The thing about useful stuff is: Techcrunch UK closure

Techcrunch UK closure - the final post Thursday, December 14, 2006

The last Techcrunch UK post is reproduced here (given it was taken down!)

Last year another senior executive at Six Apart didn’t appreciate the feedback from one of the Brits attending and this year it seems the same it true again. A case of Loic having a case of the Trotts? So this (hopefully) is my last post on the subject of Le Web3. I personally thought my comments on it were honest and tame in comparison to the rest of the web community but it seems not. Although Loic has not updated his own blog, he has been kind enough to post a comment here on TCUK.

“Sam. There is no word to qualify you and this post. You are just an asshole.” (Loic Le Meur)

At least the comment was short, straight to the point, and clear in its point of view which is more than I can say about the conference and even though I don’t agree with Loic’s opinion, at least we can have an open honest two-way debate.

Let me be very clear here. I too have had the pain & pleasure of organising my own events, not on such as grand scale as Le Web. It is sometimes a thankless task. Organising any event is like a Swan. On the surface it needs to look beautiful and run smoothly but you know underneath its legs are kicking madly which often happens in the background at events, as organisers rush around. So I have no doubt that Loic and his team worked really hard and I congratulate them for their superb organisation, speaker roster, sponsors and attendee list etc. and let me add, it’s not Loic’s fault that some of the invited expert speakers chose not to say anything interesting.So I fully understand that Loic must have felt totally pissed off with my post but all I said was what many people spoke to me about in the corridors at the event. Remember the saying “there is no failure just feedback”. Of course my small sample may not be reflective of the wider audience and if not, then I am sure those people will either comment about it here and let me know what they think but hopefully in a more succinct manner than Loic. Personally Loic your best option is to post your own views, on your own blog and then let us all “openly” comment back on your thoughts. If the majority of people indicate I am wrong and that the event met the mark and/or exceeded their expectations then I will happily apologise publically here on TechCrunch. But equally if you feel that you may have got it wrong, even slightly, then I guess you have the opportunity to do the same on your own blog and to explain why the agenda was hijacked by French politicians?

So “putting my money where my mouth is“, I would like to announce that TechCrunch UK will be doing a series of seminars and a conference next year as well as a series of smaller meetings in conjunction with friends & partners which have been in the planning for sometime now. For example Simon Grice the organiser of Mashup will be announcing tonight that TCUK will formally be running the event with Simon as of next year.

The first Mashup event will be on February 22nd. The event will aim to look at what technologies - microformats, RDFa, FOAF, OpenID, widgets - and companies we can expect to all be talking about in 2007. The title of the event is called “What next, Web 3.D?” and a complete list of speakers and the signup page will go live shortly after tonight’s Mashup.

We are also planning an Enterprise 2.0 event in mid-March called “Barbarians at the Gates” in conjunction with Ralph Cochrane who organises the CIO conference and speakers from the Enterprise Irregulars.

There is also a large open summer party (BBQ) and daytime event called “the bloggers are back in town” in the planning right now. There will also be a series of “secret” TechCrunch parties that will be done by word-of-mouth only. The next is on the 21st February. The last one worked really well. Of course there will be more regional networking events planned like NW Startup 2.0 event in Manchester, the next of which is in Leeds on 1st February.In addition to the above events, we are planning a series of OpenSpace events, a collaborative idea proposed by Ryan Gallagher (Connect Me Anywhere) and a concept brought to my attention by Judy Gibbons.

Finally TCUK will look to organise a conference in September which will enable us to put into practise what I have learnt from other events both good, bad and ugly.