Flash Back
It’s been a hell of a busy month. So busy that I didn’t even have time to log all the things I attended and participated in, let alone to cover everything that has been launched. So the next couple of posts will be more for the archive, to document what’s been going on and what has been launched in the meanwhile.
The first of March, there was the B-wards, the ‘un-awards’ of the Belgian blogosphere. I co-sponsored the event and dropped by to socialize with all the bloggers that showed up. Obivously, Maarten Schenk was live-streaming the entire festivities, and so those who couldn’t make it still had the chance to tune in over the innerweb. Pretty cool location too, Love Lucy. A lounge concept on the top floor of a high building, with a view over the South side of Antwerp like I haven’t seen one much. I loved it. The funny thing is that two of the five awards were given to blogs of whom neither I, nor the other ‘regular bloggers’ were very aware of. Then again, with fair voting, it just comes to show that as long as you have a trusted flock of followers, you can easily score good points. Pictures of the event can be found on Flickr. The guys from Enchante, the dedicated blogger advertising network Adhese, hired Ine to take really cool pictures of the bloggers who wanted to be shot. Here’s mine :-)
Next on the list was de TechDays in Ghent (11th, 12th and 13th of March), where I had to present the ‘Digital Living Room’ for three days in a row. I had great fun, and so did the 5000 attendees. With over 60 demos given, I had a great opportunity to get in touch with people right at the heart of their interest: technology. These three days have given me more than I expected in terms of connections with all sorts of people. From technology lovers to IT Pros. I learned quite a lot as well from listening to my audience. It’s really amazing what some geeks cook up at home to fully enjoy their products. The demo-talks I’ve been giving were about the setup of Windows Home Server, Media Center to display pictures and videos that were stored on that server and XBox 360 as a media extender to the Media Center PC, to demonstrate you no longer need a PC in you living room to consult data stored on another location in the network. The XBox360, when used as an extender, uses the Media Center interface, which makes browsing through your pictures and videos a really pleasant experience.
Then on March 19th was the PLUGG conference in Brussels. Plugg is a one day conference focused on raising global awareness for European start-ups in the Web / Mobile 2.0 field. In combination with an impressive list of speakers - one by one visionaries and/or field experts from a variety of industries and all with ties to Europe -, there will be a place for 20 hot start-ups to showcase their business ideas and realizations. I sponsored the event with the kind help of Microsoft’s LSE (Local Software Economy) initiative and had a booth there where I handed out brochures and gadgets while showcasing some cool videos from Microsoft’s Research department about ‘visions of the future’. In between the sessions, it was pretty busy but I got a lot of time left to interact with start-ups from all over Europe who enrolled in the competition. This was a really cool event, hopefully the first of a yearly tradition since it’s really important for young startups to get a chance to come into the spotlight. The next garage startup might very well be slumbering somewhere in your very neighborhood. Obviously, more pictures of the event are on Flickr.
The rest of the days were filled with planning the calendar of the next fiscal year (as good as possible) and preparing the super cool event I’m planning in Amsterdam, together with Serge Van Schie from DPE NL. I’ll write more on that soon.
I realize it’s been a while since I posted, but I moved houses this month as well, and I had to wait a few weeks for the cable company to come hook me up. The time I spent in the office was rarely enough to sit down at ease and blog, since there was so much to be taken care of. But, since I’m now back online, I can finally get back to relaxing evenings of online fun. Stay tuned :-)
