The 2005 European Business Information Conference wrapped up Friday in Seville and, as usual, it was an excellent event. John Kay, a noted economist and FT columnist was the keynote speaker. His comments about the global economy were well received, although many of us thought that he used the word "innovation" when he should have used "invention". A country or firm cannot rely on constant new inventions to maintain competitive advantage, but many in the audience argued that without innovation, a country or company is essentially dead. Thursday's panel discussion on Legislation and Regulation was also well done. What seemed to be missing though, other than being touched on in one of the breakouts, was the proliferation of new content in the form of blogs and wikis. With the barriers to publishing completely removed, the knowldge management challenges and opportunities created by this new environment are astonishing. Yet there was barely a mention... Most of the delegates I spoke to thought the breakouts this year were better than previous years, with especially high marks going to Euen Semple of the BBC (who did cover the use of new publishing paradigms), Elaine McNichol of the University of Leeds and the team of Melanie Goody & Hazel Hall who covered Knowledge Management culture. Despite the freezing cold weather, the evening events were excellent and the TFPL team did a wonderful job. 
Simon Alterman, Factiva; Gwenda Sippings, Inland Revenue; Alan Scott, Factiva; Melanie Goody, KPMG and Rachel Kolsy, AIG (with the camera). Melanie; Nigel Oxbrow, TFPL and Don Roll. Tony Pringle of BVD strikes a pose. Susanne Etzel of BCG and then Bindy Pease, out of retirement from TFPL. Doris Springer of Bain. Darron Chapman of TFPL. Rachel, Doris and Kathleen O'Connell of AstraZeneca.
Alan Scott, a much more accomplished photographer (with some serious equipment) promised to send me some shots to post.
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