The reactions to the conference are quite interesting in their polarisation.  Seems everyone got something, generally characterised as something that fitted with their own paradigms, and of course the tendency is to discount the rest.

Personally I told myself to have an open mind before I got there, and that paid off.  I even learned from the “web is free” thing, listening to some some very smart people, from Amnesty, and GiveMeaning.

Observations:

• bloggers are amateurs – most didn’t exist 2 years ago.  Their presentation skills for large scale conferences will be mixed;  and thats ok. Steve Rubel looked like a deer in the headlights, but no-one questions his influence.  The VC guys had a field day, because they were preaching to the converted. Tara had mixed reviews – but style aside, her message is dead on, and worth listening to.
• in a time of disruption, polarised views are normal.  This is especially the case with the recollection of the dot com crash which was only 6 years ago.
• its easy to confuse tools (blogs, wikis, tags, software as a service) as business models, because they are new.  This would be akin to calling the hammer a business model.  Some money is made buying and selling hammers, but the real value lies in real estate and carpentry.
• Corporate blogs are oxymorons.

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