It was my fourth EFMA event.
John Kirkbright, invited me to speak at "Social Media Revolution and Impact on Financial Services", the conference he organized for the EFMA in Paris on 19th March 2009.
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.
An encounter of 'the Gigabit' type
Jean-Michel Billaut, Founder of the Networking Company, is one of the first people I met at the EFMA event in Paris last week. We shook hands and introduced ourselves just to find out that we had both been following each other's blog for quite sometime!
I was delighted to meet Jean-Michel at last. He is one of the
most well-known bloggers in France or shall I dare to say 'in French'. If you can read French, I highly recommend to subscribe to Jean-Michel's blog 'Vivement la retraite a tres haut-debit et en 2.0 naturellement'.
We ended up sitting next to each other and sharing our views on social media for most of the day.
We even talked about the 'Social Media & Finance' Workshop I
organize in San Francisco on April 29th (on Jean-Michel's birthday! What a coincidence...), and Jean-Michel was able to
give me a few key contacts in the San Francisco Bay.
Thanks again
Jean-Michel!
I want to mention that Jean Michel has been promoted « Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur » (the high french distinction) by President Chirac for the promotion of the Internet in France.
Jean-Michel wasn't one of the speakers, but he was invited by one of the connections we have in common, Patrick Desmares, EFMA's Executive Director.
Interview with Jean-Michel (Paris, 19-Mar-09)
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Directory 2.0: Social Media in Banking
* Video - The Four Kinds of Social Media Projects
* People First! Global Survey on Social Networking
* Coverage - EFMA Social Media Conference (Paris)
* Coverage - EFMA Online Financial Services 2008 (Athens)
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