Well, the conference is over, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Did I hear much that was new? No - if you're fairly well read on the topics of society, business and marketing as it pertains to web, you wouldn't have heard much new - but it was nice to jump out of passive text mode and get involved in active discussion about the future of these things.

Monday's only real disappointment was the Can (Canadian) Blogs Influence (Canadian) Politics? panel. It was established fairly early on that the answer was "no", that it was likely a purely anecdotal thing, though the candidates and parties were watching some blogs carefully particularly around election time. But overall, there wasn't much there there if you know what I mean. Dan Dickinson, however, had a different view. So maybe it was just me.

Can Web 2.0 Change The World? was something I was particularly interested in since there was someone there from Amnesty (I'm a member). My biggest frustration has always been with the limited ways in which interested volunteers can participate. Some of these charities set up ways of interaction decades ago and that's still the only way you can participate - in the case of Amnesty, it's mostly "give us money" or "come to letter-writing parties". I know letter writing campaigns work, don't get me wrong, but I'd love to see a more organic way that enthusiastic, talented people could volunteer with their strengths - be it marketing, design, web help, tech help, educating the staff, gosh there's a million possibilities. I don't think this was particularly well articulated in the panel but I did go up and speak to George personally after the session. Hopefully the idea will get passed along to someone.

Will the Web Make Us Free? was a super panel - how could it not be with EFF, Lulu.com and the Library of Congress represented. Fascinating talks about copyright, archiving, the 100 year digital file format, the long tail, and more. I could have sat in on a half-day panel just on these concepts alone. Bob Young from Lulu.com was a complete hoot - he was energetic, goofy, enthusiastic, and since I am a hardcore handtalker/waver/gesturer, I have a soft spot for anyone else beset by the same conversational handicap. Of course, when I spoke to Bob briefly after the session and he asked what I did for a living, he seemed amazed that one could make a living at such a thing. *laughs* But that's a pretty common reaction.

General conference notes: phenomenal organization, particularly when you realize these guys pulled it together in NINE weeks. (Good lord.) Catered, too, which was a new one on me - they don't tend to feed the geeks, but then this wasn't targeted at the geeks. The panels themselves were usually great, but not everyone's a great speaker, and it showed, particularly in this smaller, tighter knit type of situation.

More soon. You KNOW I have a lot more to say. :)

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