With the support of the x.commerce team, we invited several of our international chapter leaders (Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, San Francisco and Copenhagen) as well as friends and supporters of Social Media Club to a wonderful dinner at Le Versance on Rue Feydeau in the 2nd arrondissment.

Before I dig too deeply into the dinner, there are a couple items I need to note:

• A big ‘thank you’ to Louis Montagne for helping locate such an incredible restaurant. It was perfect.
• Adding to the awesomeness of the food (see below) is the ability for Chef Samuel Cavagnis and his team to adapt quickly and discreetly as I totally screwed up and made the reservation for Thursday, December 9th. However, Thursday was actually December 8th, so I showed up with 21 folks at 7:30pm and the restaurant wasn’t expecting us for 24 hours later. However, within 10 minutes, they had the room set up and our guests seated with champagne in hand. There are no words to truly express my gratitude for making this dinner happen, and yes, I will check the calendar next time I make reservations instead of relying on my brain to provide the correct details.

Moving on…

The group sat upstairs in a room that could easily fit 30. I had originally planned to have all of us at one long table, however, due to my date mistake (as noted above), we chose to keep the standard smaller table configuration instead of taking the extra time to bring it all together, and I actually think it worked out really well. Tables always break into smaller groups – this formation just had it happening sooner than later.

Chef Samuel treated our guests to several amazing dishes, but a couple really stood out for me. The first was the Saint-Jacques (scallops) in a chestnut cream. The fish was perfectly cooked and sat delicately in a pool of chestnut cream with foam. And OMG, the chestnut cream. It was so good I was tempted to lick the bowl. I didn’t, but might have if I thought I could do it with no one catching me.

For our main course, we had a choice of salmon or veal. I chose the salmon and was again, blown away – not only was the presentation of the dish well done, but the combination of flavors was exceptional. Razor clams. Langostino. Salmon wrapped in cabbage. All covered in a sauce that was even better than the chestnut cream. Those that had the veal had just as wonderful remarks and as far as I could tell – all 21 plates were pretty well clean when the staff came to clear the table.

Then came the main dessert (I say main, as Chef Samuel gave us several tasty treats). The main dessert was a chocolate mousse-like dome filled with a chocolate pudding that sat atop a hard chocolate layer with a nutty ‘bisquit’ underneath. I am not doing it justice at all, but if you go, you must ask for this as it was total YUM. You can catch a glimpse of it in this picture of Paula and all I can say to that was it was a perfect way to end the dinner.

I also think it worthy to note the service we received. We were a fairly large group – 21 of us – and no one went without food or a full glass of *something* during the entire evening. The staff was attentive and managed the flow of the dinner exceptionally well.

I would like to thank our dinner guests (below) for joining us and once again – would like to thank the x.commerce team for giving us the opportunity to bring this group of folks together:

Chris Heuer (San Francisco) * Kristie Wells (San Francisco) * Erno Hannink (Amsterdam) * Pierre Yves-Platini (Paris) * Annika Lidne (Stockholm) * Paula Marttila (Stockholm) * Henriette Weber (Copenhagen) * Mike Sigal (San Francisco) * Louis Montagne (Paris) * Fabrice Epolboin (Paris) *David Sifry (San Francisco) * Cathy Brooks (San Francisco) * Kenny Lauer (San Francisco) * Frederic Lardinois (Portland) * Richard Binhammer (Austin) * Matthew Mengerink (San Francisco) * Anna Del Rosario (San Francisco) * Corrado Tomassoni (London) * Nathalie Touzain (Paris) * John Lunn (Paris) * John (Sao Paulo – and for the life of me his last name is escaping me right now…so sorry John!)

And of course, another round of thanks to Chef Samuel and his staff for taking such great care of us. If you are looking for a place to host a dinner party – from 2 people to 25, I highly recommend Le Versance. You will not be disappointed.

If you would like to see photos from our dinner, you can click through the slideshow below:

Entrepreneurs can learn a thing or two from him.

Bill gave several key learnings from his career, and while a lot of what Bill says is simply ‘common sense’, I find it is the one thing most of us lack.

Market Power Rules: At age 12, Bill founded a candy business. The local supermarket was selling candy bars for $0.10 each.  He found a way to buy them where they came to $0.83 each. He then sold the individual candy bars to his fellow school chums for $0.09 each and made over $400. The key here was giving the market what it wanted –> the feeling of getting a good deal, and he had market power as he was able to alter the price of the goods.

Master Your Demo: This is the number one rule, for everyone. It does not just apply to entrepreneurs or to those in the board room. Everyone in the business must learn how to sell, pitch and most importantly, close people. Whether you are standing in front of a VC or talking to your friends in a local pub –> YOU MUST BE ABLE TO SAY WHAT YOU DO, and you must be able to say it well. And you must be able to say it in less than a minute. People will lose interest in 20 seconds if you cannot articulate what you do or what your company does.

Pursue Your Passion: If you are not passionate about what you do, it is a good bet you will not be succeed when times get hard. History has shown several great leaders who were on the brink of failure (like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs), were able to rebound (successfully) because they had the passion to succeed, but more importantly, they believed in what they were doing and because of that – they were able to push through the hard times.

Focus, Focus, Focus.: They don’t call it the ‘shiny object’ syndrome for nothing. I think there are two main ways businesses can easily lose focus; (1) try to do too much at one time and (2) allow critics to dictate a change in your core business. I think both points are easy to fall prey to, and, both points require consideration as they may the right path for your company.

We have experienced the first point at various times in building Social Media Club. While we have never been short on ideas, we have tried to do too much at a time and ended up not getting anything done. This was a hard pill to swallow. We are still learning how to rework our wish list so that we have more small(er) successes rather than one or two large wins, but it is tough as while we know *what* we want to get done, we don’t have the resources to do it all. They key is to prioritize items, scale back when needed and make sure you have the resources in place to see it to completion.

Recognize Your Strengths: In other words, emphasize the positive. Design a structure around your strengths and balance that by having complementary skills around you.

Don’t Overbuild. The world is changing fast. Bill feels it is better to “grow slowly, than go out of business fast”.

Survive Until The Market Is Ready: Many times, great ideas are way ahead of the market it is trying to serve. If you find yourself in this position – how can you cut your burn rate to be there when the market is ready for you?

Test, Test, Test. Find a way to test your customer proposition and then apply resources to build it out. Many times entrepreneurs build something they want only to find their prospective customers need something else. Facebook is a great example of this ‘motto’. Facebook today, is not the Facebook that existed eight years ago, however the intent of the platform is the same. The big difference here, is that Mark Zuckerberg listened to his customers and was smart and agile enough to update the service along the way. So listen to the market to make sure you are right on track, but know the difference between ‘serving needs’ and ‘losing focus’ of what you are trying to accomplish.

Stick With It. When you know in your gut you have something, stick with it, even if the critics tell you otherwise.

Find Essential Partners: Whether financing, promotion/marketing, technology or other types of support – build relationships and partnerships that will help you succeed.

Harness Your Users Passion. If you have evangelists in your community, find ways to integrate them deeper into your business. That can be through user groups, early product releases, have bigger roles in the community participation, or similar. There are 100s of ways to ‘reward’ evangelists for their support and passion.

The video from Bill’s talk is below and I encourage every entrepreneur to take the time to listen to it.

UPDATED: If you would like to see Bill’s presentation slides, you can find them here.

A mere block and a half from our apartment we came across four stores in a row…Charcuterie, Fromager, Vins, Le Boulanger (meat, cheese, wine, bakery). Um, yes please. All of it.

And man, was it tasty.

Then there was the breakfast at Cafe Charlot the next day.

The Filet de boeuf for lunch at Des Gars dans la Cuisine.

The vegetarian platter at le Grenier de Notre-Dame.

And we can’t forget the macaroons…OMG.

I think the only thing saving my hips on this trip is walking three or four miles a day. I have worn my soles down for sure, but my soul feels nourished by all the food and culture I am soaking in. Je t’aime Paris!

We have used a service called Paris For Rent several times, and through it, we came across this cute apartment less than two blocks from Notre Dame. We stayed in the Saint Germain district last time we were here and spent a lot of time here and in the Marais, so the location of this one was too good to pass up. They have done a lot of renovations to the building recently, but they left the original wood beams and a lot of the brick in place, which gives the place the good ‘old world charm’, but made sure we had all the modern conveniences needed.

There is one catch…

The bedroom is in the loft area, and the ceiling clearance is about 5′ tall. Not a real issue when laying down in bed (our feet do touch the ceiling)…but a real bitch when you pop out of bed to get the alarm and crack your head on the wood beam. Though, the positive side of this is learn quickly so I don’t expect to make that mistake again.

Stay tuned for more details shortly.

He shares some really interesting numbers on how WordPress has grown over the years and his thoughts on social media.

Interview Matt Mullenweg (WordPress)
Uploaded by techtoctv. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

WordPress deserves all the recognition for what they’ve developed, a highly customizable, CMS and blogging platform used by more than 25 million. They recently earned the Hall of Fame CMS Award at 2010 Open Source Awards, and previously won Best Open Source CMS in 2009.

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

via WordPress

Thank you to Alexandre Lefleche of Social Media Club France for hosting Studio One interviews at Social Media Clubhouse 5, Le Web.

And happy to say the Social Media Clubhouse blog is powered by WordPress.

Do you agree or disagree with Matt Mullenweg, that social media is overrated?

This was a little departure from our typical Social Media Clubhouse events, but far exceeded our expectations and we’re so happy to share with you some of the great content we captured with one on one interviews with some of the industries leading experts.  We will be releasing more than 8 hours of video as video on demand or as HD video files on Social Media Clubhouse blog.

The Innovative Global Village from af83media on Vimeo.

This video is a taste of the behind the scenes action from Social Media Clubhouse 5 and a little teaser to what you may expect from our videos over the next few days.

The techtoc.tv studios graciously provided two studios for us to conduct one-on-one interviews and panel discussion with the web/tech industries leading experts.

• Studio One hosted one on one interviews.
• Studio Two hosted of a “talkshow” marathon where bloggers, journalists and our guests will talk about innovation, social media and other digital related topics.

Studio One Speakers Include:

Ariel Garten (InteraXon)

Ben Parr (Mashable)

Ida Rose Sylvester (Silicon Valley Link)

Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter)

Marc Jaugey (Paypal)

Matt Mullenweg  (WordPress)

Michael Schneider (MobileRoadie)

Nicholas Vieuxloup (Viadeo)

Paul Papadimitriou (Constellation Research)

Peter Crosby (Viadeo)

Roxanne Varza (TechCrunch France)

Olivier Desmoulin (Super Marmite)

Timothée De Laitre (Wizme)

Vincent Ricordeau (Kiss Kiss Bank Bank)

Franz Tournadour (Février 46)

Thank you to Alexandre Lafleche of Social Media Club France for hosting the interviews in Studio One.

Studio Two Panels:

The second studio ran more than a dozen panels, which discussed Online Activism, Social Networking, Extensive discussion on trends in 2011, Localization, Music, Web Semantics, and more. Look forward to those discussions being posted here over the coming days.

Thank you to Fabrice Epelboin of Read Write Web France who moderated and lead panel discussions in Studio Two.

For more information about our Social Media Clubhouse Innovative Global Village, visit http://bit.ly/smclounge.

All content will be available under a Creative Commons License.

Video Credits:
Cyprien DALAISE and Aurélien SANDERE of af83 Media.