Tag: conversation

In conversation with Cory Doctorow… in Manchester 31st May

Wednesday 31st May at 1830 - Ian Forrester In conversation with Cory Doctorow

I have the absolute pleasure of hosting the incredible Cory Doctorow in Waterstones Manchester on Wednesday 31st May at 1830.

Cory I have known for a long while through many different events and through friend. His books are simply another level, from the fictional works to the deeply powerful non-fiction ones.

There is so much to be said starting with the book of course. Now to be honest, I heard most of Cory’s books via audiobooks. However my ever so sweet partner has offered to read me red team blues, which is great because its a really good opportunity to talk about the tech/rights/data side of things which we have only touched a couple of times.

You can sign up to the conversation with myself and Cory on the waterside site. Expect a real fascinating evening of wonder and conversation covering a lot of what makes Cory … Cory.

Cory will be signing books too, so bring your questions and books.

Little update…

Of course Cory has other upcoming appearances in the UK, not just Manchester

Red Team Blues event with Tim Harford in Oxford, Monday May 29th
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-red-team-blues-with-tim-harford-tickets-574673793787

If you are in London UCL have Peter Kirstein on Thursday June 1st
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirst

#blacklivesmatter, why I know this time we may see lasting change

John Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines across the world when they raised the black power salute on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics

A couple of things confirmed to me this time we may see some changes. The question is will there be enough change?

White middle class people protesting in white middle class spaces

I was surprised last Wednesday afternoon, riding through Cholton in Manchester the amount of white people actively protesting on the side of road sides with #blacklivesmatter signs. It was deeply humbling to see people even giving the black power salute and taking a knee.

Its never been a black only problem, and I have a lot of time for protests in places which don’t make the press.

The true horror of the Atlantic slave trade

There has been so many calls to educate people about the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade and people of colour’s history.

Its being taken more seriously and the white fragility which held it back is being pushed a side for the better of society and the future.

 

The deconstruction of systematic racism block by block

Trevor looks at how depictions of police in film and TV can skew public perception of cops and glorify officers who break laws and use violence unnecessarily on the job

Its incredible the long history of the rouge police people who get the job done with violence, pressure and intimidation. We have gotten so numb to it that we just can’t/don’t connect whats happening in cases like the central park 5 and the excessive force in the cop dramas.

The deconstruction of these cultural programming is so important in the take down of systematic racism.

A understanding its not just about the police

Systematic racism will happily throw the police under the tracks, when a good number are actively anti-racist.

The amount of positive searches

Google hasn’t released the exact figures and of course this is well produced in their favor, but its telling and interesting to see if it grows beyond summer?

Gender diversity on twitter?

Results of who I follow on twitter

I rarely read twitter due to the API changes which I’ve talked about in the past. But I saw Teknoteacher talking about changing his followers after reading about Male tech CEOs follower accounts. I thought I’d share some things I discovered too. Especially reading this a while back.

So my results are above, using the online tool – https://www.proporti.onl.

But a while ago I used Open Human’s twitter archive analyzer by Bastian Greshake Tzovaras. It was super sobering!

Here is my replies by gender from when I first started using Twitter back in 2017. As you can see there was a massive spike of conversation with males in 2012, I also generally talk to more men than women on twitter.

My replies & gender Likewise when retweeting based on gender its mainly males. Recently its a lot closer to 50% which is great but I wonder with my lack of twitter use, how that will effect things? (I have requested a new update of my twitter data)

My retweets & genderOf course my instant thought is there is noise in the figures as its not always clear if people are male or female for many reasons. But its disappointing to read Elon Musk’s tweet.

And read about others such as…

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, follows 267 accounts on Twitter. Of those, 238 appear to be men. He follows nearly as many Twitter Eggs (15) as women (21).

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, followed the most women (39) of any of the accounts examined by the Guardian, though that is still half the number of men he follows (78) out of a total of 165 accounts.

I’d really like to see this applied to race not just gender too. It reminds me how I was going to learn more Python so I can create this as a Juno personal notebook in Open Humans.

Updated…

I updated Open Humans with my latest Twitter data export and here are the results.
Once again very sobering to see. Got to make some changes.

Screenshot of replies for 2019

Worth adding from TwArχiv site.

The graph shows you the number of replies to Twitter users that are classified as either male or female. The classifications are predictions based on users’ first names as given in their Twitter accounts. The predictions itself are performed by the Python package gender_guesser . It uses name/gender-frequencies from a larger text corpus. mostly male, mostly female, andy and unknown classifications are ignored. To decrease the noise the daily values have been averaged by a daily average over a 180 day window (dataframe.rolling('180d').mean()).

Ideally these graphs would include non-binary folks. Doing this is a bit trickier. It is thus a work in progress.

Screenshot of retweets for 2019Also worth mentioned…

Even more interesting than whether replying to people might be gendered can be the question which voices are being amplified . On Twitter a good indicator of amplification are retweets. These can be gender balanced or show biases, similarly to the replies to other users.

The graph shows you the number of retweets to Twitter users that are classified as either male or female. The classifications are again predictions made by the Python package gender_guesser . To decrease the noise the daily values have again been averaged by a daily average over a 180 day window (dataframe.rolling('180d').mean()).

Ideally these graphs would include non-binary folks. Doing this is a bit trickier. It is thus a work in progress.

Our listening project conversation in full

Ian and Kate

Remember ages ago when a slice of me and Kate’s conversation for the listening project ended up on BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio 4? There was much more to the whole conversation and you can understand how I ended up ruff camping on a Irish cliff face in a camper van.

Holiday with Kate in Ireland

It will be forever in the National Archives for generations to hear.

Conversation between friends, Kate and Ian, about the benefits of travelling and the differences in what they want from a holiday.

The Listening Project conversations collectively form a picture of our lives and relationships today. Recordings were made by BBC producers of people sharing an intimate conversation, lasting up to an hour and on a topic of the speakers’ choice.

Kate and Ian have been friends since 2007. They met when Ian moved to Manchester from London. They talk about the benefits of travelling and the differences in what they want from a holiday – Ian likes the big city buzz whereas Kate prefers the quiet of the countryside. They discuss Airbnb, a home rental website that Ian uses to rent out his home. They also talk about the differences and similarities in their personalities.

Just say hello…

Bemused 1

One day I’ll meet Sarah Ryan, as she gives some great advice, this one included. The last point resonated with me .

Just Say Hello There is a chance, dare I say it, that you may come across someone dashingly handsome or delightfully beautiful in your local coffee shop or whilst picking up a loaf of bread at Waitrose. What is the worst that can happen if you just say hello, ask for the time or ask where they purchased an item they are donning? It may seem like a daunting task but we can not hide behind our laptops & iphones forever in dating- we do have to tackle the human element to make a relationship work. Top Tip:  Try saying hello to someone new everyday, wherever, whenever. You never know who you might meet!

Absolutely…!

Sarah is right, the thing which mainly stops people is the fear of rejection. I was showing my blog about myself to a colleague a while ago and they asked me, what goes through my mind when I do the things I do?

I said, I do have that level of fear which naturally comes to everybody but I dampen it down quickly and not let it fester in my mind. I feel the longer you let it fester, the more likely you won’t act or so anything.

But on the same point, the opportunities and experiences I have had, make it even easier to do it again and push myself even further.

The other day I was in North Tea Power with my headphones off as usual, working away on visual perceptive media. I heard a women next to me talking on the phone, but she happen to say….

“Things would be so much easier if there was one ontology for everything….“

After she finished, before the fear crept in, I repeated back to her the statement and added a question mark to it (aka raised my voice at the end) From that moment we were off talking for about 20mins. Learned a lot about her and she may have learned a lot about me. Such a lovely conversation we had…

Funny enough (on a related note) Sherry Turkle has been popping up here and there recently…

I bought her excellent book Alone Together and haven’t started on the new one, reclaiming conversation.

I was listening to the Tech news today #1418 special with her and happen to tweet it, when Martin pointed out she was on Radio 4 at that exact moment (the beauty of serendipity and being open to it)

So I checked it out,  BBC Radio 4 today,. Interesting stuff… Expect another blog entry about this and more Sherry Turkle thoughts soon..

Asking for help by Brainjamming…

Back row

Marc Canter, the founder of Macromind the company which became Macromedia. Messaged me recently as he wanted to let me know about a new type of event called a Brainjam. Marc is fantastic guy and I had the joy of having him talk at London Geekdinners way back near the start of it.

Join a community of your peers who are committed to the development of a better world by building bridges between diverse perspectives and differing opinions in order to develop solutions cooperatively, instead of through activism by opposition. Following our first event in Washington DC on October 9, and a second one in San Francisco, CA on October 22, our movement’s founder, Chris Heuer, will briefly share his vision for We Are the Solution and facilitate one of his signature unconference conversations, a BrainJam, to connect you with other people, ideas and resources that will help you to accomplish your goals and live your life’s purpose.

What does that mean? Well, to put it simply, we are building a community of communities for leaders, concerned citizens and others interested in social good so that you may help each other in ways big and small. So it’s a kind of networking event with a specific emphasis on ASKING for help from each other and finding opportunities to share your gifts by making connections that might not otherwise happen if we didn’t sit face to face in conversation with each other.

Reading about it… Sounds something between the original spirit of BarCamp with a bit of the share one moment events.

I do wish I could be in London for it but with the week of events and talks coming up, theres no way I can do this too. I mean my life packed solid with too much already. Of course if you are in London or Dublin. You might want to check out the events.

It also kind of reminds me of Makerba.se which recently went into public beta and the well loved Google Schemer but  in real life. Maybe brainjam is a inspiration network? Very fitting as the workshop  at Thinking Digital Manchester is all about shared opportunities, genuine connections and collaboration.

There was also a conversation about what next after BarCamp, some people were kicking about a long while ago.  Maybe Brainjams? Maybe a brainjam in Manchester is a good idea? Sounds like something we tried to do with common ground a while ago.

Lots to think about… but if you are in London or Dublin, get yourself down to one!

Me & Kate in the national archive?

Kate strikes a pose

So remember when I said I loved the idea of the BBC listening room?

Well after a little tweeting and a couple of emails, myself and good friend Kate have secured a spot on the listening project site and in history. Yes at some point in the near future you can listen to the discussion of us two as we talk about something (undefined as of yet) for a short while. Goodness knows what people will make of it in decades to come.

Some of you might wonder how did this happen? Heck if you read the blog before, you may say why Ian oh why?

I would direct you to the secret of luck or the richness of life.

 

My BBC talk at Ravensbourne College

Ravensbourne

So on Tuesday afternoon, I gave a lecture at Ravensbourne College to a mix of interaction design, broadcast and graphic design students. John told me, it just needed to be inspiring. So I was torn between my day job at BBC Backstage and things I think about daily. So I started with my presentation about what is backstage. I got to the 3rd slide before the whole lecture turned into a dynamic conversation about the BBC. It was fantastic, the students and staff wanted to know where the BBC was going in the future. Along that path we explorered the questions of advertising on the BBC's international facing website and the Microsoft BBC agreement. Miles did say this

I did find myself reminded of John Battelle's description of AltaVista as it was fucked over by DEC (just prior to the sale to Compaq): “a mammal chained to a dinosaur more likely than not will get trampled.

While I don't know the details of the agreement, there were lots of thoughts and worries about the future of non-DRM content coming out of the BBC. Someone mentioned Dirac and asked whats happened to that? There was also a serious debate about why we didn't write our own DRM? The suggestion was that DRM in understandable if we can't make up our mind between DRM and NoDRM at this point. And you know what thats actually a good question, even if we internally couldn't build it. Maybe someone else could have from a netrual position. I've heard good things about Open Source DRM but not seen any marjor adopters. This would be an ideal project for the BBC to trial. Hey maybe even a Backstage Project? Someone (i think miles) did ask what would happen if someone today created a videoplayer which looks and feels like the BBC player which is being worked on? I said we would certainly be interested in it from a prototype point of view and if it was that good, who knows what might happen.

Although most of this could sound like BBC bashing, it was far from that. It was concerned people wanting to understand why certain choices were being made without them and wondering what they could do to make sure the BBC values lives on in some form into the future.

For any students who might be reading, I uploaded the raw html from the cache of my desktop RSS reader. I hope to clean it up a little more in the near future.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]