Homo Viator

I can call myself lucky having been invited to the DLD Conference in the first place. According to a German magazine, Burda Media had to slice their invitation list by half, because more people had agreed to come than they had initially expected. The Conference had a couple of hundred attendees but nevertheless felt very intimate and one could just walk up to let`s say Paulo Coelho, or Toscani and speak with them face-to-face. Those were just two examples, out of the blue, of people I spoke with, but there were many more interesting CEOs, artists or scientists, all very approachable.

But when I was being invited to attend the Speaker`s Lunch I was feeling very lucky. Only speakers and top-notch attendees were at that lunch and my guess is that we were less than 50 people. I got invited when I was thanking the organizer for the great time I had at the conference. She looked at my badge and me, said that she was a friend of my aunt (I had no clue) and told me to join the DLD Speaker`s lunch. I sat at the table with my good friend Nina Wiegand, Martin Varsavksy, Kara Swisher, Simon Levene, Carlos Bhola and the Head of Google Germany, who just introduced himself as Christian.

In the videos below you can get a glimse of that lunch. The man with the glasses, next to Naomi Campbell is Dr. Hubert Burda, the host of the conference and an admirable media magnate. You´ll also see Linda Stone just next to me with Jeff Jarvis and see the drawer and director of the Simpsons, David Silverman. What a nice fellow and what a humor, he was cracking us up! Poor him followed a tipsy Woischnik throughout the hotel, looking for the bar, but was misled and we ended up in a dead end. He told us that it was him, who came up with the idea of the Spider Pig in the Simpsons Movie, which earned him the proper respect of Martin´s son Tom, for whom he created a new Simpsons character, drawing it on a napkin.

Speaking about all these inspiring people, I forgot to mention Naomi Campbell, who I really could not care less about. Next to those innovative and influential media icons, people who transform our media landscape and drive the information age forward, people who change the way the world interacts and communicates, next to those Namoi just looked like a replacable tall model, who helps sell products that nobody needs by selling her body. She is smokin' though!

Dr. Burda and Naomi Campbell



Feedback from the Crowd and Naomi Campbell



Krister Linder and crowd singing