Last night digital economy stakeholders and enthusiasts turned up in droves to be at the launch of Conroy's Future Directions for the Digital Economy paper.

The launch was held in the bowels of Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. It was quite a squeeze.

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The stage was set and everyone received packs or show bags with the paper in them. Environmentally concerned attendees got the report on a USB stick.

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Conroy waxed eloquent. "The digital economy is our entire economy," he said, with the ICT industry "the engine room".

"It did not escape our attention that there's a certain irony on releasing a government paper on the digital economy," he said, joking that government was slow while developments in the digital realm were constant and instantaneous.

He went on to describe the various aspects of the paper, which was published under a Creative Commons licence with cloud and social bookmarking tags. "I realise that these may not be significant things for many of you in the industry. I hope you will appreciate them in the spirit they were intended."

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The audience was released to mingle and drink. Unwired CEO David Spence and VHA general manager regulatory Brian Corrie enjoyed the ambience.

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Kate Lundy's advisor and past Linux Australia president Pia Waugh partied together with social media aficionado Stilgherrian.

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Pia had fun with CSIRO technology that allowed doctors to point problem areas on a patient miles away.

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Unwired manager for regulatory and corporate affairs David Havyatt, ACMA acting deputy chair Chris Cheah and deputy CEO of ACCAN Teresa Corbin talked telco issues.

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Mark Tapley (Conroy's chief of staff) and Maha Krishnapillai (Optus' director of government and corporate affairs) got chummy.

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The Australian Federation against Copyright Theft PR Rebecca Melkman, Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation PR Virginia Gordon as well as Jonathan Carter and Dean Ormston from the Australasia Performing Right Association.

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In the midst of the revelry, some companies put their technology forward.

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Microsoft had Surface tables...

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...which Conroy thought were "just mind-blowing".

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au)