A Nose For What Works: Learn More About BIF-3 Co-host Walt Mossberg

Posted by Chris Flanagan on May 21, 2007

I don't want to steal his thunder, but we were pretty psyched to see our own BIF-3 co-host Walt Mossberg profiled in The New Yorker this month. There probably isn't a more widely read and prolific tech columnist writing today. So you can imagine our delight when Walt agreed to return for a second year to co-host our 3rd annual Collaborative Innovation Summit. It's taking place on October 10th and 11th in Providence. Unscripted, unrehearsed, he'll bring his trademark plain English, no jargon, interview style center stage.

When he pitched his tech column idea to the Wall Street Journal, Walt said, “I proposed that we turn the formula on its head, that we champion the mainstream but non-technical user, that we be critical in strong terms of the industry to the extent that it failed to serve those users,” he says, “and that we write the column in plain English, not jargon.” (He calls the junk programs that come with new computers "craplets.")

Walt's Personal Technology column appears on Thursday along with an accompanying video blog, Mossberg's Mailbox, where he answers readers' questions. He also produces an annual conference, D: All Things Digital. For his fifth D conference, taking place the end of May, he managed to persuade Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to appear together on stage for a round of questions. Says Jerry Yang, one of the co-founders of Yahoo!, "He has so much history with so many of us who've been around that you really can talk to him about what's happened in the last ten years. You feel you're talking to someone who knows what he's talking about. And you really have to know what you're talking about to be able to hang with him."

Newsweek called Mossberg “the most powerful arbiter of consumer tastes in the computer world today;” the Washington Post named him “one of the most powerful men in the high-tech world” and Wired magazine dubbed him the Kingmaker, noting that “few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry’s successes and failures.”

But don't take their word for it. For a sampling of what you'll get from Walt at BIF-3 - check out his latest video blog - The Smartest Laptop in the World:

Don't miss Walt Mossberg as he co-hosts, along with Bill Taylor, best-selling author of Mavericks at Work the BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit on October 10th and 11th, 2007 in Providence.

Related Links:

• Get The New Yorker profile, Critical Mass
• Read our BIF profile of Walt
• Learn more about our BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit