I am here in Davos as a participant of the World Economic forum where the
formal sessions have just concluded and all I can say is Wow! We were selected
late last year as a Technology Pioneer and to actually come here has been the
most surreal experience of my life. I have been able to shake hands with some of
my heroes and some of the people I don’t really like, but who are powerful
enough that I went out of my way. I passed kings, presidents, prime ministers,
senators, ayatollahs and gurus. I even had dinner with some of them. It was
amazing to just sit in front of Tony Blair talking about a vision of a more
effective global organization and realize that this is not a television in front
of me.

I was thinking about the best highlights for me and it was really hard
because there are thousands. From a business perspective, I was pleasantly
surprised how valuable it was networking with the top of the high tech industry,
but that still felt a bit like a Silicon Valley event. Some of the best sessions
for me were the dinners where you can sit down with the most brilliant people in
the world and talk about the most extraordinary things, and the workshops where
you brainstorm with some of the most brilliant people in the world.

I took  the train from Zurich to Davos with Geoffrey Moore. Geoff was on
Documentum’s board, so I know him well, but it is still great to spend so much
time with such a busy man and influential thinker. We discussed some of the
trends away from computing and more toward collaboration and communication. He
also gave me lots of hints on how to get the most out of Davos. This is Geoff’s
sixth year at Davos and he hosted some of the best sessions.

Yesterday, I attended a session on innovation that was moderated by a
correspondent for CNBC and observed by Tim Brown, the CEO of Ideo, and a
professor from a Swiss Institute. I was in a group that included C. K. Prahalad,
one of the greatest thinkers on the subject. Each group was tasked with the
creation of a new product using different innovation models. We created a new
game and film company that would take advantage of new gaming technologies with
a sort of market-based collaboration between designers and customers. We were up
against stiff and I was the one who presented our results. Bernard Liautaud,
Chairman of Business Objects, did a fantastic job of presenting a carbon-trading
fashion company using a terrorist cell market model and I believe that got the
most votes. Our product didn’t do very well, but it was an honor to be able to
work with CK.

The last session before Blair’s speech was a lunch session with some of the
leading forward thinkers and CEOs of the future about what that future might
look like in 2015. I sat next to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, who was overly
enthusiastic about a future where no needs to leave their room as holograms
deliver your companions and even your outdoors right in front of you. In the
second session, I sat next to Shai Agassi of SAP, where he laid out a vision of
a physical world analog to the internet that helps deliver physical goods and
items to you the way the internet delivers packets of data. Arianna Huffington
laid out a world where everyone was not having sex, because they were
experiencing virtual sex. I’m looking forward to seeing the summarizations of
the session that covered new emerging life styles, increased globalization, more
power in emerging markets and opportunities to tackle global warming, ubiquitous
access to the internet for all, and securely handle user’s identities.

On Thursday night, I was in a wine dinner hosted by Jancis Robinson, the UK’s
leading wine critic. Geoff gave me a bit of a ribbing because I dumped his
dinner session on Mergers and Acquisitions Heatmap, because Geoff would have
rather been tasting the Bordeaux wines. The bottles, which ranged in price from
$200 to $800 each, were paid for by a Mister Ahkmatov, an industrialist from
Ukraine, who was himself hosting the Prime Minister of Ukraine. It was a very
generous gesture with the most incredible wines and terrific commentary from
Jancis. We were kicked out at 10 and retired to the bar with the remaining
bottles of wine hanging out with one of the world’s greatest wine experts.

I don’t know how to describe last night without reusing all the same
superlatives. It started off with a political dinner where I met with John Kerry
and sat at the same table as Senator Patrick Leahy and the Undersecretary of
Treasury for International Affairs. Senator Leahy had interesting off the record
commentary. I even got to ask Barney Frank over at the next table some questions
about Sarbanes Oxley. Then I went to the Accel party where I got to meet Shimon
Perez and ask him his opinion on the future of Iraq. I met one of my heros,
Michael Porter, afterwards, which was a real treat. We then headed over to the
Google party, which was wall to wall mayhem with every known famous person
around. I met Sergey Brin and Larry Page but got to spend more time with Larry
in a session on city design this morning. The guy is a renaissance man having
figured out new models for flight transportation and influencing the design of
Google’s new $1B facility.

This evening I am heading out to the Geek Dinner, which originated back when
the techies weren’t allowed at the Grand Gala. I have been told the Geek Dinner
is much better. I understand that everyone will give a prediction as to what
will be coming up in the next year.

I’ll write some more about the week later, but for now I have run out of
adjectives to use. I would like thank Mitchell Baker, CEO of the Mozilla
Foundation, for yield her spot to me for the Tech Pioneer competition, Dave
Sifry, CEO of Technorati and who deservedly beat me in that competition, for
yielding his seat at dinner and Mitch Kapor for his help in the
conference.

John Newton – Co-founder Documentum and Alfresco