I had a great time at DLD overall. I met entrepreneurs working on interesting startups, I talked to angel and seed investors who are (co-)operating across European borders, and I listened to an interesting panel on education and a great presentation by Daniel Ariely. My take on the conference: The good: Location in the center of Munich, which is a fun city. Great and diverse group of people from many different backgrounds and nationalities. All the ancillaries were flawless from wireless to food to transportation. There was ample space for people to meet casually aided by availability of coffee, snacks, etc The could be better: the main stage was in an area that was not sufficiently offset from the casual conversation areas causing a lot of noise and distraction at the edges making it hard for speakers and panels to hold the audience’s attention. Panel moderation was sometimes quite weak leaving even good penalists with little to say or play off each other. Finally, figuring out how to get folks from abroad to interact more with locals would be good (not sure how to best do that - maybe have some smaller workshops on side). All in all glad I went and hope they keep it up.
