Enthusiastic Web 2.0 Expo Keynotes
Last week’s Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco was have been a bit smaller than in years past. The economy is hitting some conferences pretty hard these days. But, that slow down didn’t seem to have any effect on the keynote line up. In fact, I think I enjoyed this set of Web 2.0 Expo’s keynotes more than any of the other Expos over the last three years. It certainly didn’t hurt that most of the people that took the keynote stage were comfortable and confident delivering not only their message, but their enthusiasm.
Douglas Rushkoff totally took me by suprise. He came out to sit on a chair on stage. In my experience, speakers that come out with a chair usually indicate a very static delivery is on tap. Douglas wasn’t having any of that, however, even at 9 in on a Thursday morning. He emoted quite well from a semi-seated position.
He didn’t stay seated for the entire presentation either. During his presentation as he made various points, he popped out of his chair and moved about as he made his various points.
You’d have never known it was 9AM on Friday by the way that Heather Gold gave her humor-packed presentation. Well, you might have known it by the coffee in your hand, but she certainly showed no ill effects from presenting in the first slot of the morning.
Scott Heiferman was a pacer, moving quickly from one side of the stage to the other in a way that was close to my Dear Speakers advice, but the rest of his energy was certainly put to good use. I caught the following shot as Scott channeled Steve Ballmer’s infamous “Developers, Developers, Developers” mantra.
Perhaps my favorite catch of the conference was this shot of John Maeda in action during his presentation. It’s not often that a speaker offers up such a unique expression. It totally goes along with his story of finding taxi cab receipts for sale in a vending machine at La Guardia and noting that there just might be a problem with micro-corruption.
Jeff Veen wrapped up the keynotes with a great presentation on designing for big data. I’ve always liked Jeff’s writings and thoughts and seeing him present in person cemented that respect.
It was really nice to see this group of keynoters come out swinging. A set of boring presentations can totally kill the vibe of a conference—something you just don’t want to see in a economically affected year when other things are working against the event. That didn’t happen this year at Web 2.0 Expo. The keynotes definitely held up their end of the deal.
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