Jan-Christoph Zoels is co-founder of Director of User Experience Design at Experientia.
Link to his speaker bio.

We talk about desires and design, interactions and experience, remote controls to Second Life.

Download MP3 (31 min, 19 MB)

(due to time constraints no longer shownotes now, sorry)
Tag(s): lift07, pre conference podcast, interview, Jan-Christoph Zoels

Colin Henderson works in the business most of us probably associate with Switzerland: Banks.

And he proves in this interview that although it may seem to be a conservative and rather dull industry, talking about banks can actually be fun. ;) He blogs under Bankwatch.

Download MP3 (18 min, 10 MB)

We talk about:

• I have credit card and my Paypal - what do I need banks for?


• the challenges for banks with an informed audience and transparancy (a scary thought obviously)


• the world is not so simple - trust, liability and legal documents


• something we can learn from this industry? Scaling!


• challenges for banks with online transactions - Paypal seem to be reliable, secure and manage quite well

Tag(s): lift07, pre conference podcast, interview, Colin Henderson, bankwatch

John Buckman is running an online record label - which is not evil.

Download MP3 (39 min, MB)

We talk about:

• how Magnatune came about and why the whole chain in the music business is filled with evil


• how music is published with Magnatune


• how this works together with traditional models but still is new with CC licences


• of course we also talk a lot about using creative common licences


• better be outstanding than mediocre


• if the Magnatune can work in other industries but why music might be special


• Bookmooch - the exchange system for books, the credit system and how people use it


• how this might change the way you look at books and the buying process

Links: Speaker bio, Magnatune and BookMooch

And if anyone can get me "Lesson learned from Sesame Street" please?! :)

Tag(s): lift07, pre conference podcast, interview, John Buckman, bookmooch, magnatune

Matthias Lüfkens is Senior Media Manager for the World Economic Forum and runs a travel guide company called inyourpocket.com. At Lift he is moderating the panel "Dealing with technological overload".

Download MP3 (37 min, 22 MB)

We talk about

• how this year the Forum in Davos has really opened up to the world wide audience


• which benefits this has brought and how this evolution came to happen


• the gimmick of Second Life and what might be Web 3.0


• how the Davos spirit can be kept but still achieve openess to the world for example with Davos Conversation


• Technology overload and the impact of the Blackberry


• the problem of not teaching people how to use technology


• about the story of "in your pocket" and the value of having edited information and why you do not need a Starbucks in Istanbul

Tag(s): lift07, pre conference podcast, interview, Matthias Luefkens

The first interview on Lift Speakers is with Bruno Giussani, who simply says he is a writer - but with a very reputable list of publications as you can see on his blog. He is also the European Director of TED Conferences and has been on the advisory board for Lift.

He blogs at Lunch over IP and I am sure we will see great entries on the panels as usual. :)

Download MP3 (27:35 min, 16 MB)

Tag(s): lift07, pre conference podcast, interview, Bruno Giussani

Starting later today I will post my interviews with a handful of speakers for the upcoming lift07 in Geneva.



This post later will gather link to all five interviews and as always, the biggest struggle with such interviews is to actually get speakers on the phone!

Sucscribe to the feed in your favorite podcatching application or just listen on this site. The interviews will go up today and should be finished till Monday night so you have enough time to listen to them while travelling to Geneva. ;)

Technorati Tags: lift07, geneva, preconference podcast, podcast, interview