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This year, I decided to approach the Web Summit differently from the last two years. For me, the Web Summit is a chance to learn and absorb new ideas, open my mind to topics I don’t always get time to think through. But this year, as I am opening myself up to opportunities to work with new companies, I thought I would also make an effort to go meet them. Step a little bit outside my comfort zone.
The Learning Summit
I love learning. About many things, especially if they connect business, people and technology.
With this in mind, the Web Summit is generally a great place for me to just go hang out in a few stages and listen to talk after talk. Not all talks are great, but I have learned to filter them over time, and all in all, there is always something to be learned from different people, even if it is a small reflection. In the past years, I have attended the Summit with a learning perspective, splitting my time between AI (as expected) and some more far-off topics like Education, Governments, Not-for-Profit or whatever comes up that is different from mainstream, in a small, often overlooked stage at the far end of the Summit. As you can imagine, no matter what the topic was last year, they all included a few mentions of the word AI.
Gathering information
I enjoy the process, as the audience areas are dark and contained, making it clear the focus is on the stage rather than the person next to you. If you want to chat, you should be off, on the floor. It does make it more difficult to take notes, but actually, taking notes half in the dark allows you not to be re-reading what you wrote and to be selective about choosing a smaller number of points to put on the page (in likely dodgy handwriting). I was more contained in my notes this year than before, but it did feel like the few talks I have attended gave me more food for thought and, without a doubt, less information overflow.
I’ve learned that conference insights tend to fade unless I revisit my notes, contacts, and the photos of slides systematically. So this year, I’m intentionally building time to process it all—so the Summit doesn’t become another three-day blur, only to be remembered when the tickets come back up for sale sometime in the new year.
Changing my approach
As I got to this year’s Web Summit week, I have to admit I was coming from a place of overwhelm and intense focus. I also felt like it was a good time of the year to push forward with establishing new connections (given my high level of procrastination in this area before), and therefore, I decided I had to do things differently. This meant not overscheduling myself with three talks every twenty minutes of the day and instead leaving empty times in between the most interesting talks to allow myself to “walk” the floor.
I admit it, I dread walking the floor. Especially the Web Summit floor, which is so huge. So I took it in parts and managed my energy (physical and mental) by sitting down for some talks in between my incursions to meet people. I focused my time on the Beta companies (the ones leaning towards the scale-up stage) and intentionally read through many posters before I would stop and ask more about the company. It was important for me to find areas of similarity with the work that I have more experience in, so I ended up looking mostly at Fintech and Edtech.
Looking back, my approach turned out to be better and easier than I anticipated. I didn’t come out with a bag full of business cards (who does cards for these events anyway!), but I did come out with a few targeted ideas that I want to follow up on.
Short reflections
The mix of learning and meeting new people was new for me, but perhaps I am in the right direction. After all, there is only so much you can talk about AI 3 years in a row, right? All in all, here are my top reflections
How much more can we talk about the AI?
Yes, that is certainly on top of my list. In a way, I feel like we are beating a broken record, but the reality is that the record is barely built, and we have just been through the first tracks. Over time, I trust that we will start being more practical about some of the AI discussions.
So far, I am still hearing a lot about whether AI will or not replace jobs, what it will be like to have AI colleagues and what skills matter for the next generation. On that last one, I am still leaning towards critical thinking, but hey, having just taught a workshop on that, I am no doubt biased.
I did enjoy some of the continued resistance and concern with AGI’s risks on centre-stage, and the analogy to the fact that we prevented human cloning and nuclear bombs from being widespread. Gives me hope that we can find ways around AGI while still benefiting from 95% of the AI power.
All about applications
I was particularly interested in hearing about AI applications. And not just your next agent, but hear from companies on how they were truly transforming processes and how some of the AI applications are truly coming to life inside the workflow of employees and the manufacturing process of corporations. One of the speakers articulated it as a thought process, thinking in terms of AI’s current capabilities rather than which departments might adopt them, and this resonates with me.
It was also good to start hearing examples about jobs evolving rather than jobs disappearing. No doubt some jobs will vanish, but I am a believer that the majority will simply evolve, albeit at a faster pace than in prior technological evolutions.
From network to connection
I think the part that overwhelmed me about the Web Summit was the number of people. Whilst many face this as a pool of opportunity, I struggle to make sense of the chaos. So I would usually ignore message requests for meetings or even the start-up showcases altogether. As I have worked through my relationship with “sales” over the last year or so, I have also evolved my relationship with networking. I was intentional about each interaction, whether with someone new or a prior acquaintance I came across spontaneously.
For me, it was about establishing a valuable connection, one that I would remember and that would also allow the person in front of me to get to know me and how I think.
This is my preferred path of building trust and developing relationships.
As always, the Web Summit came and went in a whirlwind. It is hard to sometimes grasp the entirety of what it can bring. Importantly, one has to adjust to their own needs and goals at different points in time.
Proudly, I come out of it with my toolbox enhanced and without the usual information overload.
I may just go again next year!