Comments on: FICOD in Madrid launched awkwardly this morning with Kevin Spacey

By: antonio

antonio — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:42:18 +0000

Campo Vidal perhaps was not the perfect interviewer, but I do not consider he was the poorest performer, in a very important matter as Banking 2.0 with very good panelists, I do not understand who chose that chairperson, no idea about technology, no idea about banking, nothing to say, saying nothing, but consuming time

By: Ficod anuncia la recuperación del sector tecnológico en España | NetoRatón 3.0

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:18:15 +0000

[...] no es tiempo de complejos, el sector tecnológico y de internet de nuestro país es una referencia. Se hacen las cosas bien y estamos considerados referentes mundiales en un importante número de campos, como por ejemplo el [...]

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:50:39 +0000

Marina, great article. As well you know if you’re not asking the right questions, are your readers really going to be that engaged? It’d be interesting to note from all the questions he asked, what the scoop really was

There’s no excuses to be made from the lack of research from this journalist. Spacey and Colin Firth are starring in a movie of Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”, the Spanish Civil war.

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/05/19/colin-firth-and-kevin-spacey-head-to-catalonia/

By: FG

FG — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:41:28 +0000

Well, Campo Vidal is an ass, and, honestly, anything put together by politicians is, most of the times, unbearable due to the toll we all pay for stupidities, such as the already famous and infamous interview.

Anyhow, there are interesting things to be learnt and seen here if you can “extract” yourself from all the political fuzz and buzz.

I think Marina’s chronicle is quite adjusted to the reality of things down here, Ficod shouldn’t be missed!

By: carol

carol — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:06:38 +0000

well, maybe the interview was boring – I arrived at 12h – but the event was quite interesting and informative. I’ve been to PIC NIC festival in Amsterdam in september – a private event – and I’ve gotta say that FICOD is as good (so far). Different, I know, but it’s better than I thought. And I’m not Spanish. I think it’s great that the government promotes something like that. Maybe jose de moral should go there and do some networking…

By: Almudena

Almudena — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:51:51 +0000

Hi Marina, I agree with you the interview was unbearable and the questions didn´t make any sense, but I think Kevin Spacey was a bit disrespectful with Manuel Campo Vidal

By: Justin Parks

Justin Parks — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:35:03 +0000

Joder. Why oh why am I not surprised at this..not one bit. Que Tonto.

By: joehas

joehas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:37:47 +0000

Nice post but Marina has held herself back from bringing out just what a car crash this interview was (I was in the hall).

I would like to thank Manuel Campo Vidal for being so unprepared that Kevin Spacey was forced to ad lib and entertain us so much.

It may be the funniest thing I have even seen in 6 years living in Spain.

Spacey starts off all nice an polite saying how much he loves “Pedro” and two or three stupid questions later is close to saying “Dude, do you even know whom I am?”

Campo Vidal is the kind of ridiculous toadying figure who should never be anywhere near a conference this this.

Spain has loads of interested, knowledgeable, international people that should have been used for this interview.

As for the conference, the headline speakers are OK but the panels are full of people with nothing to say, well, saying nothing.

By: Ariel Schvarzstein

Ariel Schvarzstein — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:57:40 +0000

You could tell the amount of non internet people there (and I mean, hard core, smelling, eating, drinking internet) by the huge amount of suits going up and down.

But some sessions were informative, and I guess Spacey was invited to talk about the Facebook movie he wouldn’t discuss about with the useless interviewer.

Hence the cider pouring session and the giggles with the translators, it was odd for the interview not to be conducted fully in English.

Notwithstanding this being a free event, the level of speakers was good. I guess that like with most things, it depends on what your expectations are.

By: jose del moral

jose del moral — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:41:13 +0000

It’s so stupid that my Government is spending money on an event… and startups don’t get any help at all. Spain is just a stupid country!

By: Marina Zaliznyak

Marina Zaliznyak — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:09:11 +0000

Nope, he poured water into a glass imitating Asturian cider pouring, because if he didn’t do something (anything) everyone would fall asleep. I believe there is a link to the video in the post.

In any case, most importantly, is that we are still chugging along and not driving!

By: Javier Rincón

Javier Rincón — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:02:28 +0000

I was watching a bit online and at the moment everything seems to be extremely basic.

I might attend the ones about venture capital though.

Thanks for the links to the other initiatives though Francois

By: Thom Cummings

Thom Cummings — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:07:36 +0000

These events are often pretty difficult to balance the desires of the techies against the aim of educating the masses. I walked into a workshop entitled ‘How to promote your small business with social media’ and it was just a list of tools (blog, rss, social networks…) and then a protracted explanation of how twitter works. Bernado Hernandez did a much better job of informing/entertaining just now…

I stil don’t know why FICOD insisted on interviewing Kevin Spacey in Spanish – it would’ve been so much more fluid if they were both speaking English. It was pretty amusing though…

By: francois derbaix

francois derbaix — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:16:25 +0000

IMHO this kind of events organized by the government are pointless. The great international web conferences are all private iniciatives (leweb, plugg, …).

By: Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:07:44 +0000

He was so pissed off with the interview he poured water over the table? Picture of video of that?

By: Marina Zaliznyak

Marina Zaliznyak — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:27:30 +0000

Wow, thanks for catching that Arthur. All set.

By: Arthur Guy

Arthur Guy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:16:41 +0000

It is the Old Vic not the Old Wick