The happy SIME crew is in Barcelona, waiting for the action to begin. It starts at 9:30 in the morning and goes on till 1330 in the afternoon at Palau de Congressos de Catalunya. The focus of this event is to understand the variables that are shaping the global digital trends, and particularly focus on how the Spanish digital scene is contributing in this race. At SIME, we make conference programs that strive to find the balance between, educating and teaching people about the generics of the industry but at the same time also help find ‘nirvana’ in the details.

And the best part of the show is putting together different “types” of people on stage - a rock star, a traditional businessman, a serial entrepreneur, and probably a young kid where they are all trying to make sense about a common issue, for instance on how they use the web. And what comes out of such discussions is legendary, untainted, confusing but yet interesting and relevant. Finding such interesting mix of people and topics has always been a corner stone of SIME, for instance, in the SIME 2007 Copenhagen edition, we put 13 year old Tom Varsavsky (son of serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky who is going to be in the panel “Inside the brain of a serial entrepreneur” along with Stefan Glaenzer, Johan Stal, Morten Lund in Barcelona)and match.com CEO Johan Siewers on stage to talk about how the digital web is evolving. While Tom felt that Email is boring and will die with the current generation, Johan was not quite sure if that was true. The same with Alexandar Bard and Niklas Zennstrom trying to make sense about the digital scene at SIME Stockholm in 2007. And to think of the web from a different telescope is always interesting, helping the entrepreneurs find more market opportunities, inspiring them and being an enabler of great business ideas which is one of the fundamental DNA’s of SIME.  

The 4 hour session in Barcelona is going to be a cocktail of SIME covering a wide variety of topics and focusing on the best of SIME content and knowledge accumulated over the years.  Of course, to inspire and be inspired by the event, we try to take a locally global perspective too. While in general the conversations are generally European and are benchmarked with the Americans and the rest of the world, in Spain, we try to be a little bit Spanish and dance the flamenco numbers a little bit to get the taste of Spain better.  Sixto Arias, co-founder of Moviisto, and mobile marketing guru, Martin Varsavsky, the genius serial entrepreneur and Christopher Pommerening, Mr. Venturepreneur will be flying the Spain flags high and would take us through the Spanish digital arena, the movers and shakers who are moving the needle in Spain.  

The energy levels are as high as it can ever be, and the excitement is quite much brimming on the surface. We are at the venue sorting out the final bits and pieces to make sure the SIME effect is cloned into the lovely city of Barcelona. We have a speakers gathering today that would be a fantastic opportunity for the SIME friends to catch up and share updates. And this is what truly makes SIME stand out - the love the speakers and the participants have to the event. It truly makes us feel special, and we hope you enjoy the event tomorrow (either directly in Barcelona here, or through twitter and the blog here) as much as we enjoy putting it up for you!