John Milhado Reports on May's Eighth Annual WorldView Forum in Barcelona

The Eighth Annual WorldView Forum was a great success thanks to

From May 27-29, ABCN hosted our Eighth Annual WorldView Forum, this time in Barcelona. Even though the world might be in a financial crisis and despite the H1N1 flu holding the world hostage, we were very happy to welcome 60 delegates to Barcelona. It was interesting to hear how careful - yet positive - everybody was. This time of economic crisis does bring trouble, but as real business entrepreneurs (the most accurate description of all our Members) all delegates recognize that there are new opportunities to take advantage of, and new challenges to meet.

The meeting presented a bounty of interesting information and new features. The pros and cons of social media were discussed. There were panel discussions focusing on real estate and technology. We had the opportunity to learn more about Barcelona and its artists by the very famous and highly acclaimed artist, Manel Alvarez, who honored our event by giving a keynote speech. We viewed compelling video clips that showed how much you can do to maximize and optimize your website. Most of all, there was plenty of opportunity to meet friends and colleagues (who became friends very fast!) from all over the world. It is amazing to see how at each European conference the ABCN family is growing more and more!

Following the tradition of our post-conference events, the evening programs were exciting, relaxing and featured good food, wine and quality time with friends. On Thursday evening the food was particularly outstanding: in a typical Spanish condo, we had to cook our own tapas in an interactive workshop. What an experience! Another experience to remember was Wednesday evening, when Barcelona's soccer team played in the finals of the European championship tournament. We were lucky enough to be able to follow the match on a large screen tv at our hotel, but you can imagine the atmosphere throughout the city right after the match was won! Some guests tried to get into town, which they found impossible because of the teeming, celebrating crowds. You can imagine our fears when we found out next day that our tapas workshop was located on the very road where the parade with the winning team would arrive...! The ABCN team saw the whole group disappear into the dancing and singing crowd, but with some excellent organization skills (and some great luck, to be honest) we managed to get the whole group on location just before the roads were blocked.

It may seem like the Annual WorldView Forum is planned around soccer championship tournaments (remember orange Amsterdam last year?), but honestly, this was just a coincidence. We will claim, though, that our presence is the good luck that boosts the cities' teams to win.

All together, we had a great meeting in beautiful Barcelona and we are already looking forward to the Ninth WorldView Forum taking placefr in Prague from June 3-6, 2010! Mark your calenders for another memorable event!

Presentations from the Barcelona meeting are now available under the ABCN Downloads section of the Member Portal (please log in to view or download the files). Photos from the events are available at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/alliancenetwork/sets/72157619872631384/.