Hanna Chos' notes from Laurent and Jaewoong Joint Kickoff Talk:
LH - in 2007, Jaewoong was invited as a speaker, and simply put, he said 'we need this in asia'.

Today, there are 1 billion users of internet. your grandma uses the internet. But there is a clear overload of information. This has a number of consequences. For example, once you have a website, you are suddenly 'global'. the medium is not the message. a few years ago, people would go to your website for the sake of it simply being there. Now, we are back to a resource based hierarchy. a few years ago, amateurs were the trend. Now, it's different. for example, big brands are dominating. ie. Youtube. Amateurs have lost some of their edge. Casual everything is the consquence of this information overload. The web is increasingly complex.

People interested in more visual representation of LIFT Asia talks should have a glance at Rachel Hinman's Flickr stream.

See for example her notes from Bruce Sterling's presentation yesterday:

LIFT Asia 2008 started yesterday in full swing. Laurent Haug gave the welcome address by stating how LIFT is about turning change into opportunity, telling us the story of why LIFT Asia went to Korea and we want to do here.

We are still receiving online registrations and people are showing up at the conference center BUT we have logistical bottlenecks (lunches, diners) that force us to limit attendance. Please be aware that we only have around 10 tickets still available and that you will probably NOT be able to enter the conference if you arrive unregistered! Please call Jinwoo Choi on 018-206-6344 if you want to come, he has the latest information on the situation.

Also, the open afternoon online propositions are now closed, but we added two more rooms and you will be able to propose a speech on the spot at the conference infodesk.

Please be sure to print + bring your Amiando e-tickets to get your badge at Lift Asia 08! You will help us all by making registration faster and allowing everybody to get into the conference in time to see the grand conference opening :)

^{This is an Amiando eticket example}

Now that we had close to 200 registrations in the past three days I start to understand why my Korean friends told me a month ago that I "should not worry, people will register. Just a little bit late..."

Tonight we have 413 registered participants. That's slightly more than we wanted originally, but our room can go up to 450 so we still have 37 tickets on sale at the price of 850$ as the early bird period is now over.

Every year some people who want to come to Lift and thought "I have time to register" are left out. I hope it won't be you, and that by the time you read this message you will still be able to register!

We again had 70 registrations today, three days before the official start of the conference... This is quite amazing, 40% of participants registered in the last 48 hours. Seems things work a bit differently in Korea than in long-term-planning obsessed Switzerland ;)

Let's see if we reach 400 participants - our original goal. The count stands at 351 as I post this early on Tuesday morning. Register now, we only have a few tickets left...

There are still few open slots available in the Open Afternoon on Friday. Take your chance and reserve your spot now! If enough spots are free we will also offer sign-up for a spot on-site at the information desk in front of Tamna Hall in ICC.

14 presentations have now been scheduled in the open afternoon, with Jasmina Tesanovic and Hyokon Zhiang joining the ranks of the speakers. The latest news:
• we decided to book another room and accept more submissions
• and allow participants to make propositions on the spot. There will be a white board close to the info desk accepting last minute speakers.
• if you want to present your start-up we have some 10 minutes spots available

Here is the current program as of Sunday 1pm Seoul time:

We are busy finalizing the event and here are the latest news:

- the program is now final. We have one of the coolest schedule we have ever created. Cool in two ways: we managed to invite amazing speakers, but we also managed to have a good rhythm with enough time to take questions, long breaks for networking, etc...

- we are nearing 300 participants and received 80 (!) registrations today. We would love to have 350, just like at the first ever lift. Monday should be a busy day. Welcome to Korea, where there seems to be a different sense of what "last minute" means ;) And if you check the participants roster you will notice it does not show 300 persons because we had some users to edit and re-add in a batch that will run Monday morning, when our ticketing partner Amiando reopens.

- the weather is really nice these days, and the forecasts for next week are ok. Expect temperatures around 25 degrees (yes, it's summer in Jeju :) and a dry weather. Knock on wood!

- the media coverage starts and we will have 2 TV stations, 5 of Korea's top bloggers, and around 10 journalists covering the event. That's great for a first year. If you look back at the press coverage we got since 2005 you will notice that the first European Lift was not covered by that many people.

- we are enjoying Korea, trying great food, visiting amazing places, taking millions of pictures... Great time :) We can't wait to welcome you here!