I am working through the monumental batch of comments that people have been kind enough to leave on Get Real in the past few weeks, and I have been remiss in repsonding to many of them, such as Loic's posts and comments (seeLoic Le Meur Blog: I wonder why Stowe does not answer me) regarding some things I said about Les Blogs.

I am totally bored with blog conferences, as I said in several posts over the past months.

Specifically regarding Les Blogs, I had not planned to attend. Then, when I was at Web 2.0, I was talking to a certain someone (I will withhold his name, since I feel he is an innocent in this situation), and he asked me if I would like to speak at Les Blogs again this December -- note that I had spoken there in the spring. At the time, I was contemplating a trip to Europe for my new series, The New Visionaries. So I said, ok, if you'd like me to speak, I will arrange my travel around that. I had also thought that at least one or two of the European visionaries I want to interview for the series might be attending. Would have been a nice hat trick.

On returning from Web 2.0 I did not hear from Loic, and I expected him to follow up on the invitation from Mr. Anonymous, since I presumed that the invitation was just that: an invitation. Not an invitation to put my name in the hat. But, nothing. So, wanting to resolve travel and to coordinate meetings with various people, I sent an email to Loic, asking what's the story? And Loic's response was this:

Hi Stowe thanks for your interest ! I am thinking about how to finalize the program and it is difficult to have the same speakers list of course as this was only 6 months ago

Thanks, let me come back to you asap !

Loic

Which was the last I heard from him. So I took that as a no.

But it's alright, since the launch of the series has been pushed to January, and I still have an additional 5 or 6 Americans queued up for interviews in the Bay Area in January. My plan now is to head to Europe in late January or early February.

Regarding my first post about the recent Les Blogs, I couldn't resist the picture of Marc Canter snoozing. I love Marc, but it was impossible not to post it as an emblem of my ennui regarding blog conferences. And it is initial post that I made the comment about being bored, and not the subsequent post. I didn't delete that statement from the later post. But if I had done so, what are you implying? That I am trying to cover up the fact that I am bored with blog conferences? I don't think that's a secret.

And Loic doesn't mention the second post I wrote with Loic showing off his N90 cell phone.

Third Les Blogs post: Mena's meltdown was being widely discussed, and I joined in (see A Kinder, Gentler Blogosphere), but I didn't think of that as a dig against the conference per se, just coming in on the side of the angels in this "imbloglio".

Although, come to think of it, I am not a big fan of displaying the backchannel at conferences. So I can level that criticism to Loic and the conference organizers, since it was the conspicuous nuisance that led to the eruption of ill will, hostility, and incivility, there.

I like backchannel discussion, but nearly everytime I have participated in an event where the backchannel was displayed behind the podium has led to -- at the least -- confusion and interruptions, and -- at the worst -- some sort of acrimonious flareup like the Mena meltdown.

At the recent Symposium on Social Architecture, where I was chair, we had decided not to display the backchannel. In one session, Mary Hodder and Kevin Marks were showing some materials from a laptop, and in the display was the backchannel: which led to a spontaneous discussion of the pros and cons of displaying the backchannel. And that really was just another of the interruptions that displaying backchannels can cause, since their topic was really about something else altogether.

Anyway, Loic, I hope that clears up all your comments and questions.