Chris Dessi - Vice President zanox, Inc

Last week New York City’s Jacob Javits center played host to Web 2.0 Expo and I was lucky enough to attend. It was a rare opportunity to have extended exposure to software developers, VC’s and other great minds shaping the internet today. The speakers included a wide range of talented people - from Arianna Huffington of the Huffington post, to Anthropologists that spoke about how the internet is affecting the world we live in, as well as nations that don’t have the internet yet (apparently in Malaysia they burn paper laptops so the dead can use them in the afterlife). The daily schedule of topics was a wish list of what’s cool right now. Once the week was complete I was floored by the sheer volume of notes I took during each session. Main themes that were heard often throughout the entire conference:

1. Companies need to pay attention to their customers more
2. The next big theme online is going to be “unplugging” from the internet – Meetup.com was seen as a leader – moving people away from computers and into the real world (Akoha from Techcrunch50 was cited as well.)
3. Digg, Twitter, and facebook are on everyone’s lips. This should help us with our Marketing and PR decisions in the future –
4. Top German company presence – Smeet.com, Berlin Partner, and of course zanox, Inc.