What's new in 2009 (more of)

If you come to Lift since 2006 you know that the conference evolves a lot every year. We read the feedback we get through the post-conference surveys, mix that with our pretty fertile imagination, and then take another step forward in our endless quest for a great event. That is how we went from 2 to 3 days, how the open program came to life, how we merged the separate fondues into one giant event, etc etc. So what is new in 2009? To follow up on the survey this post uses the "less of"/"more of" format of the OwlRe report.

At Lift09 we will have more of:

• Presentations from mixed fields, at the intersection of technology and society. We are clearly going away from purely technological topics and focusing more on the social side of things.

• We also created more workshops (24 now) to address the requests for more case studies/best practices of new technology.

• You also asked us for "a common thread linking topics" and with "where has the future gone?" we have that. Also "cutting edge and futuristic" as requested.

• We removed questions at Lift08, thinking that 5 minutes of Q&A is not very useful when you have 700 people (and therefore likely 700 questions...) in a room. You want questions back and here they come again! We saved 30 minutes for each speaker which should give us margin for a good talk and discussion afterward. How will we handle the questions? You'll see, we should have something cool in place.

• More opportunities to network. Well, what we can do is create more time for networking and this year's program, with long breaks and time for lunches, should allow that. Don't forget that as organizers there is only that much we can do. Try to go to a conference without your laptop and mobile phone and you will see that you will meet more people ;)

• More interaction between participants? We are now working with John Elbing of Youreup Solutions to animate the community before the event. We think that we can do much more than what we have been doing so far to allow attendees to prepare for the event. The experience will also be expanded and should create more opportunities for interactions than before.

• More women presenters. This one is complicated because it is a social issue that Lift alone can't solve. Women are less present in the technological world, get less publicized -- and often are hesitant at putting themselves forward. But for 2009 we will have again a honorable number of women speakers (about one-third at this stage, which is more than most conferences). BTW: we have achieved balance in the team, where women will even outnumber men as soon as our new PR manager starts working in January ;)