Kushtrim Xhakli works at the IPKO Institute in Kosovo. He speaks about how innovative projects can transform education.

Stephanie Booth presents Going Solo, a conference for independent professionals happening on May 16th, 2008 in Lausanne.

Ewan McIntosh is the National Adviser for Learning and Teaching Scotland, the education agency responsible for curriculum development. He talks about how social media creates open education.

Henriette is a specialist of online communities. She talks about how we should all enjoy the chaos.

The fascinating aspect of “real” radical innovations does not primarily lie in their manifestations as entirely new services or products; what is of interest are rather the new forms and processes of knowledge creation having led to these manifestations.

During the LIFT08 open stage, Matt Colebourne of coComment talks about The importance of social networking and conversations are having for companies and bloggers.

I’m writing this note at Laurent’s request (he sounds a bit swamped right now) to give you some info about the missing videos.

A few of us Open Stage speakers have been wondering why our videos weren’t online. Let me state first that it is not a conspiracy of some kind or an indication that community-chosen presentations might be less regarded than “invited speakers”. If you look at the videos on nouvo.ch, you’ll see that Kevin Marks is the last recorded speakers — all those after him are missing too.

I’ve asked Laurent about this (believe me, he’s heard about it enough) and what has happened is that some talks were not edited live — so it seems it’s a bit of a struggle to get it done / retrieve them / put them online. We unfortunately don’t know when they’ll be available. I trust, however, that the recordings are safe and will not be lost.

This kind of situation is really annoying. As a speaker, who was relying upon this video, I feel extremely frustrated — and also a bit mad at myself, because knowing how important this recording was for me, I should have planned for a fail-safe and got somebody to do some dirty shooting “just in case”.

As a conference organiser, I dread that I’ll find myself in this situation at some point — it’s almost inevitable. When you announce something, even if it’s something that you’re giving graciously, people come to expect it and rely on it. And when things go wrong and it doesn’t happen the way they hoped, they react badly (me included) — when they probably wouldn’t have said anything in the first place if they hadn’t been expecting it.

I know Laurent feels bad about this, and they’re doing what they can to find a solution — amongst the myriad of other post-LIFT things they need to deal with.

Cross-posted to CTTS.

Update: the open stages are now included in the program. We tried to put them in sessions where they make sense, like the Web and enterprises session for "The importance of social networking and conversations are having for companies and bloggers", obviously a no brainer.

We received 337 votes for the open stage (after getting like 100 last year) which is really amazing. Thanks for voting and making this part of the program. And the winners are:

Thanks to all those who took the time to participate, we have some really good propositions who are get left behind but that is the rule of the game. If things go well next year with that new format we might think of extending the number of available slots.

Important notes to the winners:
• congrats to all, now is time to prepare your speech!
• if you don't feel like speaking in English in front of 700 persons with the swiss television taping your session and putting it online please say so now.
• your name will not appear on the speakers list, so please complete your profile, add a picture, a bio, etc... if you haven't done so.
• if you have slides you will have to send them by Monday, Feb 4.
• and be aware of one thing: like for other speakers we will make sure you don't go over the time you have. Please play it fair and prepare your speech to last no longer than 5 minutes (we will have to cut you if you don't), and talk about what you are expected to talk (we are printing the open stage speeches in the program this year).

We have been wondering when you guys would start making your propositions for LIFT08. And it is now it seems, with many of them coming in the last few days :) Let's see: we have 7 open stage propositions, 16 projects for the venture night, 6 workshops and... only 1 discussion (which is a cool format you should really check it out)!

All propositions are assembled on the LIFT08 propositions page, and if you are thinking of speaking yourself hurry up, voting is scheduled to happen in 2 weeks so don't miss your chance to speak at LIFT08!

We were wondering why you guys were not making more propositions for our community program (which I must admit is a bit complicated with 4 formats - open stage, discussions, workshops and ventures night - all summarized here), the reason probably being that february still sounds a bit remote, and propositions usually come early january.

But this last week we welcomed many propositions like How social networks can be used to get people informed and involved in global issues, Who has no knife may not eat pineapples or Forgetful Interfaces.

See all propositions here, and check how you can speak at LIFT08!