Category: social-hardware

If there wasn't so much unpacking to do, I'd be climbing the walls of the flat. I hope to be back online and blogging as usual by May. Also if you've sent me a email in the last few weeks, please be aware that I currently have 237 emails which are not spam or mailing lists type stuff. 1519 which are mailing lists and project updates. I will try and through them all, but its going to take some time – please bear with me.

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I like the idea of 02's new competition/big summer party but why did they make it so damm complex? Wouldn't it be simpler to just have the winner and all his/her friends up to a maximum of 1000 or something? Anyway judge for yourself, rachel has the low down on the whole thing.

The prize is a little complicated. Despite claiming in the introductory copy that the party is for you and 1500 friends, you actually only win a party for 100 people in the VIP section, where you get fed and watered and get a chance to meet Moby. The winner has to choose those 100 people they want to invite. The runner up gets to invite 4 people. But everyone else on the winning guest list gets a chance to get a ticket. – everyone gets an ‘invite’ and the first 1500 who reply get in. (for those keeping count, we’re up to 1605 now). Although on a different page it says only 1400 – the copy is not consistent through out, so no idea exactly how many.

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Yep its only one week till Over the Air and the whole team is working all hours possible to nail everything down and make sure the event is top notch. Seriously the event is going to be great, but we're trying to make it even more special that great. We've over come some major barriers to make this event happen and I'm sure theres even more to come when you all start opening your laptops and trying to connect at the same time. Were confident the network (3g and Wifi) will be stable enough to take 400 people hitting it at the same time, but the space we have is going to be pretty tight. Hence we had to put a maximum limit on tickets and yes all the tickets are now gone.

This logestical nightmare of guiding people around the maze which is imperial college also requires added help, and we're still looking for runners to help with over the air. We're still also looking for people who have signed up and want to help, obviously helpers will het a little gift for there help and can choose the hours they want to work, while the runners will be paid to be there 12 hours at a time and have no real choice about jobs they get allocated to. Email me if helper or runner is something your interested in (please, only people on the list can be helpers now).

Theres a lot more to come from over the air including details about the competition, maps, etc. So please keep an eye on the site and expect a email to everyone who signed up really soon. Also don't forget to sign up to the backnetwork which you should have got an invite to if you signed up successfully. Also if you don't think you will make over the air, please for sake of everyone just ping us a email, so someone else can take your spot. We have quite a few people waiting in the reserved queue for dropouts. We do want in as many people as possible but safety first of course.

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So I went to BarCampManchesterUK yesterday, it was good but very different from what I'd had expected. The venue (Manchester evening news?) was good except the cooling systems were broken so each room became hotter and hotter during the day. On the last session, I stuck in Werewolf because it was obvious we weren't going to play it otherwise and we found another space to play in just above reception because I knew the rooms were far too uncomfitable to play in. In total there were 4 actual rooms and a couple of spaces to sit and chat. This was good because, people started milling around and chatting later in the day, and there was a clear distance from the rooms.

The sessions were quite web developer/design led through-out the day, I started the day off at a talk about voice on the web which I wasn't totally sure of, my thoughts were confirmed when the presenters mac died twice while trying to make a call home using a google gadget. He did in the end get it working but even then it didn't work as expected. The next session I did about Data Portability which I was really suprised very few people had heard about (yep more work needed to spread the word it would seem). I used pretty much the same slides as Thursday. What was suprising was the talk after mine which was about the same subject but from a different persepective. The guy was trying to hack into facebook and social networking sites his own content from his own server. We had quite a discussion about the fact he was doing something in between the truly decentralised social networks and the data portability group aims of getting the main players to play nicely with users data. I might have come across quite negative that session but I did say he should maybe put his efforts into one or the other. Anyway we had a chat afterwards and everythings cool. The other noteworthy session was the northpack session. They seem to be a a group of three guys who are all about promoting the north of england. They had built a web application to pull in rss feeds and upcoming events and display them for all to see (I guess Feedjack or Planet could do the same). It was good and something we in London have been talking about for years but never actually done. So anyway I started asking them if they had thought about allowing the rest of the country to use their web application? But i think that got turned into a debate about the south north divide.



Anyway, I thought we got everything sorted till at the after party at this great place called Ra!n (very apt because its been raining since I got to Manchester) when a woman called Jennifer slightly drunk, tells me exactly what she thinks of the south and the BBCs move to Manchester. Unfortueally, I never got a real chance to respond because she slipped and fell (not my doing) and we called her a cab to go home.

So BarCampManchester was good and I met lots of good people and if the rooms were not so hot, it was run over 2 days and wifi actually worked it would have be great. I was however a little ruffled about the real strong tension about the south.

Technorati Tags: barcampmanchesteruk, barcamp, barcampmanchester, thenorth, northpack, manchester

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…I'm coming your way this weekend.

Technorati Tags: manchester, city

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Yes Lost season 4 has started but I'm not talking about the great TV series with the same name. Instead lost.eu, is a game which requires the players to promote the game by recruiting more people into the game. This is very pyramid selling style but being the core part of the game makes this very cool. If I wasn't doing something in this area, I would be playing along. Maybe you should instead…

Technorati Tags: arg, unfiction, lost.eu, lost, game, play, viral

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So I've been considering moving to Manchester (Salford) for a while. For those who don't know, the BBC is moving a good part of its workforce and operation to the Salford area. Most of it will be up and running by 2012 but my department is moving up earlier. So there's some serious benefits to moving up earlier including cheaper housing and more choice about where to live. The idea of MediaCity:UK hub is nice but these types of projects can go ether way. The new BBC Scotland offices at Pacific Quay is actually really nice, but some people I have spoke to don't like the location or building. Some people have already moved up to Manchester but the question that plagues me is, should I leave the amazing city of London for Manchester? What would you guys do?

Why does it matter where I work, when most of my job involves online presence? And would you believe it or not a future tense podcast got me thinking…

Why technology has not trumped geography

MP3

Economist Tim Harford argues against the notion that computers, the Internet, cell phones and other technology have made or will make geography any less relevant.

In his new book The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, Harford argues that in some ways, where you work and live is more important than ever, thanks to the technology that was supposed to make the whole concept of place irrelevant.

I guess this is consistent with what Richard Florida and Paul Graham have been saying for years too. A long time ago I believed we could work remotlely and do meeting via im and video conferencing. I tried it and it didn't work, even for someone like myself. Hence social events are huge and there's little better that chatting to people face to face over a drink or a meal. Now I'm starting to rethink my thoughts about setting up hotspots of creativity in the middle of nowhere. Is setting up shop in the middle of Salford going to really pull the creative people? Or are we going to get a office of pension watchers? Who knows?

Technorati Tags: technology, futuretense, podcast, london, manchester, salford, bbc, place, location, geography

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So PlugLondon a event run Christian of Yahoo's Developer Network, kicked off yesterday. It was a good event and I hope it will carry on through next year. I'm going to start calling it the Minibar for Developers, as its a simular format but more developer focused. I think throught-out the time we had about 10+ presentations and some time for chatter between. I did wish at some points people would be a little quieter but generally people would float off to the back of the great skype offices for a natter.

So to improve the event I would move the presentations to a set area maybe away from the entrance and kicthen. Then allow that area to be setup for adhoc networking or natterings. It might also be worth timing the presentations as some did go on for a while. I did love the idea of people saying who they were even near the end of the event. This meant even people who were really late could still feel part of the overall crowd. Having it on a Saturday was interesting but I don't know if thats a good or bad thing for people. I was thinking I could do some shopping then go the event. But it didn't happen, instead we ended up going to the Bricklayers Arms (I don't get why people love that pub but its so popular with developers) and after that going to a restaurant with Dave Sifry of Technorati. So in actual fact, the whole Saturday afternoon and evening was used up at the event and the stuff which followed. I did suggest to Chrisitan that it should be a Friday night instead. Chrisitan is talking about moving the event around different offices in the future, so that would be very cool, specially if it grows over time.

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