WAN/WEF is cancelled – but still they don´t get it

Joakim Jardenberg — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:02:28 +0000

Last summer the big and annual world conference of WAN and WEF took place in Gothenburg, Sweden. Just to be clear, we are talking about the international newspaper industry association. Several of us attending last year were stunned when we heard what many of the industry representatives had to say. Among others, I met up with a very upset Martin Jönsson over a beer, who thought that the representatives were on their way of ruining all the great opportunities to debate by keeping their blindfold on. They emphasized clearly that there was no crisis in the newspaper industry.

So it comes, I was just reached by the information that this year’s conference, that was scheduled to take place in India two months from now, is being canceled. The reason stated is that the number of confirmed attendees is too low. Therefore they cancel, and as usual put their hope to everything solving itself after the crisis. A quote from Guardian:

“The economic crisis has had a devastating effect on participation in the events, which are simply not viable at this stage,” Bertrand Pecquerie, World Editors Forum director said in an email seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk.”

“Our belief is that newspaper companies will, by necessity, learn to live with the crisis over the year and will be more willing to invest again in conferences and travel by the end of 2009. The exact new schedule will be confirmed shortly. We need your suggestions in this difficult period.”

Ok, so by the end of 2009 everything should be back to normal again. With such kind of friends, this industry doesn’t need any enemies. Jeff Jarvis writes about it here: “ Talk is not cheap“, and he has mentioned it earlier as well. A lot of people will have things to say and it would be great if we could find a better and cheaper alternative for the industry to move forward. And at wan.org everything runs along as usual. Unchanged, that is.

24hbc – only one week left

Joakim Jardenberg — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:00:21 +0000

A week from now we are going to fill a boat with almost 100 entrepreneurs and set sail towards an intensive day. During 24 hours we will develop business ideas on the internet, services will be built and they are all going to be launched. It´s a wonderfully ambitious project! Bordering to craziness, but the good kind of crazy!

The whole project took its start the 26th of October 2008 when Ted Valentin wrote a blog post about developing business ideas in 24 hours. It felt spot on and I announced our interest to participate immediately. Shortly after the announcement we took the decision that Mindpark should step forward as the first main sponsor of the event. A week later, Ted opened the project blog and named it “ 24 hour business camp”.

Big name players gradually signed up, for instance main sponsors Bonnier, Binero, Telenor and product sponsors Google, Hasseludden Yasuragi and Get a Newsletter. Press and blogs seem to like what we are about to do. Among others Svenska Dagbladet paid attention to the event, as did DI (don’t miss out on the comments to the article). The whole event will be covered live at live.24hourbusinesscamp.com by Beata Wickbom and the people at Arctic Startup (the Techcrunch of the Nordic region).

But that’s not enough! In the long list of participants you find people from all around the country, but as far as I am aware the event hasn’t drawn any attention outside of the main cities. Of course it’s more fun to write about the project when it has succeeded, but why not join in from the beginning? If a local talent is brave enough to promise a new business idea in 24 hours, one deserves to get mentioned in the local newspaper. Don’t you agree?

If you are working somewhere in Sweden with media, check this list below and see if you recognize any of the names.

Mindpark » Current

WAN/WEF is cancelled – but still they don´t get it

24hbc – only one week left