Sitting in the audience at the IBC Euroforum conference in Stockholm. The first session after the lunch break – Tommy Sundstrom talking about web design and usability.

The room is packed, hardly a spare seat going. The conference certainly seems to have captured some imaginations here in Stockholm.

I’m not really surprised as almost every conference I’ve been to in the past year, either as a speaker or an attendee, where social media and the web are either an element or the full focus, has been a sellout.

Such thirsts for knowledge out there.

I presented my keynote on ‘communication of the future’ in the before-lunch slot. The only segment in this two-day conference that’s in English not Swedish.

As each speaker is presenting in Swedish, this presents some interesting challenges for a non-Swedish speaker like me.

I find I’m paying far more attention to the speaker than I would normally. May sound a bit obvious. But what’s typical at conferences, I think, is to use your peripheral attention rather than all your direct attention. That lets you do other things simultaneously yet without losing focus on what the speaker’s saying.

Very difficult to do that if you don’t speak the language.

Better post this and get back to listening.

More later.