Wow! The turnout today was incredible… 38 people showed up at the “darrencamp” or “digital media holiday gathering” (depending on who you talk to) and it was fantastic! We overwhelmed the staff and patrons of Le Pain Quotidien but nevertheless, conversation flowed even moreso than the green tea and coffee.

The goal of today was to bring together a group of digital media mavens, finance finaglers, advertising gurus, technological wizards, and enduring entrepreneurs and talk about 2007 predictions in the digital world. After a brief introduction, we broke out into 2 main groups (seperated by Shreyas Pandit and David Honig) and spoke for an hour or so in our “trend groups.” Each larger group broke out into smaller sustainable conversations and topics ranged from mobile/wireless flat-fee pricing structures, consumer generated media consumption, RMTs/micropayments, web applications that are on the desktop, and other fascinating areas.

Prior to holding this holiday get together, I put together a spreadsheet which was debuted today. The goal of this sheet was to show what the blogosphere was predicting in 2004, 2005, 2006 and then for 2007. The spreadsheet is not the end-all and be-all of predictions and trends, but it’s certainly a starting point for any conversation. If you could not make the meeting today or would like a digital copy, drop me a note thru the comments section and I’ll gladly send you the .xls document. (If you did receive one today, I’d really appreciate feedback)

All in all, I thought it was pretty successful. Lots of extremely smart people in the room sharing their opinions always leads to interesting collaboration. I encourage anyone who was at the meeting to blog about the event and share your pictures… I certainly noticed a few cameras and cameraphones snapping photos.

I do not know the official title of this event, but if you’re looking for something quirky and short, lets officially name it:Â “darrencamp”

Also, I have received many requests to make the contact information of the attendees available but due to privacy and confidentiality, I’d rather you contact me for the direct contact information and I’ll gladly make the introduction you are seeking.

In less than 24 hours, a mixture of technologists, media mavens, entrepreneurs, advertising gurus, digirati, venture capital and financial wizards will be gathering on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The location has stayed the same but the time is now 3:30pm EST - a 30 minute delay as to what was originally posted.

The goal of this ‘event’ is not to just put everyone in a room and drink as much tea and coffee as possible, but to put a bit of structure around the gathering to discuss the future trends in the technosphere and figure out WHY we have predicted such trends for 2007. We’re all going to put our analyst hats on for one hour and have a fantastic conversation about the future….

Then it’s schmooze fest.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there! I’ve been working on a document that everyone will get when they come to help spark conversation. It will be made available online as a PDF to those who could not make it later on Wednesday evening.

Please contact me if you have any questions…

I’d like to round up a great group of entrepreneurs and media folks and get together one last time for 2006. Ideally, the group will be a round table to discuss what are the trends going into 2007 and WHY. We all can forecast trends (pull things out of thin air), but I’d like to talk about WHY we expect these trends to occur.

I’d personally like to host this at Le Pain Quotidien on 77th between 2 & 3rd Ave (Subway: 6) on Wednesday, December 27 at 3:30pm EST. The get-together will have 1 hour of formal discussion and then a schmooze fest. Feel free to spread the word but please RSVP by leaving a comment on this blog. Since I’ll be hosting (coffees, teas, pastries), I’d like to know how many folks will be coming… also, no egos please as ideally there will be serial, parallel, and brand spankin new entrepreneurs and I’d like there to be a level playing field for all to participate. Online folks and offline folks welcome!

Again, please leave a comment on this blog if you plan on attending…