Look Who Just Walked In

Welcome to our global party at LeWeb. It’s always strange to realize it’s easier to see someone who happens to live 20 minutes across town from you back home, by going to a conference in Paris.  Go figure! I guess at home you get so caught up in stuff, booking time for coffee even with a best friend is a challenge.  It’s one of those things about conferences I really love.

In August, we had an amazing party in Half Moon Bay, CA thanks to Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki, to celebrate the launch of my novel about entrepreneurs, Founders Less Than Three.  Some of the earliest bloggers and other new friends attended and rocked the place. Now we’re together again in Paris in December.  I’ve been traveling through Europe since Nov. 9th talking about and reading from my book in Italy, Austria, Germany, France and next week I go to the UK.  

On my trip, I’ve met an amazing army of startup warriors in the EU, women and men at accelerator programs, co-working spaces and all over.  They’re not too different than their comrades in the US in their go-for-it attitude. But, I thought Guy’s advice yesterday when he was interviewed by Loic at @LeWeb was spot on –- don’t copy any US startups, be unique and be yourself!

I’ve met so many of my friends in tech through blogging and conferences. I live in Boston.  I’ve never lived in the San Francisco Bay Area but when we come to a conference like @LeWeb we see friends from there all over the world, as if we’d created a country all our own. Welcome to our new union of #makers and shakers. Don’t be shy, if there’s someone you want to meet, go for it. Take time to say hello with two more conference days left.