Can these people helping to organise and sponsor Picnic 06 generate enough buzz to bring a couple of thousand people to Amsterdam at the end of September. It has been a big investment for the city. I am surprised that nearly all the speakers are going to be from the Anglophone world - as though they have a monopoly on innovation. Lots going on in France, Germany, Denmark and Spain too. My predictions - Philip Rosedale and Marc Canter will have inspiring things to say.
I hope John de Mol will inspire local "heroes" to create their own creative, original production houses, rather than just make more of the same. Hopefully John will show that it pays to take risks - in the country with the largest number of insurance companies. This speech is pretty crucial to the whole event.
Dan Gillmor will disappoint. Heard him speak a couple of times in the US and was uninspired. His blog is fine, he's fine on panels, just not a keynoter in my experience.
I sincerely hope that the organisers of the Cross Media Week will learn from the past mistakes with Creative Capital in that the foreign speakers must relate to the Dutch/European situation and not just wax lyrical about what they're up to in the US. Do any of the US companies think about do serious development work in Amsterdam? I think not (yet). The climate for entrepreneurs is improving in the Netherlands, but its a long way behind the neighbours. The key will be local heroes that others aspire to work for.
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