The grades are in! Owl Re just sent us the results of the Lift09 post-conference survey, and I am happy to see we are continuing to achieve a very high satisfaction rate:

90% of attendees had a good or excellent overall appreciation of LIFT09 with “networking”, “learning” and “exchanging” mentioned as the greatest benefits of participation. The majority of attendees agreed that LIFT09 provided them with interesting information and influenced their opinions on the usage of emerging technologies. 98% of attendees met new people at LIFT09 with most people meeting between 1 - 10 persons.

Key quality factors of LIFT09 were rated by attendees with “networking” and “administration” rated higher than “programme quality” and “website”. The main formats were rated with “presentation” rated the highest followed by LIFT experience (artistic installations)” and “Workshops”. “Discussions” and “Openstage” were rated less well. The most popular presentation selected by attendees was “New frontiers” by Vint Cerf.

Attendees would like to see more presentations using cases studies and practical examples drawn from the fields of innovation, technology, art, design and architecture. Attendees would like to see fewer presentations on esoteric topics and from a design and IT perspective only. Attendees also suggested more analytical presentations and the possibility to have Q&A sessions with the speakers. 86% of attendees said they planned to attend the next LIFT conference and 97% would recommend it to a friend.

Full report (PDF, 600kb)

As usual we will need a bit of time to digest all the information and reflect on it, but I already see how we will improve next year's event. I think there is a clear need for more information that is actionable in the short term, things that can be concretely applied in today's context. Let us think about it.

Thanks to those who took a bit of their precious time to answer the survey, and congratulations to all those involved in making Lift such an appreciated event! Last but not least: thanks to Glenn O'Neil and Owl Re who have been providing us a dive into the pulse of our community since 2006. If you want to see the evolution of the feedback we receive, all the surveys are archived here.