Once again, this edition of Lift Conference has been inspiring, at different levels. Inspiring, thought-provoking talks, format, overall design, experience area.

And people.

Short or longer exchanges, moments, with people (image) unlocked this last inner tiny resisting bolt.
Time for change.
I’ll remain engaged on the sides of Sosoftware, which I am member of the Board of, as a strategic and marketing advisor. Besides this, I would like to explore other tracks, bridging my interests, experience and skills to help other projects, companies, people in the vast field of #digital #marketing. To be specified, yet.

What do you think? Your take? Ideas, maybe?

The image speaks for me (thank you all).

Special thanks to Sevket, designer.

And to Bread-and-Butter for the original poster of Lift and for the overall lift’s design, part of Lift’s success, I am convinced.
(The role of art in interaction, events, has been discussed in René Paré’s workshop)

See this great image? It’s the work of @MAMK, a brillant -human- mind met during last Lift Conference, on which he mixes many elements not necesserally linked at the beginning.
It’s a story of addition, in addition of being a story of connections and people.

When I think of the 3 coming days, I stumble upon some random thoughts:

- How many iPads will there be among the roughly 1000 participants? (I want to see and touch one !) Remembering back to 2007′s conference, not everybody had a laptop! (me included)
- Will there be a “check-ins” war at the CICG? ?
- Connected people: some people met at Lift have become friends.
- Connected people: 3 years ago, I was looking around during “networking” breaks, wondering how the hell you “do network”?? Today, I fear not to meet all the people I am looking forward to seeing- again, or for the first time.
- connected people: a twitter list to help connecting people before and during the event
- Connected people: a question: what will change after these 3 intensely rich days? It is (a Lift Conference), every time a unique occasion of intense questioning. New ideas blossom. New vision takes shape.
- what would look like the addition of all the content produced during 3 days? What could it lead to?
- emotion-connection
But first, place to … the people! And to the inspiring program.

This – beautiful – image embodies to me the Lift experience, taken in its broader meaning.
It was taken at Lift Marseilles, here’s the breathtaking slideshow by centralasian, whom I borrowed the image to. It was part of the “Atelier des Ondes Parallèles“, by Etienne Rey.

It is beautiful.

At Lift, beauty is omnipresent. Like in front of this image, you feel inspired, beauty opens out all of your censors, you are more receptive, open.
Lights shed on things make emerge unsuspected shapes, colors. You start seing things differently, under unusual angles.
A connection can be made through intellectual analysis as well as through emotional or human interaction.
Like this suspension, it is moving and you move along, you follow a movement, without knowing precisely where this will lead you to.
Under its light, the prism of colors will overlay over your skin, like a superficial metamorphosis, but, once back to normal daylight, its effects will dive deep into your roots. The roots of a slight transformation.

The link between beauty and connection is one convergent track I strongly believe in. And transformation takes birth at a converging point between beauty and connections, where sharing could be seen as one of the underlying links.
All the heart of the theme: Connected People.

Being more and more connected, not always only with positive aspects, I am very curious and open to what will come up during these 3 days.
For my 5th Lift Conference, I’m ready for letting the transformation go one step further.

And you? Will you be at #lift10? what are your main expectations? Hopes?

Image credit: taken on “Playing Futures”

Kind of. It was a volountary decision to move, to get closer to a kind of center: surrounded by more people, more businesses, closer to the Alps, more cities, countries.

It’s striking how environment shapes your way of embracing life, how it impacts language’s structure, mentality, openness, connections, intimacy, freedom.

My home is just bigger now than before: it integrates my previous life (past, friends, places, memories) to now and here, with a different look at things. It may be the years passing by, an accumulation of experiences, the mix of all those people, blending the notion of before/after, there and here to lead to what I call “my own augmented reality”.

An example of what has changed so dramatically?

Now, I start to slow down at the green trafficlight! You never know…

It’s the sign of integration, isn’t it?
(I still don’t drive on the left lane at 120 km/h! )

Talking about my personal augmented reality, I selected a couple of images, which should talk by themselves:
Click to view slideshow.

The trend started a couple of years ago, when a woman would’ve got an iPod for her birthday.
Not an expensive jewel.
Not a precious garment.
(not a hoover)
No.
Something that she’d call “technology”. But was like a jewel: beauty, design, emotion.

It’s been a turning point.

At this time, I don’t know about any revolutionary impact of the iPad on society, uses, business models or whatever. But I have the feeling that women will like it.

Particularly because men seem to think that their wife will like it! (follow link to see the search on Twitter for “my wife ipad”!). Isn’t it a sign of times changing?

I liked this Tweet in particular:

Inspired by this one, too (French):

Are we witnessing a slight social shift? A breath of freedom for women?

[The hoover is over! ]

A lady told me today: "Merci, Mademoiselle!"

And, as a starting point, I am looking back at 2009 results. It has been a very exciting year on many levels, for Sosoftware, culminating at Telecom, and for me, as a marketer.

As Jean-Claude Biver, charismatic Swiss entrepreneur, head of Hublot, recently stated it in a business review (this site is really missing its point!): working with little (marketing) resources will make you learn creativity, and learn quickly, as far as you are independant, fearless and endurant to work-load.
This is pretty much what I’ve experienced last year. And it fitted perfectly to the wave of social-media being much talked-about and progressively adopted for business purposes. These combined circumstances made it the ideal period to experiment, analyze and learn.

It brought out a big impact on general visibility and, over the months, leads acquisition. The tools have proved to be powerful, reactive, specifically the global mix of digital tools and offline actions. But still, slicing the figures into more specific ROI-oriented results is not yet highly meaningful.
So, in 2009, it’s been mostly the sexy part of the job!

What about 2010?

In order to harvest the fruits of the tools that have been rolled out, to grow and in order to stick to market trends, I will focus my attention on 3 keywords: content, metrics, mobile.

Part of it will still be experimentation: I’m not a fool ! :-)

And you? On what will you focus your energy this year? Do you have 3 keywords that could drive your actions ?

Have I been influenced by this article by Chris Brogan? Maybe. Anyway, reading this article could help you prioritize your actions for the coming year.

Image: taken a couple of days ago, next to my place. This frame inspires me a lot, it can be the metaphor of framing and at the same time the opposite, “framing out”. And it’s always changing.
Credit to @MAMK, who inspired me with his great post.

Technology has made the act of sharing (others content)- to your community-ies (friends, followers, readers…) so easy, a click on “share” on Facebook, a click on RT on Twitter, a blog post mentioning another post, that it has become very easy to shine through others’ content.

But am I really the reflection of what I republish? The “re-publish” notion can be extended to pictures taken at an event, where the people I capture are the value rebounded indirectly on me, the same with quick videos.

At some extent, I would answer in a positive way. Yes. Yes, what I share to my community gives them a good picture of what I like, what I find of interest. Even of my skills. I offer them the value created by someone else. In doing so, it would be hypocritical not to recognize that a slight part of it will be redirected on my own image.

But in my opinion, this can be done in a very transparent way, giving credit to whom deserves it, linking to the source, quoting the original article, quoting the person who published it. Otherwise, it would become “robbing”, as states it Valeria Maltoni in her recent, striking article. Shining through someone else’s content/opinion is easy.

These last weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot on that issue. For 2 main reasons:
First, there’s been a lot of noise around some big event recently, bringing along tons of pictures, videos, tweets, RT’s, etc.. but empty of real meaning. Or there were a thousand of people gathered for a major event that had nothing new to bring to the crowds, or the noise was too big on social networks and the efforts of “translation”, of value- addition too light. Or maybe both !
Secondly, I’ve been recently challenged by a question that sounded like: ok, you share Mashable or Techcrunch articles, great, but this is easy. Implied: what is your real “value-addition”?

So, sharing makes sense when you add your own opinion, colour, take.
Or, better, when you create your own content. Which opens other questions, deserving interest (and another post :-))
This will turn into long-lasting trust into what you think, you share. And, yes, you’ll be a little bit what you share.
But not only.
And you? Did you notice what are the favorite people you follow and why? Do they give a special meaning to the information they share?
I would love to have your opinion!

Image credit to Alex King