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[Full disclosure, this is not exactly an unsolicited endorsement. After F2C 2006, I saw Dean Landsman on the street and he started raving about how much he enjoyed it. I grinned like a waxing crescent moon and said, "If you liked it so much, please blog the sh*t out of it." I believe that's letter for letter (with one exception). Here's what Dean wrote in response to the above "solicitation." -- David I]

[Update: See O'Reilly's Andy Oram on F2C, Mary Godwin's generous review of F2C2006, and Ken Camp on F2C and Why It's Important. All three of these are genuinely unsolicited.]

[Update: Photo by Doc Searls]

F2C --the meeting-- is the telecom/internet/connectivity meeting of the year. It doesn't get any better than this. David pulls together an excellent program of speakers, topics, panel discussions, keynoters and experts. The two days are jam packed with sessions offering incredible insight, opinion, attitude and facts.

Kudos to David for all sorts of choices and manner of running a conference. There were no competing tracks with concurrent sessions -- all the attendees had access to each and every session. The speakers were all accessible and interactive, both when on the stage, as well as during other times such as the breaks between sessions, lunch, or at the informal evening get-togethers following both days.

Even the meals were top notch: healthy breakfasts with fresh fruits, and box lunches from the nearby Whole Foods, with various dietetic restrictions and needs duly considered.

Couldn't attend F2C? Well, yeah, you could have: the conference was carried live via a streaming audio channel on the web, and a Campfire IM session ran throughout the entire meeting. In addition to those of us in attendance who posted to the very interactive IRC (oops, force of habit, not IRC, I meant Campfire!) channel, loads of off-site participants were able to listen in, and offer comments on the back channel.

At times the snarky, outright funny, or occasional stunning back channel comment would cause an audible response from the attendees. Speakers would look back at the screen, to see what was going on over at the Campfire channel.

This was a truly interactive meetng. Freedom to connect. Freedom to interact. Freedom, neutrality. Great ideas, all in full effect at F2C.

Dean's complete post is here.

Technorati Tags: Conferences, F2C, F2C2007