Category Archives: events

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What (globally) keeps you awake at night?

March 11, 2009 – 5:21 pm

I’m really looking forward to social reporting at the World Entrepreneur Summit on March 20, not least because the organisers are doing some honest agenda setting by asking “what is it about the current global situation that keeps you awake at night”?
As you can see from the programme there are some pretty well-informed speakers on managing through challenging times, focussing on sustainability, and accessing finance.
That’s before we get to the Open Space session on “What will the future of Capitalism look like”?
Summit organiser Rebecca Harding has an impressive record as a researcher and writer in the field, and is encouraging anyone interesting to take the survey here. In true entrepreneurial spirit the  “keep you awake” checklist of possibilities:

  • The future of capitalism
  • The macroeconomic climate
  • Climate change and environmental destruction
  • Widening inequality between the richest and poorest communities in the world
  • Under-development in Africa

… is presented in the next question as  list of possible opportunities. read more »

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How social reporters can help turn old-style conferences into the new convening spaces

February 13, 2009 – 3:11 pm

I’m delighted to find there’s increasing interest in social reporting around events … which may start with an enquiry about how to capture some video interviews, but can lead to a discussion about how an organisation may network with its members, clients or customers.
Over the past year I’ve had a lot of fun using standard video cameras, mobile phones to stream video to the web, videoboos on a laptop, giving Flips to facilitators, and blogging before, at and after events. You’ll find a series of posts here.
Bev Trayner and I were fortunate to work together last year on a European community of practice and major event in Lisbon which gave us the chance to develop a first-draft socialreporting toolkit, which Bev offers for download here. There’s also a work-in-progress wiki here. read more »

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Amplification 2009

January 26, 2009 – 7:47 pm

The team who organised Amplified08 are demonstrating how you can really build networks fast by combining smart use of free social media tools with lightly structured events. They have announced the next London Amplified09 event, on February 24 afternoon. Sign up here. Other local events outside London are in prospect as people volunteer to organise: first regional plans here. Topics – anything around social media, broadly decided by those attending.

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Reflections on social reporting an event

December 13, 2008 – 8:07 am

After a couple of days social reporting at a conference in Lisbon, my co-reporters Bev Trayner, Josien Kapma and I decided we should turn the camera on ourselves and reflect on what worked well – or didn’t. read more »

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Launching 2gether09 with lots of Videoboo

December 4, 2008 – 12:16 pm

Last night at The Hub, Kings Cross, Steve Moore, curator of 2gether08, soft-launched this year’s digital festival with a taster of what’s planned. There’ll be more detail early next year, with a series of meetups and online activities through which people can pitch ideas for what they want to contribute. Steve’s plea: make it fresh. No chance for recycled content.

I took along my current favourite social reporting tool, which is a portable videobooth on a Macbook. Well, Videoboo actually, as you can see here in previous use on an iMac at Chain Reaction.

More on Videoboo in a moment. First here’s Steve with a preview of his presentation, above. (as the evening progressed I got better at staying out of the frame) read more »

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Clay Shirky on how social media brings social change

December 2, 2008 – 2:36 pm

I’m at Online Information 2008, where Clay Shirky has just delivered a terrific keynote full of stories about how we can use social media to share, collaborate and act collectively. Some are drawn from his book Here Comes Everybody, some are new.

However, we all know that what may be relatively easy online becomes difficult when it comes to offline organising. I asked first where we were seeing some real changes – and he cited the Obama election campaign and its use of the Net.

In his keynote Clay also said that we are still at the stage of exploring … and if someone had a million dollars to invest he would suggest breaking it into small parcels rather than spending the lot on one project.

I asked how he would advise anyone interested in the way that social media brings social change to explore what really makes a difference. He said go and talk in depth to the people who have really tried, and failed. Instead of looking for lists of “best practices” look for the real stories of what works, and what doesn’t.

Full interview above, short version on finding stories of failure here.

Ewan McIntosh has a full blog piece on Clay’s keynote.

Keynote preview video here

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Asking the Alice question after Amplified08

November 30, 2008 – 10:27 am

If you are around London, and interested in new/social/creative/digital media, it seems that barely a day passes without the chance to go to a free or low cost event and network with others of similar interests. The landscape is getting crowded, and as you see many of the same faces at different events you might wonder if there could be a more effective way of networking.

This occurred to Toby Moores (above) and friends, so they got together and organised Amplified08 last week, hosted by NESTA. I’ve quoted below from the first newsletter explaining how Amplified aims to build towards a nationwide event, or series of events, involving up to 10,000 people. That’s the potential power of networking networks. But is “more” enough? Do we also need to know why, and towards what? I’ll come to the Alice question later. read more »

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Giving facilitators the Flip

November 16, 2008 – 11:51 am


Carrying out interviews and capturing informal conversations on video at an event is a useful way of creating a record … but can it be used to enhance the discussions as well? After my experience last week with an event run by the Innovation Exchange, I’m convinced that it can. read more »

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UK Online Centres join open Digital Mentor bid

November 6, 2008 – 10:40 pm

The consortium forming to bid on open innovation principles for the UK Government’s £900,000 Digital Mentor programme now has a strong partner in the UK Online Centres network, as managing director Helen Milner confirms here.

Dave Briggs has been promoting the idea of an open bid for the network, as I wrote earlier. The idea is to invite anyone interested to join in an open process to evolve the proposal, rather like the Open Innovation Exchange process that Simon Berry of Ruralnet, I and others tried last year. (We made a short list of four). read more »

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Details of first London Net Tuesday

October 16, 2008 – 6:55 pm

Details of the first London Net Tuesday organised by Amy Sample Ward – interviewed here – are now on Amy’s Netsquared blog. It’s November 4, 5.30pm.

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