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.