We put all the workshops in the printed program, which means they better happen ;) More seriously, we have room for almost all the workshops so we decided to hold them all. Alex Osterwalder will do his workshop at his office (500m from the University) so that frees one room, and the other 3 workshops will meet at the cafeteria and find a room (there are plenty at the university).

I had to choose who gets what room very arbitrarily and with unfinished registrations. I tried to do it in the most logical way, i.e. the most registered participants the bigger the room. Sorry if you end up having a smaller room than you deserve.

Update: the open stages are now included in the program. We tried to put them in sessions where they make sense, like the Web and enterprises session for "The importance of social networking and conversations are having for companies and bloggers", obviously a no brainer.

We received 337 votes for the open stage (after getting like 100 last year) which is really amazing. Thanks for voting and making this part of the program. And the winners are:

Thanks to all those who took the time to participate, we have some really good propositions who are get left behind but that is the rule of the game. If things go well next year with that new format we might think of extending the number of available slots.

Important notes to the winners:
• congrats to all, now is time to prepare your speech!
• if you don't feel like speaking in English in front of 700 persons with the swiss television taping your session and putting it online please say so now.
• your name will not appear on the speakers list, so please complete your profile, add a picture, a bio, etc... if you haven't done so.
• if you have slides you will have to send them by Monday, Feb 4.
• and be aware of one thing: like for other speakers we will make sure you don't go over the time you have. Please play it fair and prepare your speech to last no longer than 5 minutes (we will have to cut you if you don't), and talk about what you are expected to talk (we are printing the open stage speeches in the program this year).

Reminder: we will close the votes tonight at midnight so we can beat our printer's deadline for the paper programs. Hurry up!

And I changed the propositions order after receiving comments that "presentations on top always get more votes", so a few days on top and then at the bottom should help make things more fair (the whole voting process will improve next year: earlier deadline for submission, non-participants will be able to vote but count less than participants, random order would be cool, etc...).

I just received the capacity of the Unimail rooms where we will hold the workshops. We have:

• 2 x 80p room
• 1 x 60p
• 1 x 66p
• 1 x 55p
• 1 x 52p
• 2 x 45p room

That's room for close to 500 persons and it should do, I just pushed the signup limit to 80 per workshop.

Our program will go to print during the week-end so we have to close the votes for the open stages and discussions on Friday evening. Hurry up if you haven't made your voice heard yet, some calls are very close and every vote counts.

Workshops signups will remain open as we will probably schedule ALL the workshops. We received 20 propositions and have 8 rooms, which means we can host 16 workshops (8 in the morning, 8 in the afternoon) in a 40-60 persons room with a beamer. The other 4 could also happen at the university library for example. You get wifi, tables, power plugs, just not a closed room.

Oh and next year we will put the deadline for open program submissions much much earlier, and open the votes mid December or something, because it seems when we open the votes we get all the bloggers buzzing about the conference to promote their propositions :) Thanks for the links folks!

Update: 278 votes and 228 signups a few hours later :) And to answer a question I got many times: yes votes are reserved to LIFT08 participants.

I am happy to report that the community is fully playing its role of creating the open program :) We already registered more than 200 votes for the open stages, 130 signups for the workshops and 50 for the discussions. Pretty impressive numbers in less than 48 hours!

Click here to vote and push the open stage presentations you like (you can vote - only once - for as many presentations as you want), register for workshops (some are already almost full!) and enroll for discussions (you can sign up for all of them as they happen during the breaks).

30 presentations are up to you (that's 50% of the program) so take your chance to make the event better and vote!

We have been wondering when you guys would start making your propositions for LIFT08. And it is now it seems, with many of them coming in the last few days :) Let's see: we have 7 open stage propositions, 16 projects for the venture night, 6 workshops and... only 1 discussion (which is a cool format you should really check it out)!

All propositions are assembled on the LIFT08 propositions page, and if you are thinking of speaking yourself hurry up, voting is scheduled to happen in 2 weeks so don't miss your chance to speak at LIFT08!

The first propositions are coming in, we have 2 open stage, 1 workshop and 1 discussion and more LIFTers musing on what to talk about. All these initiatives are part of LIFT's open program, the side of the conference YOU are in charge of.

Come on, speak at LIFT08!