I thought I’d give you a heads up on some of my forthcoming speaking engagements:

On Thursday I’m giving a presentation in Paris to the “Charge de mission Socit de l’Information” which my French colleagues tell me is a governmental organization that advises the President on cultural affairs. And with the French Minister for Culture attending it looks like it should be a really interesting event. I’ll be presenting on why Europeans just won’t pay for online content and on the impact of piracy.

The following week I’ll be moderating a roundtable discussion at EconMusic in London on the 23rd. The event is being run by Content Next (the people behind Paid Content.org) and has a very impressive line up for a first time event (that’s the pulling power of Paid Content.org for you). The fact this music conference is being held in the natural history museum is going to be the source of endless fun for the media no doubt. I’ll do my best not to refer to the dinosaurs in the lobby.

On Monday 6th I’ll be moderating a panel at the long running In the City in Manchester. This will be the first year fully run without any involvement from the late Tony Wilson. You always had some almost imperceptible sense of his personality on the event in previous years. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s still there this year.

Later that week I’m off to Berlin for Popkomm to do a couple of appearances. I went to Popkomm for the first time the year before last and I’m looking forward to going back. Though part of me is nervous about seeing whether the sense of label decline that permeated the trade floor of 2006 is intensified this year.

Hopefully see some of you at one or more of these.