As I wait for my carriage from Cannes to the airport, I reflect on my experience at the Gartner IT Xpo Symposium 2008. This regular event exposes the great and the good in western European IT to what Gartner's analysts are thinking.

For technology bluffers there is no more concentrated way to get to know the buzzwords that will pepper the language of business IT for the next decade or so. For the rest of us, it provided very actionable and sometimes contrarian advice on how to survive and thrive in the current market.