2nd Media Summit

Yesderday, Saïd hosted it's second annual International Media & Communications Summit and MBA students from all around the world congregated to watch a film, hear speakers and participate in master classes.

The keynote speaker in the morning was George Osborne, Conservative MP and Shadow Chancellor. Among other things, he spoke about the conflicts involved in the protection of IP on the internet and the need to have a light touch with respect to regulation.

The day continued and we broke up into with Masterclasses. I went to two:

• Buddy Ye, founder of WangYou media which is a Chinese media and entertainment company.
• Junghoon Kim, Professor at Keio University, Japan

Both were facinating, and brought sharply into focus the fact that so much in the internet and new media space is happening in East Asia that we in the West don't have any idea about. In particular, it was interesting to learn that in Japan, the entire city has access to fiber optic broadband internet with speads of up to 100mbps. This infrastructure provides the foundation for new media innovation in that country.

It was also sobering to discover that the same problem of finding the Business Model which allows money to be made from the internet has also been eluding our Eastern compatriots.

MBA Students
The best bit however, was meeting students from other top European business schools and just hanging out.

After a dinner in the beautiful Exeter dining hall we all retired to The Turf where we enjoyed a pint and a chat. Many of them will be along to the MBA Olympics (MBAT) at HEC next week so it was good to meet up and get to know them beforehand.

More later.