Eric Edelstein

I was part of the 100 strong audience last night to watch Founder of the Creative Commons and author of the book Free Culture, Professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is in South Africa with the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, to talk about “freedom of the Internet”.

(…and GUESS which row I was sitting in?)

I’d have to watch Lessig’s talk a number of times to get it, (I got a little of it, but there was so much to get….) but it was STIMULATING and ENTERTAINING.

What was FASCINATING was watching his presentation technique, called the Lessig method (don’t quote me on that - someone mentioned it was called that) - keywords appeared on the 2 screens in the SABC building in Sea Point every second or 2!

TRY TO IMAGINE IT… to visualise what Lessig was doing if you haven’t seen him live.

As he spoke, the most important element of EVERY sentence appeared on the screen a split second before he actually said the word. It was a bit freaky at first, but it kept me focussed the entire time as if I lost him for a few seconds, the screens updated me with the keywords. It wasn’t only writing on the screens - short video clips, music, and pictures flowed rapidly - there must have been a FEW HUNDRED screen changes during his talk.

I won’t talk about his actual talk, as Max Kaizen (who has done a phenomenal job changing my blog design, the way I write, and the way I think - Thanks Max) was sitting next to me (she made us sit RIGHT in the front!!!) and although I haven’t asked her, i’ll be highly surprised if she doesn’t do a comprehensive review of the talk on her blog…

Max is brilliant at speaking herself. The way she responded when Professor Lessig pointed at her to ask a question and the way she actually asked the question was worth attending alone. Legendary.

I chatted briefly to Professor Lessig before he started speaking, and also to Alan Levin (chairman of the ISOC), Dave Duarte (the Marketing Geek), Henk Kleynhans (Skyrove), Simon (what is your company name Simon?), Max Kaizen (Hunter of Genius), and met for the first time Heather from iCommons, and Carly, Colin, Gregor Rohrig (now etched in my mind!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREGOR) from the Sunday Times.