Venture capitalism panel at ICE08. Left to right: Alan Gershenfeld (E-Line Ventures), Jeremy Wright (b5media), Vikas Gupta (Transgaming Technologies), Spence McDonnell (PriceWaterhouse Coopers)

Ohhhh I’ve been neglecting my blog duties. Last night I went out to see the movie 21 and today I’ve been out all day. I’m heading out to Supercross soon, so I better write about yesterday’s sessions while I have a few minutes.

First off, day 3 of the ICE08 conference was better than day 2 (which was a mixed bag of good & bad sessions). I enjoyed all but one of yesterday’s sessions, so I left and went to another one, which I did enjoy. Best session yesterday was on Venture Capitalism– excellent information on VC in Canada and the US by business owners and VCs themselves.

The most hilarious session turned out to be the End of Copyright where one of my coworkers got on the mike and let the panelists have it. It was just awesome! In the copyright session, the panelists were mostly lamenting about old business models that have been made difficult or irrelevant due to new technologies. They wanted to introduce more restrictive copyright regulation into Canada to solve the problem of consumer behavioral change. (Note: not all of them agreed, Ajay was a sensible detractor). Richard (my colleague) got up and asked them, “How long are you going to shed tears over the typewriter repairman?” and went on to say that musicians have to find new ways to make money and that many are. The lawyer on the panel was the most furious at him and asked, “For musicians who don’t tour, how do they make money?” Susan was operating on the assumption that signing to a record label = success. That’s simply not true. You can be on a record label and fail. I hope there are more people like Richard who look for opportunity in technology than people like Susan who want to force consumers into outdated business models through legislation.

The best part of ICE08 was meeting new people. I would definitely go back next year, but my main suggestions would be to extend question periods and to get people on opinion panels that don’t all agree with one another. I’d like to see more differing views so that our ideas are challenged.