2 posts and columns on Werner Vogels

An American (Well, Lots of Them) in Paris for Le Web

in News on December 8, 2008 at 10:00 am PT

BoomTown just got to Paris, as in France, to attend and moderate sessions for the third annual Le Web conference. Le Web is organized by Loïc and Geraldine Le Meur, with 1,500 people signed up to hear a range of Internet players, many of whom are from the U.S., tomorrow and Wednesday. Silicon Valley speakers include Marissa Mayer of Google, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Dan’l Lewin of Microsoft. And some interesting European execs include France Telecom Orange Chairman and CEO Didier Lombard and Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO and co-founder of a very interesting fashion sale site, Vente-Privee.com.

Kara Visits PICNIC in Amsterdam (and Hopes Head Does Not Explode)

in News on September 23, 2008 at 8:08 pm PT

BoomTown is now right next to a canal–no falling cows in sight!–in Amsterdam, here for an unusual digital conference called PICNIC, which starts Wednesday and runs through Friday. With sessions like “We Think: The Power of Mass Creativity,” “The Emerging Real-Time Social Web” and “The Future of Business Creation,” it seems to be a place for big, messy Web ideas. But I am a little worried about keeping my head intact.