Unlike many in the room, I remember the association’s first outing back in 2002. The dotcom bubble had just burst and its messy entrails were still being discovered. The room of mostly traditional newspaper and magazine publishers were still understandably nervous about the implications of the web on their business.
It’s all too easy to forget the speed with which the media landscape has evolved since that first outing.
Google was still in its infancy, although swallowing-up ground fast. The likes of MySpace, Bebo or Facebook had yet to be created, while Twitter was far beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
Unbelievably, I remember one of the key topics of the day; 'Can publishers charge for their content?' – clearly some questions can't be answered overnight. Pearson’s Financial Times was celebrated as an innovator after deciding that year to charge for its content.
It should come as no surprise then, that some nine years later, at the start of a new decade, there was a strong sense of reflection and soul-searching in the air.
With giant screens of real-time tweets providing the backdrop to panels of speakers from companies old and new, the debate repeatedly returned to the core basics: "Where has digital publishing found itself? Who is now leading the field?" And, of course, "Where do we go from here?"
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