atmedia is dead, long live atmedia

Well, what an excellent few days that was in London for, as it turned out, the last @media conference to be run by Vivabit. I only missed out on 2008 so I would like to thank Patrick and team for the vision and hard work put into the conference series to date and wish Patrick well with his new venture. The good people of Web Directions will be taking over the organising for next year and keeping the brand alive I believe.

Of course, along with the presentations comes the meeting of friends old and new. It was great to catch up with Blair, Dan and Jim—ably assisted by assorted beverages and a pleasant dinner at Tas, a Turkish restaurant many of us had frequented in 2006 (if memory serves) on the night before the conference and over the next few days we were joined by Richard Stephenson. We also met / chatted / shared beer and dinner with many more people including (in order of business card pile):

• Nick Smith,
• Natalie Downe,
• Chris Mills,
• Rik Hepworth,
• George Terzakis,
• Andy Higgs,
• David Emery,
• Rich Clark,
• and also Ryan Carson, Martin Kliehm, Molly, Chris Wilson, Remy Sharp and my “usual suspects” list of Henny, Bruce, Patrick Lauke and sushi-laden (at the time) Christian.

As ever the conference was inspirational, thank you to all the speakers. Cheers!