Big brains stay home

Esther Dyson’s European Tech conference, High Tech Forum – the choice of big brains and moguls alike – has been cancelled for the second year running. Last year’s event was cancelled because of the post 9/11 chill but this year’s? Is the Euro tech recovery still on the back burner? Looks like it. This is particularly annoying for me since I was planning to join the big brains for this one (they have a special enclosure for the smaller brain). Meanwhile, Kevin Werbach, who used to edit Esther’s Release 1.0, the cerebral IT newsletter, has moved on and keeps sending me ‘personal’ invitations to a new event he’s calling Supernova. Many of the same big brains will be present. The theme for the first event is ‘decentralisation’. It can’t be a great time to be kicking off a new tech conference in Palo Alto, so I wish him luck.