This is not the european web community coming together. This is the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Circus making a stop in Berlin.
This is how I summed up the atmosphere after the first few days of the Web 2.0 Expo Europe last year. “They are just doing their usual show.” was a complain I heard from many, “We have heard it all many times before. Do they think we’re dumb?”
What a difference a year makes. Following the communication of Techweb and O’Reilly in the last weeks you could really hear them making a huge effort of doing it right this time. I mean they could have easily said “Screw you, guys, we’re going to another city where people actually appreciate what we’re doing.” But instead they came back and asked for a second chance. And this time they are not bringing us “the gospel of Web 2.0″ but are doing a lot to empower the European web community.
This is why they brought up Yossi Vardi on stage right after Tim O’Reilly’s keynote because he is a huge investor in European startups and this is why they have a lot more speakers from Europe throughout the conference.
But I think this is all part of a bigger change of mindset for our friends from the US. If you have listened to the tech-podcasts like Twit in the last months it’s easy to pick up that the whole tech-industry in the US is scared shitless of the financial crisis. And interestingly, this (in combination with a much worse perception of the US in the rest of the world due to eight years of W) is bringing a never-heard-before humbleness to the participants of this industry. Mark Pohlmann (who gave me the general idea for this post) told me that yesterday for the first time ever, a US-journalist asked him “What are the trends in Germany?”
Tim O’Reilly talked about the possibilities of the economic downturn in his keynote and I think losing our pride is one of the best possible outcomes of this. With the organizers of the Web 2.0 Expo Europe creating a general atmosphere of humbleness this conference has huge potential of helping to create creative and passionate ways to come out of this crisis with a new focus on and approach to web engagement that actually matters.
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