 am anyone? ). It was a great mix of people.

   
   

3. The Venue was Fabulous – I heard that it was a little chilly in there last year, but OMG…what a beautiful venue! Acoustics were pretty decent for something of that size, too. Only one suggestion: put a barrier up (maybe a curtain) between the audience and those chatting at the top of the ramp. Otherwise, it is a creative and interesting space that seemed perfect for the event.

   
   

4. That Wifi was Flawless! Thanks goes out to the team at BT (especially Gary Shainberg who worked with Meraki to make the mesh impeccable), whose mesh network was so solid that there wasn’t a single blip the entire conference and we used only 10% of the bandwidth. As Loic points out: ” there was a 1gb line financed and paid for by LeWeb that’s why we never exceeded 10-20% of the bandwidth available”. Impressive! In fact, I could have gotten on Bit Torrent and gone crazy without causing any ruckus. Fabulous job!

   
   

5. Streaming is the Key to Future Conferences. I think Loic told us that, though there were 2,300 people physically at Le Web (and it was sold out), there were 100x that number who tuned in at some point over the duration of the conference. Wow. This made the live tweeting from the sessions far less irritating for the Twitter followers of the delegates (most of the frustration from those watching a livetweeted conference is that they can’t tune in real-time and find out more, leaving them feeling left out) and probably attracted many of those remote observers to want to register to be there next year. Great move and fantastic idea. (p.s. it was also helpful for me as I was moving slowly one morning after dancing in Paris until the wee hours – I could still watch what was going on from my hotel room)

   
   

6. You Can’t Go Wrong with a City like Paris. More conference organizers should think about this. Picking cities where people really want to go (or haven’t been) is a good way to attract a diverse audience. I think that Le Web saw participants from 46 countries in total. Paris is a great destination for bringing people from all over. I’d love to see a conference in Istanbul or Marrakech or Tokyo or Buenos Aires…somewhere I’ve been dying to go forever. It would give me a great excuse! Having it in English is also a bonus, being the Lingua Franca (for better or for worse).

   
   

7. There Were Multiple ‘Accessible’ Ways to Attend. Yes, the conference was pricey, but there were alternative ways to attend. Students paid 1/10th the cost and there were 100 spots for official bloggers. I also heard through the grapevine that if you appealed to Loic and Geraldine and could show that you brought value to the conference with your attendance, you would get a discounted or comped ticket (but that was never confirmed). I was lucky enough to apply for and get the official blogger pass (thanks for organizing Stephanie!) and tried to keep up my duties by live-tweeting and summarizing as much as I could on my blog.

Lowlights

1. The Boys Club/Techcrunch Cartel – Although I heard from multiple people, this improved drastically over the previous year(s) (I haven’t been since Les Blogs 2, before the ‘club’ was really powerful), it was still present. I had several emails, DMs and comments (both on my blog and in-person) from people agreeing with my post on this topic. Michael Slattery commented to say,
   

   “This is their web, not mine. It’s the web of millionaires who rise above the crowd, of giant corporations, of cliques and elites who wield influence and power. Let them do their thing; it was a great show. But let’s organize another show for the other web, the web of small companies that stay small, of unsung bloggers, of the army of anonymous contributors to wikis and open software projects. We could call it “l’autre web” or some such (maybe the “alterweb”), and feature speakers like Richard Stallman, Mitch Kapor, Howard Rheingold, Kevin Kelly, Kathy Sierra and Doc Searls.”

   I like this idea very much. And I loved when Gary Vaynerchuk questioned Loic’s statement that Le Web isn’t a conference, it’s a community with:

   ” OK, if this is a f****** community, then why are we up here talking and not doing a Q&A? I refuse to come back next year unless my entire presentation is Q&A!” [link]

   Le Web is fantastic, but it isn’t a community. There is a hierarchy. Gatekeepers. A closed club. And too many politics that aren’t part of the wider web community attending.

   
   

2. The Food. Why is so little detail paid to the food at Le Web (this has been consistent since Les Blogs) even though it takes place in one of the most amazing dining cities in the world? Next year, I vote for my local genius friends from Faber Novel (Stéphane and Louis) to design the food part of the conference (these are my go-to guides to Paris dining and nightlife btw…I suggest you follow!).

   
   

3. The Panels Were Good for a Bathroom Break. Perhaps this was the point, but there were enough of them that it really detracted from the bright spots in the program. The problems with the panels were that: a. there were usually too many people on them, b. that those people were too homogenous (same type of people with similar experiences and opinions), c. they were given too much time to go on about the same things, and d. the moderators seemed to be picked to bring ‘controversy’ instead of ask smart questions. If Le Web decides to keep the panels, they should look to create better diversity on those panels, pick moderators who will spend time doing homework on their questions, only put four people tops on the panel at a time and limit the time spent discussing each question. Panels, in general, are difficult to do right, though, so instead of a panel, maybe use Gary’s suggestion of audience Q&A with a group of speakers?

Summary

Overall, I enjoyed myself very much in Paris and at Le Web. It was a great show and Loic and Geraldine should be very proud of the work they put into it. The production was impressive and I learnt a great deal.

Other Paris highlights apart from Le Web:

I had the chance to speak the evening before at the G9+ Summit organized by Luc Bretones and others, which was wonderful. I was lucky enough to have Mathieu Chereau from Yeasty Mobs (who also presented Tiger Lily at Le Web during the Startup competition) organize a fabulous Whuffie Tweetup with about 30 guests on the night I arrived in Paris. I got to meet the fantastic group who are doing the translation of The Whuffie Factor (to L’Effet Whuffie), including the generous and delightful Rodolphe Falzerana, his wife Morgane, Anthony Webster (who also helped translate live during G9+) and Habib (no Twitter account yet). I even got to visit the Social Media Clubhouse, a gorgeous pad sponsored by Paypal and others and dreamt up by Cathy Brooks, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells. As I said earlier, I danced until 4am (thanks to my Wingman, Julian Nachtigal who reintroduced me to Bourbon – ouch), I got to stroll around Le Marais for enough time to do damage on my credit card (found the perfect hobo bag), had a date with a local hunk (nothing happened, but the attention was nice), stayed in a lovely hotel I’ve been wanting to stay in for years (it was everything I thought it would be and more), and took many lovely photos of Paris as keepsakes.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat.

I’m happy to say that the afternoon of Le Web picked up and was less of a back-patting fest and more of a focus on the web…even the future of it!

It was kicked off nicely with Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome (and Gnomedex) fame, who brought humanity to the discussion with his ‘Community is…’ presentation. He highlighted that community is not a tool (saying that you are a tool for approaching it like that) and that you need to leave your ego at the door to make it happen. I also love that he stressed the importance of letting go of control and letting leadership emerge naturally. Chris should know. He’s been doing this for many years. I was heartened to hear his refreshing perspective even if some of those jokes were a little lame. (joke)

I was interested to hear that Chad Hurley (YouTube) has an additional business…in fashion! His site Hlaska has some really beautiful products, including these yummy cufflinks (added to my wishlist!). I was very impressed that such a young entrepreneur has so many complex sides to him.

I fell in love for the umpteenth time with Marissa Mayer of Google. She brims over with passion and excitement every time she talks about what is happening and really knows where the web is going. Google is a leader for a reason and I think Marissa is a big part of it. She’s passionate about Google users and being one step ahead of our needs. I drooled over Google Goggles, Chrome (now available for Mac – will be giving it a whirl tomorrow) and her general discussion of how the offline is becoming part of the “connected” world. This is a conversation I was really hoping would come up during the conference and she really delivered.

I had to run before she was finished, but I was also enjoying the bubbling do-gooderness (said in a positive way) of Toronto’s Jennifer Corriero (TakingITGlobal) who has an impressive list of ways her projects have led to amazing impact around the world. She has used the tools to create positive world change and I was bowled over by her passion and dedication. She listed 6 archetypes of people who are active in the social change sphere:

1. The Dreamer – people who think big and imagine a better world.
2. The Megaphone – those who take those dreams and act as wonderful promoters of these ideas.
3. The Spark Plug – highly enthusiastic carriers of that message.
4. The Task Master – people who take those messages and put them into executable plans.
5. The Sherpa – all of those who are happy to pitch in however they can to make the dreams come to bear.
6. The Storyteller – those that spread the word that change is happening (or has happened) far and wide.

I was very proud to see another Canadian woman entrepreneur (and a social one at that!) on the stage.

So, all in all, I’m not eating my words from this morning (yet), but I was very impressed on the quality of the talks in the afternoon and how far removed they are from towing the same old company line. Looking forward to tomorrow.

I was taught that if I can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. This applies to my official blogger position at Le Web 09 thusfar.

I can be constructive about this.

One of the reasons I left Silicon Valley area this summer and moved to Montreal is because of the growing sadness I felt for the ‘web’ industry living there. First, let me say this: I was surrounded by some fan-frickin-tastic people. People with heart and soul who were excited about the future of technology, are building the future of technology and daily take personal risks to change the world for the better. But I was also surrounded by a group made up of people who weren’t incredibly positive, who threw their power positions around to feed their own egos (and keep their power) and were more focused on being famous/recognized/etc than they were on making the web a better place.

And the group of negative people got me down. Daily. I did my best to ignore them and do good work, but the truth is that my faith was being shaken by the fact that the worse their behaviour, the more they were rewarded and, it seemed, nobody could speak up to stop it. Anyone that did would be locked out of the cartel that exists. Whether it was a woman I know who refused to go on a date with a prominent blogger and was told that because of this, she would never have her startup reviewed; or the person who questioned the bias of another blogger who was then locked out of every future event that blogger was connected to. And the power grew and people grew more afraid to speak out.

That didn’t feel like the community I fell in love with so many years ago. It felt a great deal like the world we were supposed to be changing. In essence, the worst parts of the offline world – with it’s hierarchies, gatekeepers and power mongers – were becoming firmly entrenched in the new media that was supposed to circumvent this behaviour and create a new frontier. I was losing faith. And that is the last thing I want to do. There is so much hope left in the world. I still believe the good guys/gals will finish first.

But here at Le Web 09, I feel like I’m staring that ugliness right in the eye. The program is mostly made up of the members and sycophants of the cartel mentioned above. It’s only the morning of the first day and a big part of it has been filled with egos and posturing. I was really hoping that Le Web would actually be about ‘The Web’ – where it’s going, where it should go, how do we drive it in positive directions, the diversity of issues that we are still facing that are creating challenges for web-citizens, really ground breaking technology, visionary people and how we can all get involved in this change – but it isn’t. It is about a small group of friends and how they use/benefit from the web: Le Clique.

I will continue to stick around because there ARE a few bright spots coming up: danah boyd, Kevin Marks, Violet Blue and a handful of others who are sure to talk about brave new worlds and not use their time onstage to kiss up to the cartel. And I will report on their talks as well as others that I hope will really change my mind and restore my faith.