# Loic Le Meur Blog

## Traditional media send messages, blogs start discussions

## July 22, 2005

### Rebecca goes after Cisco because they sell routers to the Chinese Security Bureau

Rebecca about Cisco training the Chinese Public Secutiry Bureau on how to filter the Internet for political reasons:

> "The fact that Cisco clearly has no qualms about doing business with the Chinese Public Security Bureau is odious. We should change the law to make it illegal for companies like Cisco to sell networking and telecommunications equipment to police agencies in countries like China where the practice of law enforcement includes things like beating up little old ladies who demonstrate peacefully for their religious rights in Tiananmen Square, routine torture of people jailed without due process, and ongoing crackdowns against political dissent of all kinds."

Thomas Dahlgren, one of Rebecca's readers, says in comments:

> "Apalling, but unsurprising. Cisco is engaged in business that is morally odious but potentially quite lucrative. Corporations do not have a conscience and it is unrealistic to expect them to limit their behavior in the absence of legal or financial consequences."

I remember Nestlé's CEO, Peter Brabeck, saying in Davos a few years ago that "the only goal of a company is to increase value for its stockholders".

Rebecca, what do you think then of Philip Morris killing millions every year ? Probably worse than Cisco selling routers to the Chinese Governement, as a company, they just do their job: increase sales and drive growth.

It is the business based model that is flawed, not Cisco. However, I have no suggestions for a better one at that time, being myself a business person...

Posted on July 22, 2005 at 11:56 AM in Politics, World | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

## July 08, 2005

### John Gibson (Fox News) wishes the French would have dealt with the security issues of terrorism threats

Update: the post was dated before the bombings, so I agree my title was a bit misleading (just changed it), but I think Gibson's intentions are confirmed by the note he posted the day after his post, check this one:

"The bombings in London: This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics - let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

What kind of journalist are you, Mr Gibson ? I see your article, Missed Opportunity, as racism and defamation to the French. Actually you could have replaced Paris and the French by any other city and people, I would have thought exactly the same of your words, you are dangerous and I wonder how any media can give you a tribune with such an article. Too bad you don't have a blog, Mr Gibson, too bad you don't have comments on your article, I really wish I would see the reactions of your readers. It is with the kind of words you have that hate and racism like yours spread around the world.

John Gibson:

> "Paris was exactly the right place to pick and the Olympic committee screwed up.
> Why? Simple. It would have been a three-week period where we wouldn't have had to worry about terrorism.
> First, the French think they are so good at dealing with the Arab world that they would have gone out and paid every terrorist off. And things would have been calm. Or another way to look at it is the French are already up to their eyeballs in terrorists. The French hide them in miserable slums, out of sight of the rich people in Paris.
> So it would have been a treat, actually, to watch the French dealing with the problem of their own homegrown Islamist terrorists living in France already."

more:

> "It would have been a delight to have Parisians worried about security instead of New Yorkers. It would have been exquisite to watch.
> But, alas, they picked London. I like the Brits. I like London. I hate to see them going through all this garbage when it would have been just fine in Paris."

Dear Mr Gibson, we have dealt many times with terrorism in France, and I can tell you as well that Parisians and the French are worried about security. Your words are just impossible for me to qualify. Shame on you. Actually I found a few words: articles like this one generate hate and terrorism, you are just like them.

Update: the readers of my french blog want your apologies, Mr Gibson. and another one tells me that Gibson posts anonymously to FuckFrance.com. Just added "nofollow" to the Fox links.

Lots of reactions already, thanks: Robert Scoble, Dennis Howlett, the Gadget Guy, Joi, Neville, Doc, and many others.

Posted on July 8, 2005 at 10:05 AM in France, Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (65) | TrackBack

## July 07, 2005

### Chirac pisses off the Brits before the G8

I had missed this one, thanks Jeff for pointing me to it:

> "An astonishing diplomatic blunder by Jacques Chirac soured relations with the UK after it emerged that he had mocked Britain’s cooking and reputation for trustworthiness.
> His comments, made during a private conversation with President Putin of Russia and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, were overheard and printed in the Libération newspaper yesterday.
> “The only thing that they have ever done for European agriculture is ‘mad cow’ disease,” M Chirac said of the British. “You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. It is the country with the worst food after Finland,” he told amused colleagues during a meeting in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Sunday.
> M Chirac’s remarks are being seized upon as evidence of “Old Europe’s” true feelings towards Britain when relations have been severely strained by the budget row at last month’s European Union summit. "

Chirac has lost the French's trust (and vote) on the European constitution, lost the Olymics, and has now the lowest ever trust polls of the French as a President, I wonder how he allows himself to do such bad jokes. We need a new President.

Posted on July 7, 2005 at 08:36 AM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## June 02, 2005

### France is on strike today

Reuters:

> "The rail strike was called by four trade unions at SNCF, representing 70 percent of the railway operator's workers. It started at 8 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Wednesday and was due to continue until 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Friday.
> The rail workers' worries about job cuts reflect broader concerns in France about unemployment, the number one concern of voters. The jobless rate held at 10.2 percent in April, its highest level in more than five years."

You can feel it in Paris, less traffic, less emails, many employees stayed home, less phone calls, cancelled meetings...

What's interesting is that the Eurostar and Thalys traffic to the UK, Belgium and Netherlands has been maintained. The French are stuck home but the French public service of SNCF is very careful about foreigners.

France is really going through a crisis these days, saying no to the European Constitution and multiplying strikes.

How do you see these events ?

Posted on June 2, 2005 at 04:07 PM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

## May 31, 2005

### France says no to E.U. Charter: what did you hear in your Country ?

After 50 years of european integration, France said NO yesterday to the E.U. Charter. The first reason according to polls is fears from the French to lose their jobs on account of lower labor cost countries in the E.U.

What did you hear about it in your countries ? What do you think about this major event in Europe ? Has your image of France changed ?

Thanks very much in advance for your comments, I am very interested to have your perspective (don't forget to mention where you are).

Posted on May 31, 2005 at 12:20 AM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

## April 17, 2005

### The French union CGT cuts Bolkestein's home electricty

F. Bolkestein, who created the Bolkenstein EU directive, got his electricity cut in his second home in France by French Union CGT. This is the way some people France see public service unfortunately, independently from what people (and I) think about this directive, wether it is good or bad, I don't see why he would get his electricity cut. What's next ?

Posted on April 17, 2005 at 03:27 PM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (4)

## January 21, 2005

### How do I know France is still a world power ?

Well, our president is in the new jibjab (via Joi).

Posted on January 21, 2005 at 12:53 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## January 17, 2005

### Margot Wallström Vice President of the EU Commission blogs

Markot Wallström. Too bad there are no comments (yet ?) activated

Posted on January 17, 2005 at 07:49 PM in Blogs & politics, Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## December 17, 2004

### Our former Prime Minister blogs and is in the UK Times

Alain Juppé, former French Prime Minister has a blog (comments are filtered though) and makes the news in the UK Times (article only available for free for a week).

Posted on December 17, 2004 at 07:10 PM in Blogging about blogging, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## December 13, 2004

### A new movement launched to defend free speech

All started on blogs and spreading fast. Rebecca McKinnon:

" 1) we believe in free speech – and act to defend it and extend it

2) we believe in direct connection between people in ways which allow us to consider ourselves part of a bigger here and wider us – and we act to bring flows of tools, money and attention to bear on creating channels for those connections to develop

3) we believe in planetary citizenship along international norms – and we act to empower campaigns to make the world fairer, freer, more prosperous and more sustainable."

Check the Global Voices blog.

Posted on December 13, 2004 at 10:02 AM in Politics, World | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## November 28, 2004

### The Ukraine revolution in Kiev in pictures

The Ukraine revolution blog covers it also with many pictures in real time. As Dan Gillmor says, "News by the people, for the people", and live.

Posted on November 28, 2004 at 10:07 PM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## November 26, 2004

### A Ukraine Revolution blog follows the events

Ukraine events can be followed on this Ukraine Revolution weblog, written from there.

Posted on November 26, 2004 at 10:27 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## October 10, 2004

### A new Italian political blog

PoliticsMatters is a collective blog in Italian and English that just launched. Of course, the US elections and its Worldwide effects is one of the main topics, seen from Italia.

Posted on October 10, 2004 at 10:12 PM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## September 02, 2004

### The 5th worldwide forum on electronic democracy

This year the 5th worldwide forum on electronic democracywill happen on September 30th in Issy les Moulineaux. Online registration is available and it is open to all.

André Santini hosts a round table on net campaigns. Joe Trippi, who was behind Howard Dean's campaign will be one of the main speakers.

I was invited to speak on another conference about "the new tools and electronic means of expression", organised by the Club de l'Hyper République, a big thanks to Eric Legale.

Our friend Joi Ito was selected amongst the top 25 worldwide who change the world of Internet and politics, you can support him if you like by voting for him here.

Posted on September 2, 2004 at 04:46 PM in Blogs & politics, Conferences, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## August 16, 2004

### France and Germany lost control of Europe

This article of the WSJ today reminds me of Internet startups growing fast enough so that their VCs fire the CEOs to get going. France and Germany started it and they have just been fired, probably they are too slow now with the 10 new members.

"Since the European Union's birth almost 50 years ago, the Franco-German axis has been driving its agenda. So when the new president of the European Commission announced the composition of his Commission late last week, it marked the end of an era.

As Jose Manuel Barroso read the names of the Commissioners he had chosen for the key portfolios, it became clear that the center of gravity has shifted. France and Germany are no longer calling the shots. Almost none of the duo's central demands were met while all important economic positions went to avowed free-marketers.

It all began when 10 new members, mostly from the former Communist East, joined the EU in May. In contrast to Paris and Berlin, the newcomers pursue largely free-market policies and support the U.S. war in Iraq. Heralding that tectonic shift in the balance of power was Mr. Barroso's own nomination in June. France and Germany had pushed for Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Particularly in foreign policy, Belgium had been toeing the Franco-German line.

But in this new Europe, Portugal's Prime Minister was chosen instead. With his free-market credentials and support of the U.S. war in Iraq, it was hard to imagine a greater setback for the Franco-German ambitions in Europe than Mr. Barroso's nomination. But last week it got even worse for Berlin and Paris."

Posted on August 16, 2004 at 11:28 PM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## August 14, 2004

### A French Employee's Work Celebrates the Sloth Ethic

This article will improve again France's image abroad.

"Corinne Maier, the author of "Bonjour Paresse," a sort of slacker manifesto whose title translates as "Hello Laziness," has become a countercultural heroine almost overnight by encouraging the country's workers to adopt her strategy of "active disengagement" - calculated loafing - to escape the horrors of disinterested endeavor."

"But she works just 20 hours a week writing dry economic reports at the state electric utility, Électricité de France, for which she is paid about $2,000 a month"

Great.

"Her employer of 12 years was not amused. Irritated that she identified herself as an Électricité de France employee on the back cover of her book, company officials wrote her a stern letter accusing her of inattention at meetings, leaving work early and "spreading gangrene from within," just as her book advocates. They demanded that she appear for a disciplinary hearing, though the original Aug. 17 date has been pushed back to September. That's because Ms. Maier is going on vacation."

Shame on you, Ms Corinne Maier. No, all French people are not like Corinne, some work hard and pay taxes to pay your salary, I swear.

Posted on August 14, 2004 at 07:38 PM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## July 13, 2004

### Fahrenheit 911 factchecks

> Boing Boing
> Fahrenheit 911 factchecks

> Here are Michael Moore's extensive factchecking notes on Fahrenheit 911. Link (via Kottke via Joi)

Let's fact check everything.

Posted on July 13, 2004 at 08:24 AM in Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## June 19, 2004

### French demonstrations actions shut off Prime Minister Raffarin's home power supply

"EDF-GDF, our French Electricity national company managed to shut off power supplies of homes of powerful politicians such as Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

The government plans to partly privatize EDF-GDF and unions started shutting off power supply all around the country. A friend of Mine and entrepreneur, Pascal, got one of his Client stuck in a lift for hours (in French). He calls one of the main French Union, the CGT, terrorists. Many bloggers complain on his note, with nice words such as "Fucking Unionists".

France has a great future, believe us, we are French and we love our country...

Posted on June 19, 2004 at 07:56 PM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## June 14, 2004

### The third political party in the UK is now an anti-Europe one

Just heard it on the late news: Robert Killroy Silk and his anti-Europe party the UKIP got huge success yesterday in the UK.

The Times online article says:

"Robert Kilroy-Silk said today that he was looking forward to "wrecking" the European Parliament after being elected as a UK Independence Party member in the European elections.

Eleven of the UKIP's new MEPs gathered in Westminster this morning to toast their party’s spectacular election success with English sparkling wine."

They never drink champaign in public because it is French !

Hey friends from the UK, what do you think about this anti-Europe raising movement in your country ?

I think it is really bad that we have such parties across Europe.

Posted on June 14, 2004 at 09:52 PM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

### Record low European elections turnout

Europeans do not care about Europe.

The European elections gave 350m voters in 25 countries the chance to vote, but the mood of discontent was also reflected in a record low turnout of about 45 per cent - down from 49 per cent in 1999.

Posted on June 14, 2004 at 07:45 PM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## June 06, 2004

### Presence check the attendance of your Members of the European Parliament

Shame on the low attendance of certain Members of the European Parliament, check your country, here are three examples;

France
Germany
Italy

and all others are there, too ! Thanks Laurent for the link.

Posted on June 6, 2004 at 11:29 AM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## June 02, 2004

### 10 reasons why should a politician blog

I will be talking with Joi at Culture Digitali in Naples about politics and blogs, so I used as a basis what I wrote on the tentative wiki page on Emergent Democracy in Europe, where many other people helped me.

Here is a modified version for Naples (I mainly added the story of Christophe Grébert, who got nearly arrested in France for his blogging):

Why politicians should have blogs ?

1. To get closer to their audience, their supporters

There are not many ways you can currently talk to a politician leader. You can probably listen to him doing a speech somewhere or on mainstream media, on TV, but interacting with him is difficult. He is usually not accessible, his diary looks terrible, when he walks in a market place he is always surrounded by many people. Difficult to get your message to him and even more difficult to start a discussion with him. When he starts blogging and of course if he leaves his comments open, anybody can post a note on his blog, react to his ideas, start their own discussions.

2. To create a permanent open debate with them

The reason why discussions on blogs are different is that they are public. It is like in a political meeting, if you can finally manage to get your voice heard and the politician is on stage, your question is public. It makes a big difference. If there are many people in the room, he has to answer. Here is another big difference to stay on this policital conference questions analogy. Most of the time, there are so many people in the room that you are lucky to get the right to ask one question, he has to answer, but then it stops there, they move to another question and for sure, you had more things to say, many people in the room had also probably comments to make on the question you raised. You had an opportunity to start a discussion not only with the politician, but with the whole room, but it will not start because mainly of time. On blogs, there are no space or time issues, the discussion can run for ever and remains always public, so it gets more interesting. If the debate gets hot, the leader will have to come back on the comments and say something, otherwise just saying nothing can be seen as not having any answer or comment about it.

André Santini, one of the leaders of the central-right UDF party in France, has been using Emergent Democracy tools for a long time in France, forums, chats a chat example, sms and wikis with his team. Of course, André Santini also has a weblog André Santini's blog but looking at his Internet website and regional campaign website that I are quite institutional, the weblog is hidden in a submenu and André Santini does not post very regularly yet on it, without asking many questions to bloggers and readers. The result is a weblog with few comments for the time being and few discussions starting on it.

3. To test their ideas easily and quickly, to enrich them and get new ones

Blogging an idea for a political leader is a very fast way to get feedback. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Ministery of Finance in France and one of the key leaders of the French Socialist Party (PS), posted a note on Arnold Schwarzenegger banning gay weddings in California recently and asked the French readers of his blog what they thought about it. DSK as we call him got more than one hundred comments on his blog bost from people in favor of gay weddings and people against it. They suggested him to read good press articles about it, expressed their views, started a discussion. By reading this for sure DSK's own ideas about it got richer, the feedback was immediate without any logistics involved. Of course one may argue that only the people using the Internet can react. That is right, but fortunately the penetration is getting higher and higher, we have more than twenty people on-line in France and France is one of the least Internet connected country in Europe (-Internet penetration in Nordic countries, anybody ?)

Nobody can pretend that they know everything one hundred people know about a subject, to get back to DSK's note example. The ideas get richer through permanent conversations and written comments even if these are against the original thoughts.

4. To switch the way they talk to people usually from institutional to more personal

Jean-François Copé who is the current French Government's spokesperson and right wing (UMP) candidate to the regional elections, started his blog by posting press releases. I could convince him to open the comments field and leave it open. He got flamed in the beginning quite strongly by bloggers and blog readers telling him he should not communicate this way. People do not want press releases on blogs. They want the politician's voice, exactly as if they were meeting him in person. They want his ideas, his feelings, his humour, his "Etats d'âme". It took some time, but Jean-François Copé and his team got it more and more, they started posting personal feelings, personal comments, and stopped posting institutional communication. This is very new. This is not about a political speech that has been reviewed by ten people, it is about what Jean-François Copé can actually write himself, directly, to the people who want to read him and start talking to him. You have to blog like you talk, otherwise it looks fake and bloggers notice it immediately. The worse thing that happened was that just one day before the regional elections Jean-François Copé abandoned his blog, the last note is a cemetery of the blog, with more than 160 comments from visitors making fun of him. This is of course terrible as his blog is still number one in Google for his name...

5. To better understand the criticism of the people against their ideas

Jean-François Copé's blog is the blog that got the highest number of opponents commenting. My take is that he is both a candidate at the Regional elections and the Government spokesperson which does not help him much. He has been very courageous to leave the comments of the sharper criticisms online. I cannot quote any other experiment that is close to this. Wait a second, Jean-François Copé is a well known political leader and he helps his opponents by leaving their notes on his own blog ! This is courageous, but it would actually be better if he would answer them more, I guess this is a question of investing more time into the weblog and it will come. This is all very new in France. Reading the opponents' voice is actually very interesting, to understand them and better reply.

6. To spread their ideas easily if they are supported by many people, in a decentralized way

André Santini has a section on his campaign site called "Your Weblogs" and André Santini points to blogging solutions to encourage his readers to start their own. This is of course a good way of having supporters blog appearing and talking about his campaign, linking to his blog notes. Unfortunately, listing the friends blogs in a list we call blogrolling is not yet used very much and there are very few people in France for the time being that dare to expose in public their ideas to support a candidate. It will change. We will probably see hundreds of supporters weblogs like Howard Dean had for his campaign, but we are not quite there yet. The politician leaders blogs will link into them and get a lot of audience from them.

7. To raise funds for their cause, party or campaign

I do not know of any experience in Europe of successful political funds raising on the Internet. André Santini has a page where he asks for donations but there is no online payment, it has to be done by paper cheque which is far from being online donations of course, mainly due to French law. This will change in the future.

Unfortunately, I do not know any major political funds raising that happened in Europe, very different to what happened with Howard Dean in the US.

8. To reach a younger audience and help young people get more interested in politics

The Internet is the medium of the young, not only of course, but it is mostly used in Europe by less than 35 years old people. The trend in politics is that less and less young people are actually interested by politics just looking at the higher abstention rate. Giving them an opportunity to start discussions and participate rather than listen to a speech or a TV show gets them more interested into politics. I believe the future candidates who will get it will gather many new votes from them.

9. To create around them network effects

Blogs spread the word bottom-up, not top-down like traditional media. Information spreads fast only if it is interesting, otherwise it stays dead. Information spreads by bloggers linking into it (and standard Internet sites of course) and sending their audience where it originated. The tools that measure these network effects are new kind of search engines that measure the number of links either to a page or to a site. I have been watching on a permanent manner what Technorati, one of these search engines, calls the cosmos of the French politicians blogs. Anybody can measure very fast how authoritative a politician is through his blog and how fast his ideas spread.

Another way of measuring network effects of a politician of course is his rankings in Google on some search words (his name, his ideas, his political party, etc). I am not going to give a ranking here but what is interesting is that in a search on these politicians names, the blogs of their most authoritative supporters or opponents appear very often on the first page, sometimes before their own site or blog.

10. To become famous if you are an unkown politician, or to start a political action, even locally

Christophe Grébert blogs on monputeaux.com. He is a citizen of the city Puteaux, close to Paris.

Christophe does not like the way the city mayor manages the city, spends the public money and says it on his blog, every day. He has been very successful doing that, with hundreds of inhabitants of Puteaux reading and commenting his blog everyday and many national newspapers that talked about his blog.

Christophe criticizes the city management so much that they have tried to stop him for months, the city mayor has even sent him threats over the phone that he recorded and blogged, of course.

He has recently been stopped in the street by the Police Municipale (the local French Police) who tried to arrest him for his blogging. Fortunately for Christophe, the National Police arrived immediately as they found what was happening weird, and let him go.

Christophe was also finally sued by the City Mayor for his blogging, we do not know the outcome yet but I see no reason why he would lose this battle, he just expresses his views. His blogs gets more and more popular and I would not be surprised if Christophe would start getting more involved in local politics thanks to the audience and support his blog provided him with.

I am sure we will continue to see unknown people appear from nowhere, starting playing a significant role in local and one day national politics, as blogs get more and more popular. Blogs give a voice to people, to anybody, and the best news is that the Young people get more and more interested in Politics with them.

Posted on June 2, 2004 at 03:08 PM in Blogging about blogging, Blogs & politics, Conferences, Politics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

### 1.3 million text messages sent to the French Prime Minister last tuesday

So, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, when will you start your blog ?!

via [Howard Rheingold]:

On Tuesday June 1st, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin answered questions online on several Web sites (at premier-ministre.gouv.fr, TF1, Wanadoo, www.e-1789.com and by SMS, via mobile community Freever's website.

The tally is in, 1.3 million text message questions were sent to the Prime minister, reports Le Parisien, beating previous 2002 record held by Jean-Marie Lepen with 250'000 SMS questions. cf previous post.

Posted on June 2, 2004 at 02:49 PM in Blogs & politics, France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## May 31, 2004

### Bush beats Kerry by far in Blogpulse

I have just played with Blogpulse, interesting toy that helps you compare trends for any search word.

Here is Bush versus Kerry:

Posted on May 31, 2004 at 12:38 AM in Blogging about blogging, Gadgets, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## May 25, 2004

### Want to know what Candidate your friends funded for the US Presidential Campaign ?

Interested in observing the US Presidential Fund Race a little closer to home ?

Here is a map of the funding by US cities and also how much and to whom Barbara Streisand has donated (you can search on anybody's name). Quite transparent, the US politics...

Thanks, Bjoern !

Posted on May 25, 2004 at 06:26 PM in Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## May 12, 2004

### "I hate blogs. I'm also addicted to them"

Excellent article of George Packer on blogs, journalism and politics, thanks Doc for the pointer.

"All of this meta-comment by very bright young men who never leave their rooms is the latest, somewhat debased, manifestation of the old art of political pamphleteering, a lost form in this country through much of the 20th century."

"blogs are a new way of doing politics"

Posted on May 12, 2004 at 12:06 AM in Blogs & journalism, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## May 09, 2004

### True Majority sent hundreds of thousand of faxes to Congresspeople

Bjoern Ognibeni sent me an email after our blogger meet up there about True Majority. Probably most of you know about it but sorting out my emails I watched the flash animation and the initiative is very interesting (and the flash very good !).

One of the founders of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Ben Cohen, launched this initiative to "Take Action": "give us two minutes a month, we'll give you a better world. I share Bjoern's views that we would need something like this in Europe. More than 300 000 people signed up and they send thousands of faxes to Congresspeople on action points, such as support affordable housing, support a real peace plan, censure Bush, tell the FCC Democracy needs quality news, etc.

Each time someone signs up to "take action", they send a fax to Congresspeople. I may be the last one to discover this, but I like the idea... I agree with Bjoern, we need something like this in Europe !

Posted on May 9, 2004 at 04:54 PM in Blogs & politics, Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## May 08, 2004

### Estonia: 40% of the street car park payments made via mobile phone in some cities

I wish it would be the same in Paris, I had two fines in the same day in Paris last week, because you have to buy there a street car park paying card available only in certain shops, then get a paper ticket, put it on the car and it is only good for two hours, so if you don't come back, you get a fine. Paying by mobile phone would be really cool.

Micah Sifry pinged me after my speech on the Future of Business in Europe at the WEF, as I quoted some numbers that really impressed me in Estonia.

Here are some hard facts I got from this document on E-Estonia, really interesting.
Ministers peruse draft bills and regulations, make comments and suggestions, and vote entirely online at computer terminals. The system, coupled with the use of digital signatures, eliminates the need to send mountains of papers between ministries for consultation. It gives ministers a possibility to participate in the session from any location. The system, created by Estonian IT companies, saves approximately three million Estonian kroons (192 000 EUR) per year in paper and copying costs.

In the summer of 2001, the Government created a web page Täna Otsustan Mina ("I Decide Today"). Ministries upload all their draft bills and amendments there, allowing people to review, comment on and make proposals on the legislative process as well as propose amendments to existing legislation. Ideas that gain substantial support will be reviewed by competent bodies. Approximately 5% of all ideas are used as amendments to bills.

In April 2002 the Look @ World Foundation started an ambitious training project – the goal being that by spring 2004, 100,000 Estonians will have been taught basic computer and Internet skills. In October 2003 more than 75 500 people have passed the training. Primary feedback indicated that 59 per cent of the participants have become regular internet users.

Since January 2002, the Citizenship and Migration Board (www.pass.ee) has been issuing a new primary domestic identification document - the ID card. In addition to many advanced security features, the card has a machine-readable code and a microchip containing the visual data on the card and two security certificates (long number series), to verify the individual and supply digital signatures. Possible future uses of the card include integration of ID cards and banking cards and various access cards. By the end of 2003, 350,000 ID-cards were issued.

By 2004, all state and local government agencies should be providing services through the Internet, 60 per cent of the population are everyday Internet users.

People all over the country can access the Internet from over 700 Public Internet Access Points (PIAP), 51 PIAPs per 100 000 people (autumn 2003). The PIAP has a special traffic sign, with the @ symbol, showing its location. Most of PIAPs are located in libraries and other municipal buildings across the country.

A survey conducted in the Autumn of 2003 by TNS EMOR indicated that 47 per cent of the Estonian population aged between 15 and 74 regard themselves as active Internet users. Almost all public employees have computerized workplaces. 38 per cent of the population have computers at home and 71 per cent of home computers are connected to the Internet. Most home Internet users have high-speed Internet connections.

Is Estonia leading the way in E-government ? Ross, may be some thoughts ?

Posted on May 8, 2004 at 01:03 PM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

## May 02, 2004

### Video clip of my rant on the Future of Business in Europe panel at the World Economic Forum

So, after a session to prepare for my first Plenary at the World Economic Forum, I asked for your suggestions on how to prepare it and I thank you for your ideas, for those of you who just want the summary I wrote one 20 minutes before my speech and I have read my blog post in front of the European leaders (and gave your comments to them in print - quite fun !), I was quite scared but I think it went Ok, but please please please let me have your comments about my speech (streaming Real Audio and Windows Media player) which is available on the World Economic Forum Website.
The questions I had were very interesting:

Antiglobalization and Social Entrepreneurs: how do feel about that ? Excellent questions, I talked about my good old and close Social Entrepreneurs friends, Ethan Zuckerman (blog Africa and Geek Corp), Daniel Lubetzky (One Voice) and Mel Young (The Homeless World Soccer Cup).

Tax issues in the EU: we (the 15 Old Europe countries) should really adapt to the new 10 ones "hunger to succeed" and not the opposite. I even said "I feel more European than French" and criticized France's 35 hours a week maximum work time law strongly. Somebody told me on the panel "be careful France will not allow you to get back in your Country"

Last question was: you have great suggestions but how do you make them happen... Well, I guess we tried to get our points understood by politicians in the room but I agree, nothing will probably happen.... How should we actually make it happen ?

Anyway, yeah, I really have a French accent, and what do you think about my speech ?

Posted on May 2, 2004 at 03:04 AM in Europe, Politics, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

## March 31, 2004

### The wiki preparing a chapter on European Emergent Democracy in the book

I really thank:

Stuart Mudie
Tobias Schwarz
Scott Hanson
George N. Dafermos
Allan Engelhardt
Phil Wolff
Brieux-Yves Cadat
Ludovic Dubost

for their contributions to the wiki page (and other people that contributed without leaving their name on the wiki, please do so if you like). I understand we have another 10 days to write the chapter on Europe on the book coordinated by Jon.

So now I will work more on it and try to shift from a bookmark list mode to a more written chapter and there is some work... Especially for languages I cannot read (basically all of them but English and French) if some of you could write a short summary of nice stories which happened with these blogs in your respective countries it would be great.

And, oh, some asked (hehe some French people actually who criticized me saying I would ask people to help me for free and then get money, so French !), I am really doing that for fun and to help the emergent democracy appear in Europe so I am not getting paid in any way to do that (I am still unsure the quality/timing of the chapter will be enough to join the book anyway but we would still have some work done on the topic).

Thanks again for all your help, and like George did for Greece and others, it would really help if some of you could now actually write some ideas too in addition to the links.

I like this collaborative work a lot, thanks again, a great experience, now I need to work myself more on it too !

Should anybody new want to add something to the Europe Emergent Democracy page, please feel free...

Posted on March 31, 2004 at 10:04 PM in Blogs & politics, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## March 30, 2004

### The Iraq War Reader

Micah Sifry (yes, brother of Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati), published a book, "The Iraq War Reader" and builds a discussion around political blogging and emergent democracy on his blog.

He is looking for examples of lively online political communities, examples of leaders of institutions blogging in their own voice and responding to comments and of bottom-up communities that are using the web to challenge hierarchical institutions that their members belong to.

Help Micah if you can !

Posted on March 30, 2004 at 11:00 AM in Blogs & politics, Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## March 28, 2004

### Excellent article of Howard Rheingold on e-Politics

Howard Rheingold talks about the Internet's effect on politics in an excellent Businessweek interview.... [via Loose Democracy]

Posted on March 28, 2004 at 12:12 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## March 25, 2004

### Why politicians should be blogging ?

I have just updated the Europe Emergent Democracy wiki page I am writing with a text on why politicians should be blogging.

Of course, my examples are all from France, so I see many european friends have already started adding links to political blogs, if some of you could actually write some details about the experiences of these politicians/citizens in their respective countries or enrich my text with local examples or new ideas, it would be really great.

Thanks in advance.

Loic

Posted on March 25, 2004 at 02:46 AM in Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## March 24, 2004

### European Political blogging & Emergent democracy please help !

I have started a new wiki page (thanks Joi) to try to gather most European experiences on political blogging and emergent democracy as Britt and Jon asked me if I could write as an emergency a european contribution for an O'Reilly book on Emergent Democracy.

There is a high chance I do not meet the date to give back my work but this could serve anyway as a basis to gather information on European political blogging and emergent democracy.

I have had few time to work on it up to now so these are just links for the time being but I will write a summary of some experiences from main politicians such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Jean-François Copé and André Santini in France and write my thoughts on European political blogging on the wiki.

If you have some time to add what's happening in your country of Europe, I really appreciate your help !

Thoughts from any of the 10 countries joining the EU in May would also be a great feedback.

Posted on March 24, 2004 at 07:45 PM in Blogs & politics, Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

## March 16, 2004

### In France blogs (and politicians blogs) go on mainstream TV tomorrow

The France 2 TV team managed by Laura Tenoudji
Following my meeting in Davos with Jean-Paul Chapel of France 2 and the short broadcast he already made, we had a TV interview yesterday for one of the main public TV channel in France, France 2.
Thanks Christie (/maviesansmoi), Jules (/simpoulpement), David et Thomas of the DSK blog (Dominique Strauss-Kahn is one of the most popular politician in France and may be a candidate for the next Presidential elections), Jean-Charles blogmaster of the Jean-François Copé weblog, (the French Government Spokesperson and candidate for the upcoming regional elections) and Mathieu (/boonty) for having participated to the broadcast. I am trying to get as many politicians with any political ideas blogging.
It will be broadcasted tomorrow on France 2, Thursday 17 at 6h45 on "Télématin", the highest audience news broadcast in the morning. In the meantime, here are some pictures of the making-of. Very impressive to see a crew of 4 people during 2 hours for a 3 minutes show.
Thanks again Laura !

Posted on March 16, 2004 at 11:26 AM in Blogging about blogging, France, Politics, Press | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

## February 25, 2004

### Let's change Europe and join me in the Euro Identity Caravan !

Miha Pogacnik is one of the most extraordinary person I have ever met. Miha is a musician and he teaches creativity to corporations through music. Here is what you can find about Miha: "Miha Pogacnik is a diplomat, violinist, business advisor, visionary and genius."
We had a very intense session at the World Economic Forum's GLT event in Geneva last year where he took us through the creation process in music.

Miha is one of the few people I know who wants to change the world (me too !) and one of the even fewer people that actually do it. So I am extremely happy and honored that Miha asked me to join the Euro Identity Caravan.
With all the team helping him, Miha has done something incredible: they "rented" a train that will go throughout the 10 countries who will join the EU on May 1st. Each carriage will carry a group of 20 persons (friends), who are developing one topic in creative conversation:
European Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I will be in this one !), Sustainability and Ecology, Polyphonic Media, Education and Learning, Democracy and Constitution, Interdisciplinary Role of the Art: cultural Wealth of the Regions, The Future of Universities and Science, Social Responsibility, Corporate Strategies in the enlarged Europe
The goal as Miha writes it: Europe needs to define its identity. By inviting the brains of all different areas of Europe: culture, business, science, politics to a one week structured brain-storm we will compose a valuable basement for all of those who want to change Europe in a constructive way.
Therefore the goal of the EICC is to define clear guidelines for the fields of arts, business, politics, academia, media etc. with the focus on a stronger interdisciplinary, polyphonic approach than this is currently done. The guidelines will be published by the end of the week not only in book-format, but as well as inlays for the media partners who will serve the EICC as a soundboard to get these messages above the awareness threshold.
By travelling through some of the new partner countries EICC wants to make its contribution of bridging Europe. It is to be understood as a strong welcome to those joining few weeks later as well as to those who have lost the spirit throughout the last decades or those who are still waiting.
The results of the multicultural mix will result in a book and be presented to the EU Commission in Brussels.
You can participate by joining any carriage of the train, contribute to it and probably spend one of the most interesting week you could ever spend.
I will be blogging the trip, of course, it is April 4th to 11th and I will be joining it as of Tuesday 6th.
Here is the trip:
April 5th - Ljubljana (Slovenia)
April 6th - Budapest (Hungary)
April 7th - Bratislava (Slovakia)
April 8th - Krakow (Poland)
April 9th - Warszawa (Poland)
April 10th - Riga (Latvia) (for the 3 Baltic states)
April 11th - Praha (Czech Republic)
Join us or help us on building the identity of Europe ! What do you think the identity of Europe should be ?

Posted on February 25, 2004 at 06:06 PM in Entrepreneurship, Europe, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## February 20, 2004

### The blog of DSK, a leading French politician who will probably run for President in the next elections

Inspired by all my friends who where deeply involved in the emergent democracy (special thanks
to David, Britt, Doc, Joi, Dan, Howard and many other bloggers for inviting me to join your fantastic discussions on the new democracy and for inspiring me that much).
I have passion with the way citizens can now express themselves.
So I started trying to help politicians in France to understand the blogs (regardless of their political ideas) and spent some time with Dominique Strauss-Kahn's team. DSK as we call him in France will probably be one of main candidate for the next presidential elections and I am very happy that DSK opened his blog this morning.
Of course I am also helping other politicians with different ideas, my point is to see the emerging democracy appear in France and in Europe as fast as possible. I have never been very interested in politics, and I should say it is the first time I am getting very interested in it and hope many other politicians will start as well.
I will need your help to help them get the best tools such as meet-up and others. I regret meet-up was not interested by Europe when I met them last week.
Can you tell me which other leading european politicians have already their blogs online if you know some of them ?

Posted on February 20, 2004 at 03:12 PM in Blogging about blogging, France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

## February 19, 2004

### Our world famous strikes: is France Broken ?

This week there was an air traffic controllers strike in France, that just ended today. Of course strikes are not surprising for any French man, they are part of our lives and we got use to them. I am in London right now and heard a lot about the strike from British friends who got their flights cancelled on account of the strikes. France got again some good advertising today.
Usually people complain about their work conditions and salary.
This time is different. There are two main airports and therefore two ATC in Paris, Orly and Charles de Gaulle. The Orly controllers were on strike most of the week not because of their salary but because their management just wants to move them to Charles de Gaulle, which is very far, it is an half an hour drive !
So French. 12 people I heard cause 60% of the flights cancelled or delayed this week just because they do not want to move to another office. Nobody outside France can understand that. Actually the French start not understanding it either.
These people never learnt what a client is. They have clients, the travellers indirectly and the airlines directly, but they do not understand that they are clients I guess. This is our French term "usager", "user" that replaces client, you should thank them for their service even though you pay it anyway, there is no competition so you have to go through them. In the US, ATC is free. In Europe, it is very expensive. I am not sure the US controllers go on strike but they could as their service is not invoiced to anybody (as far as I know). In Europe they have clients and they do not care.
Also this as to do with general respect of other people. How can they dare to create such a mess for just not accepting to change their office location ?! Ask them, they will probably say it is normal and it is their right to go on strike. They actually got what they wanted as the project was cancelled.
This is about autonomy and ambition. If you are unhappy about your job and are good at it you can probably find another one easily, or better, create your own business. And I am not talking about creating a big company here, I am talking about launching a shop, a very small business, anything. You are right, not all of us are "made" to create businesses. I am just saying that if people are not happy about their jobs or something new to their job like changing location, they should probably try to find the solution themselves rather than cancelling 60% of flights to/from France and disturb so many other people.
This is also about freedom. No boss either in public or private service forces anybody to take a job and stay in it. So rather than go on strike just try to influence the management with other means, why not be that successful in your team so that you could even take your manager's job to change the company or public service you work for yourself, or leave your job and find something else, or go and create your own job in a small business.
I guess this is a question of education. Kids are not enough taught to be ambitious at school, they do not learn what is a client or what is a company. Last time I talked about this issue to somebody or on my blog and I heard this was fixed because at "Lycée" 14-18 years old people were now asked to go one week as a trainee in a company to learn it. One week. Is this a joke ? It is better than nothing but how can a young person really understand how business works in one week ?
Education is key and is the solution. Of course many people would argue with me that most people that go on strike have no other choice than to do so. It may be true when people who have worked tens of years in the same type of job just cannot imagine how they could do something else. It may be true that it is too late for them (which I actually still disagree), but what about their children ? Is there anybody doing something to change how their children will behave, their view of the world, their view of ambition and entrepreneurship ?
As far as the people who go on strike themselves are concerned, I really think there could be training given to them on how they can change their jobs, learn another one, learn to open a shop, produce wine, anything. They just do not realize they could do it.
I had several meetings in the past with French Union leaders. I always ask the same question: "what is it exactly to be a union leader or active member". Most of the time the answer and definition I am given is "Being a unionist is complaining".
I spent an entire week three years ago at the occasion of a TV show with a French union leader. It was very interesting and I will be blogging more about it but basically we kind of agreed at the end of the week that if all the time spent complaining was invested in creating value, trying to find other jobs or even to create their own jobs, much better results would be achieved without having to cause trouble to other people during strikes. The person I spent the week with was a Paris metro driver and he told me he spent half of his time "unioning" that he described as "complaining". At the end of the week he was much less agressive against entrepreneurs I guess and was open to invest more time to create value for his own life and that of his children.
What is your opinion ? How can we improve that issue ?

Posted on February 19, 2004 at 01:28 PM in France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

## February 10, 2004

### Write your letter to America even if you don't vote there

Ethan just pointed us to Voices Without Votes 2004 which allows you to write a letter to America even if you don't vote there.
There are letters from all around the world. If you cannot vote there, write a quick letter !

Posted on February 10, 2004 at 02:55 AM in Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## February 09, 2004

### "We should kiss Europe's ass for reminding us who we are as a nation and who we must be and who we can not be" (Halley Suitt)

Halley has a great post on "Ten Trends of Political Blogging"

Posted on February 9, 2004 at 08:46 PM in Blogging about blogging, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### Joe Trippy at the Digital Democracy Teach In in E-Tech San Diego

"There is only one platform to allow us to take our government back,
THE INTERNET"
applause in the room on mention of "Internet"
"you've (the Internet) have done
you've done something amazing
it MUST SURVIVE regardless of what happens
we are YOU ARE the internet is the most powerful tool ever put into the hands of the avg american
what the system has taught them is that they don't count
that their check is a waste
that their work is a waste
that's what they said about prohibition"

Joi has much better quality pictures than me.

"We are powerful"
"this is the first campaign owned by the american people
build a movement"
I am sitting close to David Weinberger who is doing a much better job than me at blogging live the conference. I have never seen that many laptops in a conference room, you can hear the whole room blogging Joe's speech during the speech, while people in the room and on the Internet discuss what Joe is saying in the E-Tech IRC Channel #etech (on irc.freenode.net).

A live transcript is provided by burtonator on the irc chat. When somebody asked how much Joe Trippy made during the campaign in 2003, he answered $165K, which was immediately commented in the chat room.
Excellent links to follow the conference on the Etech wiki.
people in the line to ask questions
Some participants even blog on the floor
Greetings from San Diego !

The blogging station of Joi

Posted on February 9, 2004 at 06:05 PM in Blogging about blogging, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## February 06, 2004

### Google answers is great, it is changing the way we work

Please judge by yourself, here is the answer I got for $30 plus a $10 tip using Google answers.
This is an excellent answer on a very short period of time (less than 24 hours), for a very small amount of $.
Consulting firms have really troubles in front of them, countries like India and China will EAT us if we do not act fast. The Internet is just making the speed of globalization incredibly high.
The questions asked, their difficulty and the training of the outsourced experts answering the questions will keep going up fast and challenge western consulting firms. I agree, this was a simple question and will not replace a long and tough consulting mission, but one day it may challenge really the consulting firms.
We will not call it oursourcing very soon. We will go and do our MBAs in India and China soon. They will become the reference.
I am amazed, sorry about this for those of you already used to Google answers. I have just tried it and it is great, I think it is going to become a daily tool for my business now.
Thanks Victor for pointing me to this Slashdot article about qualified Western professionals moving to India !!!

Posted on February 6, 2004 at 12:38 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

## February 04, 2004

### Lessons from the Internet Campaign Trail (good article on Dean ups and down)

Lessons from the Internet Campaign Trail

Posted on February 4, 2004 at 12:08 PM in Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## January 27, 2004

### The World in 2014: China, India and the networked economy

One of the greatest sessions we had last week in Davos. I took most of my notes inspired by Peter Schwartz, of Global Business Network and was extremely impressed by Peter's thoughts and charism.
The two stars of that session and actually of the whole annual meeting 2004 were India and China.
If we take a closer look at Asia, they are the stars because Japan is not anymore, with its population getting old (20% of the Japanese population will soon be more than 65 years old. China will be the center of Asia despite the need for reforming its banking sector and its currency.
Peter Schwartz says we will soon call Asia "the greater chinese zone of prosperity", even though one can believe Indian can sustain its growth.
Another center of the world will be the Caspian region for energy and sources of conflicts.
Europe's greatest challenge will be to have Russia join the EU. Russia in 2020 will have great opportunities but also a great burden. Europe is not seen as a high growth zone as it will take a very long time to continue integrating all its members and build a common culture. Europe continues to be seen as "old Europe".
Peter Schwartz: about Brasil: "Brasil has a great future and always will" made the whole room laugh.
The productivity revolution sees no end in the USA. Its economy will power on but politically the US will begin to be more and more isolated.
"Kyoto is dead", global warm and all environmental challenges create enormous risks of isolation for the US.
The networked economy without physical reality
The most important regions of the world will not be regions, but online networks. Most important people and companies, especially originating from Singapore, India and China will not be based in a place, but in the Internet.
It is a fundamental paradigm shift and performing in the next 20 years is about global competitivity in the networked economy.
"Let's make the Cyberspace a country and join the UN".
Major risks of the next ten years:
- Major spread of disease. SARS is only an early indicator of what could happen.
- Abrupt climate change. First global warm, then global cooling.
- Africa becoming the greatest tragedy of humanity with poverty, AIDS and war
- Significant part of the world is de-developing
And now random notes from other panelists:
- "don't follow what we say, follow where we invest" (India and China).
- one region could be a surprise, it is middle east
- The current attractive regions of the world such as the USA will change. The new emerging hubs will be "where people want to live and work"
I was so impressed that I briefly asked permission to Peter to blog his above ideas and I will start reading his latest book, Inevitable Surprises: Thinking ahead in a Time of Turbulence.

Posted on January 27, 2004 at 08:40 AM in Japan, Politics, USA, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

## January 24, 2004

### Blogging makes the front page of the WSJ and I am a "Small Fry with Big Dreams"

OK I know, this is very egocentric to blog about this, but I cannot help sharing that with you, please forgive me for my ego ;=)
Yesterday, the day after our blog panel, I read the Wall Street Journal Europe as usual with my coffee but this time was special.
Front page of the Wall Street Journal:
Neophytes Court Powerful Attendees;
On the Agenda: Blogs, Bovine Beats
About 50 people talked to me about it in Davos and many asked me what was a blog after having read the article.
For those of you who subscribed to the Wall Street Journal on-line, here is the link to the article.
For those of you not subscribers, I hope the WSJ and the author of the article, Erik Portanger, will have nothing against me posting some quotes below quotes.
Thank you Eric again for this article and I confirm that the big fish in Davos is really open to the small fry, I had lots of great talks with world leaders and I tried hard to make them understand what blogging his and its impact on our world.
The opportunity that the WEF gave me to participate as a GLT is incredible and I feel the need to give back as much as I can. I am thinking of launching a non-profit project soon to give back and capitalize on the networking I made in Davos to participate my way to the Forum's target, "improve the state of the World".
I can feel the pressure on me to not only take advantage of my participation to Davos, but also do something non-profit with it.
"For WEF organizers, inviting small companies isn't just an act of altruism. "We want to expose some of our bigger members to disruptive technologies and influences -- people that are altering the dynamic of their industries," says Kevin Steinberg, a WEF spokesman. "One of the ideas that really concerns them is that challenging and provocative ideas often don't reach them."
For those people with small businesses, being at Davos can be a little intimidating at first.
When Loic Le Meur, a 31-year-old entrepreneur and CEO of Ublog, a Paris-based Web-log company, attended the conference for the first time three years ago, he was thrown in at the deep end.
"On the second day, they asked me to speak on a panel about the future of Europe," he recalls. "That was tough."
This time around, though, the affable Frenchman has already struck a few partnership deals through "random networking" -- otherwise known as wandering around in the halls -- that will help him launch his Web site in Brazil and China within the next few months.
One person who hears from plenty of start-up entrepreneurs at Davos is Sir Ronald Cohen, chief executive of Apax Partners, a global private-equity firm that invests as much as 35% of its capital in mainly small technology and biotech companies.
"There are not too many of them, but they flood us with requests for meetings," Sir Ronald says. He tries, though, to make time for people that are still starting out. "The entrepreneur who makes it to Davos clearly has something going for them," he says.
Of course I also met yesterday with leaders of the Wall Street Journal and talked to them about making it blog friendly with short summaries of articles available for free in RSS, with permalinks, and the full articles in RSS for their online subscribers. They got it, and offered me a meeting shortly to discuss it. As a Wall Street Journal subscriber I would love to have it as RSS.

Posted on January 24, 2004 at 11:04 AM in Politics, Press, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### Preparing the April WEF European Summit

We had an interesting brainstorming with about 20 european leaders on what should be on the agenda of the next European summit the WEF is organizing in April in Poland.
Here are some random topics we discussed:
-How to integrate as fast as possible the new members
-What are the greatest challenges the EU is facing ?
-Which sectors of the economy should be the focus of the summit ?
-EU Institutional issues
-How to develop ways to get higher competitiveness, with the Growth of China and India
-Consequences of the introduction of the Euro currency
-What is Europe ?
I insisted on these ones:
-offshoring growth and how to make offshoring in the new EU members and eastern Europe rather than Asia
-promote entrepreneurship in Europe
-how can we create our own Silicon Valley and gain competitiveness in the Internet industry with the USA
-promote learning and speaking English in Europe as too many europeans cannot speak english
-define and create european culture
-how can we make the young more aware and interested in European institutions ?
-I want a European President !

I am very excited by a panel that the WEF could do on Entrepreneurship in Europe, who do you think the WEF should invite to speak ? We have great European entrepreneurs, look at companies like Virgin, RyanAir and EasyJet for example.

Posted on January 24, 2004 at 10:20 AM in Politics, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## January 22, 2004

### Save the Earth. Meeting with Yann Arthus Bertrand, who made Earth from the Above.

This is one of the good things at Davos, you never know who you will meet and when and suddenly great meetings happen.
I already knew Yann Arthus Bertrand as he made a great work by making incredible pictures of tens of French people to show their occupation and finally gathered them in a monthly magazine called L'Express in France. I was very proud at the time to be chosen as the "startup guy".
Yann has sold millions of copies worldwide of his book "Earth from Above" and more important than the fantastic photographs that you probably know, Yann is helping all of us understand the challenge of preserving our planet and the damages we are constantly doing to it.
Davos is also about becoming more aware of the environmental challenges we all face. We are all busy with our current tasks and tend to forget that the Earth gets spoiled by pollution every day, species disappearing, etc.
Last year in Davos, I had a scaring lunch with key climatologists in the world who explained us the impact of pollution and industrialization on the Earth. Especially the high rate of increase in temperature of the Earth will cause all sorts of nasty effects that we do not realize. The session was just scary.
It was a year ago so I do not remember it all but basically one scientist used the metaphor of a frog to compare it to what is happening to us right now. If you take a frog and put it in a receptacle that is full with very hot water, it will immediately jump out of it as it will feel the pain. Now if you take a frog and put it in the same receptacle but in cold water, and then you heat the water with the frog in it but in a progressive way, the frog will not jump out, stay in the receptacle, and finally die in it as the water gets hotter and hotter.
We are living right now this frog's story. We are in the receptacle, it is our planet, and the temperature is getting higher every year.
The effects of that rise in temperature are difficult to predict and were tough to understand for me. They have to do with the water circulation in the oceans and how cold and hot water move around the globe. One of the scientists present insisted on the fact that we actually have less information to analyze the phenomenon today than in the 50s, because at that time there were thousands of war submarines around the globe that were sending environmental analysis to their headquarters.
I remember very well one scientist started explaining a possible scenario that could happen within the next 100 years (that means your children may see it). Basically he explained that above a certain latitude (a line New York to Amsterdam), all oceans will start getting totally frozen. He described the harbor of New York completely frozen. Life in this latitudes would become extremely difficult with ice and cold everywhere and one of the consequences would be massive population relocations in the south with people packing in southern Europe and North Africa.
Scary. It puts things in perspective. Think about the consequences that may have on our life, the economic consequences. This scientist may be wrong and I hope he is wrong but clearly this session and meeting with Yann today help me think that we do not respect earth enough and we do not take enough time to understand the problem and do something about it.
Yann is especially focusing on two projects right now.
After the Earth, Yann focuses on people, with the same goal, help us understand better our planet and preserve it. Yann is going to most countries in the world to shoot and interview people "in the street", the way they live and what their concerns are. Yann shared with me a very deep thought about poor and rich people he met. He said that as he met so many different people from so many different countries he noticed our references were totally different. In some countries people care less about money than water, in others he discovered how happy some very poor people in developing countries were compared to others in developed countries. Their references are different. We had very deep discussions about what is happiness and its relationship with wealth.
So Yann needs some help at very high level in most countries to give him and his team access to people and means to interview them. If you can help him or want to donate for this amazing project, let me know and I will pass him your address.
The other project Yann is working on is helping the children understand these challenges. How to preserve our environment, how to give back to our children a planet in good shape. He is preparing the opening of a place in Paris that will be a permanent "showroom" on the beauty of earth and the challenges ahead of us to preserve it. He wants children to visit this place every days, possibly with school teachers, to make them aware of the problem. For those of you who know "La Vilette", Yann wants to do a "La Vilette of environment". Great idea.
This meeting was as interesting for me as it was frustrating as I realized again how ignorant I was about these issues and how few time we all spend on understanding them and doing something with the issues. Thank you Yann for being so inspiring.
We discussed about the Internet and how Yann was using it. We will have another discussion around it and I cannot help thinking about a blog written by tens of people about the Earth. Any of you know of some that already exist ?
Thanks again, Yann, for taking us all to see Earth from the Above and our daily lives from the Above.
I could not resist to publish this one Yann, even though you said people would not understand. I am sure they will understand that having fun was also part of our good time in Davos and this picture shows it...

Posted on January 22, 2004 at 07:45 AM in Politics, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

### A lunch with Bill Clinton

A great speech by Bill Clinton.

The Forum has made it available here in streaming media. I will comment it later.

Posted on January 22, 2004 at 07:37 AM in Politics, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## January 11, 2004

### The power of self publishing in politics

Victor has a very good post about Doc's comments on "Consumers being transformed into producers" by Apple Ilife.
I agree and I am very impressed by the result in MoveOn and how the contest of amateur 30 second advertising videos let us discover so good advertising, in the Bush in 30 seconds site.

I like very much POLYGRAPH. In this 30 second amateur anti George Bush ad, the power of Bush's voice with the lie detector is amazing.
We will see more and more amateur video content posted on blogs and other sites. They will get higher and higher audience and compete with traditionnal media.

Posted on January 11, 2004 at 07:13 PM in Blogging about blogging, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## January 02, 2004

### Dollar, in quiet desperation, continues to sink

Henry, soon you will finally think that launching Blogads Europe to get more euros than dollars has become a priority ;=)
When will the dollar fall stop is an interesting question, I would say after Presidential elections in the US when there is less need for Bush to show a boost in US sales abroad.
It is not good news for Europe either, Henry, I have a lot of friends exporting to the US, like excellent French wine producers, and it is a nightmare for them.

> Watching the dollar slip quietly below $1.25 to the Euro, I'm suddenly reminded of that poem not waving but drowning.
> Too bad I can't offer cheerier references. As it happens, I'm just now listening to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's rendition of "Keep on the Sunny Side of Life" but those lyrics don't seem to apply.
> The US is dangerously in hock to the rest of the world and unable admit or address... [Blogads -- the ad engine for opinion makers.]

Dollar, in quiet desperation, continues to sink

Posted on January 2, 2004 at 01:18 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

### A good article on Journalism/Blogging/Politics in the USA today "Readers are becoming writers." (Jay Rosen)

"It's like having a giant communal brain", excellent article from the USA today.
Food for thought for the panel in Davos.

Posted on January 2, 2004 at 12:59 AM in Blogging about blogging, Politics, World Economic Forum | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## December 22, 2003

### The Meatrix

Excellent, Joi, thanks for sharing that funny parody with us.
Their site is quite impressive for an association against factory farms. Now they need a blog...

> The Meatrix. A parody flash animation with a political message. Nice.

> [Joi Ito's Web]

The Meatrix

Posted on December 22, 2003 at 03:16 PM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## December 18, 2003

### Citizen to Citizen Software to let ideas emerge

via [Ant's Eye View].

I love the idea to see people's ideas come bottom up to change a bit from politicians saying their ideas are that of the people. Would definitely like to see these tools appear and to adapt them in Europe.

Over at JOHO, David Weinberger is floating some interesting ideas about what he is calling "C2C" (citizen-to-citizen) software -- tools to connect people to each other on issues that they care about, and let their ideas bubble up to their representatives.

Posted on December 18, 2003 at 11:27 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### New politics campaign rules

Another excellent to say the least article from Jay Rosen. I am trying to spread this word here in France but it is slow.
As I am lazy, I also took some of Doc's comment about it:

Jay Rosen's latest is Nine Story Lines in a New Campaign Narrative. Here's the list:

1. The Control Revolution
2. Donating Talent
3. Distributed Ownership
4. The Inactive Switch Sides
5. Campaign as Curriculum
6. The New Sociability in Politics
7. The Discovery of Voice
8. The Self Informing Citzenry
9. It's a Two Way World

Posted on December 18, 2003 at 10:00 AM in Blogging about blogging, Politics, USA | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## December 16, 2003

### 10 must do's for a politician on the Internet to help his campaign

I had dinner and email exchanges with Steven Clift from the US and John Gotze from Denmark.
Very exciting talks about edemocracy, "the voice of the other guy finally being heard" and political blogging.
Thanks Steve and John for your help, my turn to help the european politicians now.
Here are Steven's 10 (there are only 9 actually ;=) key simple must dos for a politician:
The key is to share what is most important rather than flood him/her
with ideas.
1. Build your opt-in e-mail announcement list for your supporters.
2. Use that e-mail list to send out regular (no more than once a week
until the final few weeks of the campaign) updates on the campaign.
Keep it brief, but include some first person personality.
3. You could also create a weblog with the same content or integrate
the two. Do not over estimate the level of repeat traffic your
weblog will generate without an "e-mail hook" option.
4. Build a basic website and announce new content on the e-list.
Don't say "Coming Soon" or "Under Construction" anywhere. Register
as short and simple a domain as possible and put that on all your
campaign literature and signs.
5. Use an internal e-mail list for communication among those on your
campaign committee. A great way for people to report in and discuss
strategy between campaign meetings.
6. Limit your expectations about undecided voters, but do something
special online the last two weeks of the elections for undecided
voters.
7. Along the way consider a Q and A section where you would answer
one or two voter questions a week.
8. Change the site on the election day to include last minute links
to polling place information and update it with a couple hours when
you know the results of the election.
9. Promise to have as good a website/online presence in governance as
you do when asking for the support of voters.
Here are some links that might be of interest:
http://campaignsonline.typepad.com/
http://www.ipdi.org/primer2002.html
http:/www.politicalweb.info
http://www.voxpolitics.com/primer.shtml (UK)
http://www.campaignadvantage.com/bookchap.html
http://www.netpolitique.net
More:
http://www.publicus.net/articles/edemresources.html
And now some links from John:
Blog of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, former Danish Prime Minister:
http://www.nyrup.dk/weblog/weblog.htm
A simple, but good introduction to blogging:
http://www.37signals.com/blogprez/
Various stuff about blogging:
http://slashdemocracy.org/links/Blogging/

Posted on December 16, 2003 at 06:22 PM in Blogging about blogging, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## December 14, 2003

### "Online and Offline Meet Up to Change Politics"

There has been so many blog and off-line discussions about Dean's campaign that I am promoting the on-line and blogging campaigns in France too now. I should meet my first French politician candidate for next year's elections (not presidential) and may start helping him.

Here is what Jay Rosen says about "Online and Offline Meet Up to Change Politics"
Ed Cone explains exactly why Howard Dean's "open style" of politics is a big deal--and a big story--whether he or not he wins. This will scramble the mind of the press if the press retains its master narrative: winning. [PressThink (Jay Rosen)]

Posted on December 14, 2003 at 05:02 PM in Blogging about blogging, France, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack