I made a rather bold statement while at Webcom Montréal 2009, made it on Facebook where it garnered a comment or two: "It's possible I'm at best conference I've been to in years." Why?
First, Montréal, itself, the safest city in the world, said the cabbie. That's a distinction right there, standing in stark contrast to an invitation received not too long ago where an armed guard with a machine gun was offered as part of the transportation package (invitation regretfully declined as I love the folks extending it and the event itself was fascinating - and no, it wasn't to a recognized war zone).
Back to Montréal (that link takes you to the "How Stuff Works" guide to the city). Second largest French-speaking city in the world, which evokes all those years spent in French class and some fractured vocab; great food; easy to navigate. All that and a web conference too.
What got me about the conference were les conferencieres, as the speakers' badges read. Nearly everyone I met had a first career related to something webby and a second career as an artist: Christine works as a web advisor to a social entrepreneurship fund and is orginally an installation artist; Caroline is a web communication expert and writer extraordinaire, author of Quebec's popular blog on motherhood--and two best-selling books; Andre does knowledge management-like consulting to a pension fund and is a photographer; and so it goes. Filmmakers, painters, designers...a city of artists, which made all the presentations that much more interesting.
Claude Malaison and Michel Michioni, conference organizers, have the hospitality touch. There was a welcoming party, a night-before dinner, wine for les conferencieres at lunch (not to mention a room for the speakers to hang out), and an after-party and dinner. Lots of time to schmooze, er, network, er, discuss seriously important web issues...and I ran into some ideas that I'd never encountered before, like Gabe Mac's simple query, "Is the Internet making us immortal?"
Some pics, none of which do la justice to anyone:
First, the view from my hotel room
La mère indigne, Caroline Allard
Claude Maiaison and Clara Shih, with her book, The Facebook Era
Do you?
Your status: Dead or alive?
And how can you not love a city with BIXI ?
