Blogger’s Stories – Storytelling in action from Vrazon on Vimeo.

The entire conference was themed around storytelling and we had lots of sessions about how to improve our storytelling.  My session was devoted to actually telling some stories.  I think it went really well and I’m hugely grateful to everybody who stood up to share a story as well as the hundreds of people who attended the session. And a big thanks to Brescia and Franciacorta who allowed us to share our stories in this marvelous venue, the Santa Giulia church, a place all-too-epic for a silly little blogger like me.

Summary of stories told

Name – title – time stamp in video
my summary

Ryan Opaz – Introduction – 0:01
Brief intro to the storytelling session

Ryan O’Connell – Judge a book by its cover – 2:00
I told a story about writing my book on the Cabardes wine region.  And the help I got from my neighborhood winemakers.  Or lack of help.  Or in some cases ridiculous amounts of criticism they gave me.  And the most hilarious criticisms.  Spoiler: “Why is there an asian child on the cover of this book?!”

Brett Jones – Don’t let a prostate prostrate – 7:20
Brett shared a very moving story about how he handled the discovery of his prostate cancer.  And his wine tasting on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square to promote awareness and early detection of prostate cancer.

Jason Kallsen – Feel the fear – 14:18
“The counterfeit innovator is wildly self confident. The real one is scared to death.”  A good story about how Jason learned that Ryan Opaz was moving to Spain without any real plans.  And how to create something beautiful we have to go out and embrace the scary world out there!  The book he mentions is Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”

Anders Aberg – I bought a vineyard! – 18:20
The story of how a successful Swedish film producer bought a little property in the south of France.  And how he was a bit surprised by developments of his first vintage.  And how much his friends will lie to him about the wine being great!   Follow his adventures in Swedish on his blog Livet i Languedoc.

Louise Hurren – Story of a ball of string – 22:25
Louise talks about how her life has intertwined with wine and drops some twine around the room with every step.

Agnes Nemeth – Bordeaux Lock Out – 30:32
This Hungarian wine writer talks about an epic trip to Bordeaux where everything goes wrong and she ends up treading through the muddy clay vines in the pitch darkness of night until somebody found her in the morning.

Wink Lorch – A Shaggy Dog Story – 39:01
Wink tells a hilarious story full of beautiful and irrelevant details about an American winery that does EVERYTHING possible to make their wine the best on the market. It’s fun to recycle and retell stories and embellish them and all that jazz. Wink shows us how it’s done.  Read more of Wink’s serious work at Wine Travel Guides.

Magnus Reuterdahl – Archaeology tells a story – 45:04
This Scandinavian talks about the history of wine in Sweden and how some very old symbols come and go over time and how archaeology tells a story just as interesting as any person can.  Read more of Magnus’ wine blogging at Testimony of the Spade.

Oscar Quevedo – Don’t challenge me -49:09
This winemaker in the Duoro Valley talks about how they tread grapes in the lagares and how he almost drowned as a child.  And now, people battle in the lagar and Oscar’s near death experience has given him the power to win every time.  Follow Oscar on the Quevedo blog.

Joao Roseira – En Memoire de Joe Dressner – 52:09
This portugese fellow decided to talk in French (which was hilarious and awesome) in a tribute to Joe Dressner the wine importer and unconventional blogger who recently passed away.  I think Dressner would have loved the spirit of rebellion to Joao’s story and choice of language.  He blogs in Portugese on gotaepinga

Thomas Lippert – Recovering from cardiac arrest – 54:50
Thomas suffered a major cardiac arrest and discovered the first EWBC online while he was in hopsital.  His incredibly speedy recovery was partially fueled by a desire to attend that first conference and share with other people who love wine.  A really touching story.  More of Thomas’ blogging on winzerblog.de

I’m including the article about us below, but I highly recommend picking up an issue before they’re out of stock because the section on blogging and wine websites is very well-written.

For those who don’t know, this is a terrifying format in which you only have five minutes and your slides automatically advance every 15 seconds (so you gotta be fast, planned and effective).

Pretending to be an expert – by Ryan O’Connell from chichard41 on Vimeo.

I should mention here that there are lots of experts who actually are talented and knowledgable and so on. But most of them are confident enough in their own expertise not to be troubled by a silly ignite talk by little old Ryan anyway.

After talking to my parents, I realized I should also explain what the hell a lolcat is. Lulcatz are an Internet meme (trend) that involve photoshopping awful spelling and grammar onto adorable pictures of kittens. If that doesn’t make sense to you immediately, then don’t bother trying to understand. You never will. It’s just silly and the most base sense of Internet humor. In a way, the symbolic opposite of expertise.

I encourage you to check out other videos from London Ignite 4 on the dedicated vimeo channel.

PS – I’m sort of bummed that you can’t hear people laughing. Trust me, they were enjoying themselves. It’s the kind of crowd that really digs lolcats!

For those who don’t know, Naked has subscribed customers that basically agree to buy a certain amount of wine each year.  This gives naked a big investment pot that it uses to support indie winemakers like me.  We turn around and offer preferential pricing to Naked and they pass that on to their customers and it’s a big happy family.  The site has a lot of other features including the ability to finance a cuvee of wine… and the site also has an indepth social network where customers rate wines and get feedback about what wines they might like or dislike… It’s a pretty sweet set up.

And I just found out at Le Vin 2.0 that I was included in a nice write-up about Naked.  Evelyne Resnick (who was mentioned on this blog recently) interviewed me about my experience with Naked.  I was pleasantly surprised that she included so much of my testimony in her article.  I guess this is why I’m so happy for Naked on its second birthday.  I’m hitched to that rising star!!

I get to sell my wine to people I like, I get to know the folks drinking the wine in the UK, I get paid in a timely manner (something that wine importers are not generally famous for), and I get free press just for standing by their side.    Not a bad deal.

“Même son de cloche du coté des producteurs.  Ryan O’Connell est un jeune Américain qui s’est installé en Languedoc en 2004 pour faire ‘des vins déliceux, délicieux’ confie-t-il avec un grand sourire. Ryan est le parfait produit d’une double culture : une grande ouverture d’esprit liée à ses origines américaines, et un profond attachement à ce terroir languedocien dont il veut exprimer la quintessence dans ses vins.”
–Evelyne Resnick

The article goes on to describe my relationship with Naked and how it’s a perfect fit. And I have to agree!!

Everybody’s starting to publish their thoughts on the various conferences and workshops. I wanted to do this as a video, but my internet connection is just too slow on the road. So imagine I’m reading this in a very excited way.

When I hear a presentation, there is a voice in my head that imitates the person presenting. This is direct access to that voice in my head. If it sounds like I’m belittling an orator, remember that it is just the limit of the voice in my head. All the presentations were actually super top notch. The troll is an annoying voice that is sometimes in my head and sometimes in somebody else’s head or sometimes on twitter.  And if any of this seems mean in any way, I will gladly take parts down so just let me know. I really thought the world of all these presentations. I just don’t know how to begin repeating most of the brilliant stuff that was said.

Matt May

Is universal conception still a possibility? Here’s some brief history of web development. In the 90s the web was hideous. We cleaned it up, but now there are a lot of tools and new restrictions. Don’t think that you can just make a version for each piece of hardware. Try to make shit that looks good on everything. Building for ie is like building on a foundation of mud. But sometimes you have to build on mud. So uhh ya, Universality is still possible. Also, Flash is still relevant.

Troll: So I’m not the only American who got browbeat into speaking in French

Amelie Boucher

I tape people’s eyes open and force them to look at websites while I track their iris movements. It’s hilarious because they suck at using the websites we build. THEY REALLY SUCK AT IT A LOT. But it’s not their fault. It’s actually really obviously our job to make it way easier for people.

Troll: glad she isn’t tracking my eye movements

Christian Heilmann

[the voice in my head adopts a terrible impersonation of a German accent]

Ya, apps are so cool, but reading api documentation is like rolling around on a bed of rusty roofing nails so I just take the api and I make it do something awesome and then everybody knows that it’s awesome and wants to use it. Maybe you can be an evangelist too! We get lots of girls.

Troll: maybe I can be an evangelist too!

Jean Marc Hardy

With the omnipresence of video, it seems like people are pretty down on text. But note that text is actually pretty cool. It’s still like… pretty much everything. Even images are referenced through text. There’s some stuff coming out with color filters now or Google Goggles, but that’s still totally irrelevant compared to the power of text. Even ads tend to work better when they’re textual instead of more complicated banners. A picture is worth 1000 words but we still measure it in words. DEEP THOUGHTS, RIGHT?

Troll: You have reached your character limit

W3C guys

[I don't remember the names of the guys who present next but they are awesome.]

In the future, dudes are as hilarious as us. In the future, Terminator bots use various elements of HTML5 to target and destroy you. In an alternate future, there is only one font: comic sans ms. In the future, we can use CSS without rhythm and we won’t attract the worm.

Troll: In the future, there are actually some things we will do with HTML5 that we can’t explain with kitschy 1980s film references.

Jake Archibald

Look, you might be thinking that clean, readable, and consistent reusable code is only sort of important. But the fact is that if you fuck this shit up, Patrick Stewart will hate you and little kids will watch documentaries about cocks with their mums. Also, I’m batman. Together, we are Captain Planet. And For the love of god, clean up your cock. Err. code. See how easy that was?

Troll: Nothing’s more reusable than historical phalluses

Olivier Thereaux

You don’t have to quit your day job to innovate. You can just do crazy shit at work like encourage people to talk around the water cooler. CRAAAYYYZY Or make people work through lunch. They love that and it makes them innovate like crazy. But not too crazy. Sometimes, you have cool ideas that end up becoming useful down the road. Like this app that tracks public bicycles and … yes, they are all way down the road and down the hill. We also made a tv channel get a social network but they hated it so maybe don’t make your clients do things they hate. But encourage people to have ideas. And make mistakes. And then use those mistakes.

Troll: Step 1: innovate. Step 3: profit!

That night we drank a lot, but everybody showed up the next day ready at like 8 AM to talk about fonts! WOOOOOO !!! FONTS!

David Rault

I know so much shit about the history of fonts! It is crazy! I love it. I talk about fonts like most french people talk about wine. This one is strong, and reminds us of stones and minerality. If I can be so freaking passionate about fonts, maybe you can start to give a crap? Also, we’ve got some cool new ways to use fonts online, but do they really work? What about intellectual property rights? Haven’t I done a pretty good job of reminding you that most of these fonts were crafted by some master artisan in a small shack in the 1930s? What gives you the right to just give away their fonts online?

Troll: Giramond is a MAN. HE HAS MOUTHS TO FEED.

Anne Sophie Fradier

How much do I love grids? You know how that last guy loved fonts? Well I am that much into grids and Macrotypographie and grids. Seriously, they’re awesome. I mean you can do other awesome-looking things without using any grids. But if you’re not super good at coming up with great-looking ideas, might I offer… oh I don’t know … a grid. How hard is it to make your websites look good? It’s not hard. Line things up properly, like… like they’re on some sort of grid. Don’t trick your reader into thinking ads are photos that have to do with the text. Sometimes it’s better to think of websites as scrolls than as books. Also, serif feet are bourgeois.

Troll: I’m terrified that she’s going to hate my wine labels

Dave Shae

Stop asking me about CSS Zen Garden! I’m a man DAMMIT! A man with interests and I have done tons of cool shit with my life! Look at this other website I made: It is awesome. And it degrades gracefully all the way to ie 6 or dudes who access the internet by banging rocks together near a fax machine. It’s BEAUTIFUL! Stop whining about when shit will be implemented and fully integrated. Just start exploring and making cooler websites. Also, is anybody else depressed that ie 9 looks so good? Who will our children disparage?

Troll: Will there be a CSS3 Zen Garden?

Ryan O’Connell

Hey I make wine. If you all laugh a couple times during this presentation I will feed you wine later. I am Russell Crowe. HAHAHA. Yes, you want wine? YOU WILL LAUGH. That is the secret to integrating into a new community. Also, don’t use the Internet just to stalk your exes on facebook. Use it to build a community. Also, WTF racists? WTF, Glenn Beck? I’m so hungry, can we eat now?

You forgot to put your website or twitter handle in your powerpoint.

Then we ate and I poured some wine and I totally missed a presentation where they were like “Hey don’t be a dick; make websites accessible.” Sorry I missed it, IBM dudes.

Paul Rouget

I am going to try to do like six live demos and expect maybe one of them to work. Oh snap, they are all working. You can follow the power point presentation from the comfort of your own laptop. I can ask you poll questions over the wifi. How does the future feel? I hope it feels good. Now look at me go. Dragging and dropping shit all over the place. Editing photos. Rendering 3D images. Modifying audio. And wait for it: it’s all happening user side. Ya I’m blowing your freaking mind. Cloud computing blah blah. This is so cool it actually deserves a buzzword like web 2.0

Troll: [somebody in the audience actually tried to crash the server by looping 800 join requests or something]

Stephanie Troeth

Would you give it a break with deliverables? Designing is just the product of design. Production is the produce of … … productivity … designers are the design of intelligent design… or something… Occasionally, consider the User Experience. Are you considering it yet? You should be. There are lots of ways to do it. You don’t have to attach lasers to your users’ retinae. Sometimes, it makes more sense to do paper prototyping or just drawing shit on blackboards.

Troll: Product is the excrement of design.

The End.

Everybody is so much smarter than me!!!

Better summaries available elsewhere:

• Complete list of posts maintained by ParisWeb
• Marie Julien’s summary (is this the person being called a troll?)
• Day 2 Of ParisWeb by Blogo Ergo Sum
• Synerg’he Blog recapitulatif des presentations
• Who’s the Art Director?
• Les Integristes on the whole conference

Very detailed recaps of specific presentations:

• France3 on Monique Bruel’s Accessibility on the web, with extra interview
• Matthieu Mingasson on UX (User Experience)
• Anne Sophie on Macrotypographie
• Sebastien Billard on Accessibility and Referencing
• Innovation 9-5

Lists:

• All the twitter handles of the speakers
• Flickr Group photos of Paris Web and surrounding events
• All the ParisWeb staff members on flickr

So uhm Robert Joseph, who wrote/edited a lot of the reference materials we used long before we ever owned a vineyard, was contributing to the Grenache Symposium.  And then we met again at a Sud de France event.  And he said something very nice about me on Twitter.  So I’m going to use this space to blush and say thank you to him and that I’m very flattered.

And maybe this is a place to mention that I am only interesting in this region thanks to the support of my friends and community that allow me to get their message out on the web.  In a way, this is about how cool YOU all are.

Here’s to discovering many others of greater import to this beautiful region!

And follow Robert Joseph on twitter or follow some of the projects he’s involved in like DoILikeIt.  I swear that he’s interesting when he’s not talking about me.

How do you convince a bunch of wine professionals to work with other winemakers?  You do it with the help of other winemakers, obviously!

I’m going to share the stage with Oscar Quevedo of Oscar’s Wine in the Douro Valley of Portugal.  We’re going to leave the powerpoint presentation at home and we’re going to try to make people giggle as we taste through some of our favorite wines in the world: each other’s!

This offbeat performance is scheduled at 11 AM on Tuesday, May 18th, and it will take place at the daringly named  “Access Zone” of the wine fair.  Please stop by.  You will have a blast.  You will taste some yummy wines.  You will even taste a wine cocktail.  We will break every rule wine snobs hold dear.  And we will do it all before noon time on a Tuesday.  Because that is how we roll in the Access Zone.

11:00 Winery Collaboration with Quevedo and O-Vineyards

Oscar Quevedo from the Douro and Ryan O’Connell from the Languedoc, two powerful social media enabled wine producers, will show the power of collaboration in a live wine tasting of each others wines. Be prepared to laugh, enjoy some great wines, and have a good time. Not to mention learn something about how collaboration will lead to success with your wineries wines!

The Access Zone also has a ton of other wine programming organized by Catavino.  Later on Tuesday, there’s going to be a deal with Tim Atkins (The Wine Gang) and Gérard Bertrand’s ‘Tautavel’ wine.  Bertrand is another heavy hitter from the Languedoc and a French rugby legend, and I guess he’ll be making an appearance too.  If the lineup of the access zone is indicative of the rest of the London Wine Fair, the LIWF should be a hoot and a half.

London, prepare yourself.  You are about to be accessed…hard… ew.

The article signed irishherault says it all.

“ViniSud 2010
Or take a young winemaker based just north of Carcassonne in the Aude, called Ryan O’Connell. On Thursday Ryan posted another new video to one of his sites (yes, he has several), Love That Languedoc.
It was about a presentation he gave at ViniSud 2010, about the first steps winemakers can take to get into Vin 2.0.

Ryan’s talk came at the end of the annual show in Montpellier, and while he didn’t get much of a crowd on the day, his presentation lives on through this video (isn’t the Internet great!), and it is now doing the rounds of wine blogs and finding a much wider audience.
He also sent a message out on his Twitter feed yesterday.

It’s a great little call to arms. As he puts it, we can OWN the Internet (or “this interweb thing” as us old-timers still call it).

As Vinternet.net puts it, “Ryan est un pragmatique, il sait communiquer son enthousiasme et ça lui réussit.”

Ryan is very young – less than half our age. The two of us are old enough to be his parents. He’s American, and moved over to the Languedoc in 2005 with his mum and dad when he was only 19.

Yet he has a fantastic command of French that has us green with envy. He is enthusiastic and prolific and has the adventurousness, courage and sheer neck of youth to question the old ways and get out there and do things rather differently in the Vin 2.0 era.

It will be an uphill struggle, step by step, and there’s no point in getting seduced by apparently instant results, but this is where it’s all going.

Vin 2.0 is the new rock ‘n’ roll, with wonderful new tales being told by people like Ryan”…………