I’ve been enjoying myself at the Digital Summit in Auckland today (and again tomorrow). The programme is very dense with speakers – but a great opportunity to mix with around 500 others from across all spheres of business, government and education who are exploring what it means for NZ to participate in a digital future. The programme today included talks by several politicians and representatives of the various telecommunications companies. This was followed by a video conference with Chris Anderson, editor in chief for “Wired” magazine, and author of “The Long Tail”. We also heard from a group of “gen-Y” entrepreneurs, and from Sam Morgan, founder and CEO of TradeMe. There were several others – some of whom I think I’ll blog about separately.

What is really interesting to see was the extent to which the conference organisers have pushed to have the technology integrated into how the conference operates. At every table in the venue there is a laptop connected wirelessly to a messaging system that provides a digital ‘back-channel’ for the audience to provide feedback and ask questions. These are collated as the presenter speaks, then summarised and used by the chairperson in his interactions with the speaker at the end of the session.

Also running in parallel to the physical conference itself are opportunities for those who couldn’t make it to Auckland to participate. These include the Digital Strategy Blog, a DS WebCast, forums and a simultaneous conference running is Second Life – all of which is being projected on screens in the large hall where the conference is taking place.

So much to take in, so much to think about…