It's hard to compare a local conference of roughly 300 attendees to a global one with almost 3000 people, but since I recently attended both The World Economic Forum in Davos, and The Northern Voice Conference, in Vancouver, I think it would be worth trying here.

As far as location is concerned, both these conferences take place in beautiful, picturesque settings. Davos nestled in the heart of snowy Swiss Alps offers breathtaking views while Vancouver surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and home to the green and stunning Stanley park has its own unique blend of natural beauty.

The breath of content in WEF is diverse as expected covering health, politics, technology, the arts, and economic issues among others, while NV mainly concentrates on Social Media and personal blogging. While both conferences are operated as Not for profit organizations, one can imagine how millions can be spent on secuity alone at WEF. Both conferences were sold out but the cost of attending WEF if you were to pay could be up to eighteen grands while you could attend NV for $60 per day I think. It is worth mentioning that WEF is an exclusive conference with an invite list while NV is open to everyone.

I've written extensively about my experiences at Davos, and how awestruck I was at meeting so many famous people. The highlights for me were meeting some larger than life figures and learning from them such as the journalist, Christian Amanpour and  the author, Paolo Coelho. It was also great to meet Randi and Mark Zuckerberg and tell them in person how much I love Facebook! While everyone I met at Davos, famous or not was extremely gracious and approachable, and overall I would rate being there as one of the unforgettable events of my life, I have to say that personally I enjoyed attending Northern Voice more.

I felt more at ease at NV, hanging out with old friends, such as Derek and Airdrie Miller and Kris Krug among many others and welcomed by all the amazing volunteer conference organizers. The smaller conference setting lent itself to a more intimate atmosphere and the content of the conference was more applicale to my own personal life. At one luncheon in Davos, Robert and I were sitting at the same table as Larry and Lucy Page with a few others. Robert was trying his best to talk to Larry Page and even asked if he could take a picture of him, but Larry Page understandably seemed guarded. I was just happy that Robert's aunt (who came from Germany to see us) was sitting next to me, so I had someone familiar to talk to. I never know what to say to rich and famous people. On the other hand, I had plenty to talk about when I saw my own friends at Northern Voice.

As for Northern Voice sessions, I laughed my heart out at Rob Cuttingham keynote, Teh Funny. He has a unique and hilarious way of talking about blogging and Internet experiences and I loved his keynote. I don't remember ever laughing so much at a conference session, a keynote no less. Airdrie Miller lead a deep and moving session on coping digitally with mental illness which I found illuminating. I just love Airdrie and admire her so much. Nancy White's illustrations at Rob Cuttingham's keynote and and her own session on doing the Limbo were great fun. I learned from David Eaves on how to deal with angry comments by reaching out and trying to figure out where the other person is coming from while distinguishing critics from trolls and sock puppets. I laughed at Kate Trgovac and Rosemary Rowe's stories on how to deal with relationship issues for the modern blogging couple and of course personally related to them. Finally, I especially enjoyed watching Dave Olson interview Bev Davies and Kris Krug about taking photographs from Rock and Roll bands and watching all the historic and amazing photos reel on stage.

As I mentioned in the beginning, it is hard to compare two conference so unique in their own way, but one thing I came away with is that whether locally or globally, for the most part, we humans like to come together to try and understand eachother better and make this world a better place. Let's hope we succeed. Going to conferences sure beats going to war.
 

I lived in the Seattle area for three years and had no idea that such a thing as The Children's Museum existed, but those were the quiet and peaceful days before hurricane Milan! We were stopping in Seattle for a couple of days before driving to Vancouver for the Northern Voice conference and Robert had  full days of interviews scheduled. It was up to me and the baby to entertain ourselves and I was scratching my head.

As soon as we checked in to our hotel room, Milan took a tour of the room by running around a couple of laps, pushing the furniture around a bit and summarily dismissed the room, by running full speed ahead towards the hotel room door and banging his head against it. When that didn't work, he tried to open the door and being too short, was just standing there with his face resting on the door and whimpering, waiting for me to come to rescue.

I started calling my Seattle friends trying to see which kind soul could rescue us from this state of despair and luckily Jen Zug and her two adorable children were available. We spent the first day happily enjoying their company at their lovely home, with Milan running around happily with Ruthie and Thomas and basking in the bliss of playing with older children's toys. I could Kiss Jen, I was so happy and yet there we had another full day ahead of us with nothing to do. So of course I asked Jen what she thought we should do. She suggested Children's museum and I was hooked. Of course the night was going so well that she could have suggested we all go throw ourselves off a cliff and I would've acquiesed. She has a four year old and six year old; they are like angels; her words can be cut in stone as far as I am concerend.

Turns out she was totally right about the choice of what to do. Our other good friend, Elizabeth Grigg and her two kids also joined us and we walked in to a paradise on earth for kids known as Children's Museum in Seattle. The Museum is located at the Seattle Center which is a great place to hang out if you are visiting Seattle. While there you can enjoy a visit to the famous Space Needle, brush up on your music history knowledge at the Experience Music Project, or watch a show at the Imax theater of the Pacific Science Center. We were headed straight for the CM though and the kids had a ball. There are slides, and plenty of places to climb and crawl and explore. Rooms filled with balls, empty tree trunks, a Curious George Exhibit; it was awesome. Milan was giggling, screaming of joy and quite besides himself the whole time there. I was happy I got a chance to see my friends and their kids and watch my son have such a great time.

If you have a child under ten years old and you are in the Seattle area, I strongly recommend you visit the Children's Museum. You will make their day!

I thought I was done writing about the World Economic Forum, but as I walked away from the conference center yesterday, I was met by a group of angry demonstrators who were throwing shoes and snowballs towards the conference center protesting the World Economic Forum. The police were ready for them keeping them behind fences and not letting them get too close to the conference center. They were shouting in a language I didn't understand, so I can only imagine what they were protesting. Perhaps they were protesting the conference's exclusivity, perhaps the gathering of many powerful and rich people, and perhaps the injustice and unfairness of life all over the world. Whatever the cause the gave me another perspective on Davos and WEF.

I can't close my last blog post about Davos without speaking for a moment on the awe inspiring beauty of the Swiss Alps. The snow covered vast mountains, the evergreen Cedar trees, and the shinning blue skies are some of the most beautiful that nature has to offer. Standing on top of the mountains you can see the skiers slide down the snowy hills, like colorful specks trying to make their tracks on the snow. When you visit Davos, you see nature at its most beautiful and it makes you want to fight at any cost to keep this beautiful world of ours, so that the future generations can enjoy it too.