Second day is starting with Mena Trott, President and co-founder of Six Apart. Her presentation is linked with “being more civilian while blogging”. Good point.

Yesterday evening, I had the chance to meet Rodrigo Sepulveda. At last! Very nice guy, interesting discussion about its new company vpod.tv, which is about Video Publishing On Demand. “On Demand”, outch, has it something to do with IBM On Demand ;-) More information “when we will be ready”, Rodrigo hates vaporware. It seems to be promising!

On the way to the Monday Evening Event, I met Adriana Cronin-Luka, who is a “special geek” in the sense that 1) she is female (you should have seen that ;-) and 2) she likes pretty much … guns. So, be careful! (hey, just to be sure, I am *joking*).

The Party was really crowdy, not so much to eat (it seems to be a constant common denominator – BUT, this time, I went to the McDonald’s before ;-). So, I decided to have a tour of Paris (I haven’t been here for quite a long time). Beautiful!

Galeries Lafayette

Tour Eiffel

Arc de Triomphe

Champs Elysees

I must admint, to close properly this evening, I “visited” the Virgin MegaStore ;-)

Dave Siffry, CEO of Technorati, is also participating and exchanging his blogger experience (about finding the time to run a company *and* blogging *and* having a family. Umh, it remains me something ;-).

Jeff has moderated a panel about VC, angel, buyer and entrepreneurs, represented by David Hornik, Jeff himself, Simon Levene, and Rodrigo Sepulveda. Some good stuff, nothing really new for myself. The message is clear: finding investements is possible, interest is again increasing for techno start-ups, back to the roots concerning business models and managing efficiently your company.

I will remember this presentation for a long time because Jeff did his presentation with a Mac (was that *really* necessary?) and he had some issues with the screen resolution :-) What a mess to change this little option. Dave Siffry had to help, have a look at the picture below.

The Mac myth is going down and down and down. Russell should agree, you remember?

So, Loic has opened the conference. About 350 participants (150 turning down), 25 countries. Wow, great atmosphere.

I already have great contact with great people: Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Simon, Kevin Anderson (BBC journalist, no blog? come on Kevin ;-), Marc Canter, Anina, Jeff Clavier, Suw (who likes chocolate and vodka ;-), and Marc Goldberg. So, I think I can go home now :-)

Anina, Marc and Robert

Jeff and myself

Shel and Robert

It is now their turn!

[via sun.com]

Some figures about SUN:

• 4.5 million Java developpers
• OpenSolaris community of 10’000 members
• 196 million downloads of Java
• 53 million downloads of StarOffice and OpenOffice
• 1 billion Java mobiles

First, having seen tremendous momentum with the Solaris Operating System (OS) as free and open source software, Sun is making the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 Management software, and Sun developer tools available at no cost for both development and deployment and further, is reaffirming its commitment to open source this software. Second, Sun is announcing that it is integrating all of this software along with the Solaris OS into the Solaris Enterprise System, the only comprehensive and open infrastructure software platform available today.

Included at no cost in the new Solaris Enterprise System are:

• The award winning and open sourced Solaris 10 OS, with the recently announced PostgreSQL database;
• The entire Sun Java Enterprise System infrastructure software platform, including the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, Sun Java Integration Suite, Sun Java Communications Suite, Sun Java Application Platform Suite, Sun Java Availability Suite and Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite;
• The N1 Management Software including the Sun N1 System Manager, the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, the Sun N1 Grid Engine;
• All tools for C, C++ and Java development, including Sun Studio 11, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 and Sun Java Studio Creator;
• SunRay ultra-thin client software;
• Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.

Google is supporting the Word AIDS day.

[via TimesOnline]

Below, the 15 first “business brains”. Interesting to see Jim Collins at the 6th place, Kjell Nordstrom at the 9th, Scott Adams at the 12th. Otherwise, no big surprise.

1. Michael Porter (2)* Harvard strategy specialist
2. Bill Gates (20) Founder of Microsoft
3. C. K. Prahalad (12) LBS strategy man
4. Tom Peters (3) Leadership consultant
5. Jack Welch (8) GE’s ex-CEO and celebrity
6. Jim Collins (10) Author of Good to Great
7. Philip Kotler (6) Kellogg’s marketing guru
8. Henry Mintzberg (7) Promotes Managers not MBAs
9. Kjell Nordstrom & Jonas Ridderstrale (21) Funky Business exponents
10. Charles Handy (5) British portfolio worker
11. Richard Branson (34) Entrepreneur and Virgin flyer
12. Scott Adams (27) creator of Dilbert
13. Thomas Stewart (37) Intellectual Capital author
14. Gary Hamel (4) Strategy consultant
15. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (31) Blue Ocean Strategy duo

Wow. Three days in Moscow for the first International Life & Pension conference. Great (but exhausting) event! About 160 participants from 19 countries, 94 companies represented. Good contacts :-)

First, a beautiful flight from Zurich to Moscow

Great view from the Hotel Baltschung on the Red Square

ecenter stand at the conference (Nick and myself)

The ecenter presentation

There are *still* a lot of needy and homeless in France, our soooo developped country. We are talking about 10% of the population. As Bono is used to say “Too many”.

I am not used to talk about typical French-oriented topic but I would like to take my hat off to all these volunteers who are supporting and making this French charitable association work so efficiently and humanely. You, mostly as non-French, don’t know it, it is called Les Restos du coeur – Restaurants of the Heart. Its three main goals, as an official non-profit organization, are:

1. distribute free food packages and meals to the needy and homeless
2. support their economical and social re-integration
3. generally speaking, fight against poverty in all its forms

This great association was created in 1985 by Coluche, a famous French humourist and comedian who died in 1986.

Les Restos du Coeur are very professionally and efficiently managed, a lot of retired persons are helping for example, and bringing their huge experience in the association (logistics, IT, admin, etc.). Have a quit look at the figures, it gives you also a first impression about the catastrophic number of people in France who are in need…… For the period 2003/2004 (winter-period):

• 650’000 persons supported
• 66.5 million meals distributed
• 43’000 volunteers
• 467’000 private donors
• 1’900 locations around France

With its very cost-effective structure, the association can invest more than 90% of the donation directly in the different support activities. Great.

As I said at the beginning, respect! If you want to donate (hey it is good for your taxes – just for the French donors), it is here.

[via Tom Peters]

Wow, I haven’t seen that yet, *but* I am convinced that I will… And for those who know me: no, no, no, I have *never* done that. On the other hand, it depends who is on the other side of the line ;-)

But now, at least for men, social norms have relaxed to a new level. Many times in the past year I’ve walked into an airport men’s room and seen a lone man standing at a bank of urinals, actively engaged in a hands-free conversation with someone hundreds of miles away, presumably with a hidden bluetooth headset in his ear. These people inevitably speak in extra loud voices, as people speaking on cell phones in public often do. So, it’s hard not to hear about the latest deal their trying to close, or the new investment idea their discussing.

I guees the call of the greenback makes it difficult to wait two minutes to make the call. After all, cash is king. But, I personally refuse to take part in this latest cultural development. And, I’ll hang up on anyone who calls me if I hear the sounds of the airport bathroom in the background.

As Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) says:

To my fellow Americans, have a great Thanksgiving Day. Everyone else, please hate us a little bit less at least for today. Most of us mean well. We realize it doesn’t always look that way.

And as I know that some of you, my dear readers, are coming from the US ;-)

I wish you all a happy thanksgiving, do not eat and drink too much ;-)