Davos (or DavOHs, as they say it here) officially starts Wednesday morning, but I had my first Davos Moment Tuesday night, walking in to the Hotel Seehof. After making it through the security phalanx, I spotted at one and the same time a sign saying "Bloggers Nightcap" (a late-night gathering of all the bloggers who are here from around the world), and Klaus Schwab -- the Swiss professor who created the World Economic Forum 36 years ago. "This is historic," he told me. "Opening up Davos to the blogosphere at the very moment when our world is increasingly schizophrenic: on the surface a lot is going well, but just beneath the surface, there is a lot trouble, including global warming and the crises in the Middle East. I'm not a pessimist, but there is a danger things will end up very badly if we don't take the right actions."
Inside the wood-paneled, candlelit room, we found ourselves hugging each other like long lost friends.
Then, Ben Hammersley, who created The Guardian's Comment is Free, said only half-jokingly, "If we're doing it from Davos, blogging is officially over." I countered that it was just the beginning of the next blogging explosion. "Today Davos, tomorrow the Bohemian Grove. I can't wait until someone is videoblogging Henry Kissinger running naked in the woods."
Our disagreement then segued to who the first blogger was. Ben insisted it was some anonymous guy in Mesopotamia. I tried to convince him that the original blogger was of course Homer.
Looking at all the energy in the room, and all the blogs going up on the Davos Conversation page, I flashed back to a lunch just a few months ago in New York with Klaus Schwab and Claudia Gonzalez, his amazing media lieutenant, when the idea of opening up Davos to the blogosphere was first broached.
I only wish there were an all-night Starbucks in Davos (there aren't any Starbucks at all) so that I could feed my addiction and get some help staying up to watch Bush's State of the Union, which is on at 3am here. Although come to think of it, I'd need the help staying awake even if I were watching it at 6pm in LA. Tomorrow we'll give you the view of the State of the Union from the Davos participants.
For now, off to Promenade Strasse to see whether Davos' best coffee shop -- Koffee Klatch -- is by any chance open.
For more Davos coverage -- including news, videos, and blog posts -- visit the Davos Conversation site.