The second and last day of the Talis Insight conference. Yesterday was an interesting day, with a nice mixture of talks on sector issues and trends (Euan Semple, Tony Hey) as well as some stuff on Talis products (specifically their integration piece, and reading list software).

Day 1 finished with an evening meal, with a great selection of music provided by a trio (Fret and Fiddle) playing a mixture of Hot Club style, Gypsy music and the odd jazz standard thrown in – I particularly enjoyed "I can’t give you anything but love baby" having watched Bringing up Baby at the weekend, "Dance me to the end of love" and the last piece "Monti’s Czardas".

Just in case it sounds too much like I was enjoying myself, I did spend the end of the evening talking to a few Talis staff about the company, where they were going, as well as being quizzed myself on whether my impression of Talis had changed since coming the conference.

One of the things that I hoped to get out of the conference was to see how the online presence that Talis has been building over the last year or so translated into reality – see the whites of their eyes as it were. I think it is reasonably clear that Talis are committed to their investment in their conversation with the sector (the concept of markets as conversations from the Cluetrain Manifesto got at least one mention, and clearly this is very much part of their philosophy). Software as a Service (SaaS) is also in the mix, and semantic web (there is a session on this later today).

The main thing that comes across from Talis is the energy and enthusiasm for what they are doing – it’s quite invigorating, except when it gets scary – just occasionally it tips over from being enthusiasm to feeling like I’m being inducted into a cult 🙂 Don’t be too surprised if I come back with a complimentary copy of "Who moved my cheese"

Just had breakfast – a bacon sandwich, which for some reason they decide to garnish with strawberries – very odd (I didn’t eat them) – time for the first session of the day.