Today it’s 10 years ago, that I have heard of DLD conference and took first part in January 2007, when I was in the last round of my middle eastern science and islamic history of art studies at LMU university in Munich.
This was the time of early smart phones and no facebook in Germany. I remember I had a Blackberry, which was cool at this time and the 1st. Iphone was just announced 2 weeks before DLD2007. It was a time of digital nursery, but we all felt, that there will be more in the coming years.
What I found interesting and new for this time on DLD in 2007, was that Hubert Burda, ‚The Godfather‘ of Burda Media, but also an Art Historian, created together with Steffi Czerny a conference festival, which combines trends from Digital, Science, Economy, Startups, IT, Marketing, Art, Architecture, Physics, Philosophy, Politics and Biotech, you can’t find twice in Europe.
Maybe the Le Web in Paris by Loic Le Meur comes to this level. During this times the DLD was the Pioneer of Digital Conferences in Europe, which became more and more trendy in the last 5 years, since we have now also Pioneers Festival in Vienna, HR Inside Summit, Web Summit, Sourcecon, etc. pp., but with another quality and focus.
As I am since my childhood related to history of art, Hubert Burda belongs for me to a small group of great old-school entrepreneurs and business leaders, which are highly intellectual on the on side and visionary open minded on the other side.
The Burda Media empire is well known in Germany and worldwide, located in Offenburg, a small town in a wonderful wine area in the south of Germany, where I have spent my High School years in a boarding school in Sasbach (near Offenburg).
Who wants to learn more about him and his life-work should read the biography of Gisela Freisinger: Hubert Burda - Der Medienfürst (Campus 2005).
In 2007 during the DLD conference, it was an honor for me to give Hubert Burda the new book of my father about the „Travel diaries of count Carl Eugen of Baden-Württemberg“ in a kind of guerrilla marketing action.
This is also the great thing about DLD conference, that you can talk to great people from all over the world nearby at lunch or the great DLD party in the evening, building strong relations for future projects. This is real networking, besides social media contact-collecting, like e.g. on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The livestream, which is available for everybody on the DLD website is a great option to watch in the office for the next 2 days and in general a must for every marketeer or digital pioneer.
The new DLD trends are born and presented to the public, after 1 or more years of research and preparation by Steffi Czerny, Dominik Wichmann and their great team. It's real topics that matters on this conference and not only cold coffee about digital news and apps, we early adopters use in our daily business.
So, this article is just a small warm up another with insides from DLD2017 will follow in 3 days. Now, take you time to watch at least the live-stream, to get an idea of the important topics of 2017, like the 'Elephant in the Room. How to cope with a new relatity'...and other topics.
Check out the Program here.
Best regards from Mr. Breadhunter, Thomas Zahlten.
15th of January 2017