Tag: londongeekdinner

Last nights geekdinner with Chris Anderson

Chris talking to Dedrie, Rachel and Chris

Well I'm still pretty speechless about yesterday's Geekdinner with Chris Anderson. Not only was it the most popular geekdinner I've done to date (between 80-90 people came along, not including the @media social) but it was also the most stressful in a good way. Before I go into details, I would like to say thank you to Dr Jo Twist, Rina Gill, Nizam Shaikh and of course Chris Anderson.

What made the geekdinner stressful was the amount of time between announcement of the event and the actual event, which was a total of 7 days. I found a venue the Bottlescrue on Holburn Viaduct which allowed me to have the back room free on a Friday night. The room held about 40-50 people maximum, but there was space outside of the room for overspill. This was great because according to the signups on Wednesday it looked like we may get about 35 people. (The maths I usually do according to most other geekdinners I've done is, take the signup half them and add a few more.) Well this time my maths was badly wrong. Almost everyone who signed up, came along and then some. So we quickly ran out of food. So half way through the night just before Chris talked, I pleaded with the manager to buy more food. And in the end all the extra cash went straight back into more food. Honestly, ask Nizam, we bought everything they had. Nothing was left after the geekdinner, no chips, no pittabread, no crisps, no nothing. So big cheers to the Bottlescrue for doing everything they could and coping under the massive pressure. I'm sure there profits for the night went through the roof. I'm also glad I didn't have to run to tesco and buy tons of stuff.

The only other negative for the night which was also related to the huge crowd of people who turned up, was the move to outside. Outside was fantatstic and the London summer air was warm and inviting. But it also meant traffic and noise from the street. When it came time for Chris to talk, he was always fighting against the background noise of the street and general bar area. I positioned him where I thought it might be best, aka noise behind the crowd but there were so many people it was hard for Chris to shout that loud. I'm very sorry to everyone who were around the fringes who found it very hard to hear him. If we were inside it would be very different and usually at geekdinners, I have a microphone and PA system setup. Oh and for the record, I did try and rent one from work, but they wouldn't let me take it out of the building. So I might have to invest a cheap one from ebay or something.

Ok finally on to the positive and frankly amazing night of fun the geekdinner was yesterday. Chris was on top form, I was worried because Rina did say he had just done 3 talks that day and was slightly tired but was very much up for the geekdinner. Actually talking to Chris briefly, he said he was actually look forward to the geekdinner more than anything else, simply because it was his type of thing. Who could say no to Beer, food and good conversation in a nice London bar during Summer? Anyway he was a little concerned about projecting his voice when he finally got to the venue but was happy to hang out and speak to people after a 45min Q and A. So while the food was being consumed quickly, I hit two glass bottles together and got the talk going.

Now I didn't record the whole thing but Kosso did. So as soon as he uploads the video, I'll link to it. I did however start to record the question and answers. And will have them up soon. As usual there are tons of photos by myself being uploaded to Flickr using the tags londongeekdinner and geekdinner.

I was highly impressed with the amount of new people who turned up and I have to say the percentage of women to men wasn't that bad either.

Thanks again to everyone who came, I'm planning the next one with someone from Amazon for late July. So keep your eyes on the geekdinner site for announcements.

The videos from yesterday are now up.. There a quarter of the size and encoded in Mpeg4. Quicktime and VLC will play it back no real problem.

Chris talks about wired's advertising problem
Chris Anderson on the Long Tail – 4meg

Ask the first question
Chirs Anderson starting the question and answers – 31.8meg

Chris disagrees on Net Netrailty
Chris Anderson on Net Netrality – 13.7meg

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Geekdinner with Chris Anderson – Today Friday 7th 2006

Me recording Chris at the BBC

After a weeks worth of promoting, the Longtail geekdinner with Chris Anderson is today. Funny enough, it may turn out to be one of the most popular geekdinner's we have done for a while now. The sign up looks like we may get close to the Dave Shea geekdinner which was limited by the venue more that anything else. I actually thought it would be a low sign up because Chris has been talking all over London the last few days. But then I saw this from Beers and Innovations Dedrie.

In addition to press interviews and the like, Google, The Economist, Reuters, IPPR, Amazon and the BBC have internal events with Mr A in the Greater London Area. All corporations (IPPR excepted) that produce and / or aggregate content, all looking to engage with a thinker and perhaps emerge from the meeting with a light dusting of Long Tail magic on their staff, processes and strategy.

For the rest of us outside the corporate walls, there’s a Geek Dinner this Friday 7th July at which Chris will also speak and partake in a Q&A with the crowd. To attend you just need to add your comment here.

If it’s anything like the last Geek Dinner I went to (which featured Marc Canter as guest) – this could be a better chance to get past the basics and really get the synapses firing than more high-profile public events.

The key part is the last part. See Chris won't have the chance to simply do his presentation again. There will be no projector or laptop, just geeks. This is certainly a chance to really get geeky and discuss the long tail at a level which you may not get anywhere else. To be honest, geekdinner is a great example of the longtail. Its very niche and wouldn't work as a mass market type of thing. This is what I don't get when people write to me and suggest that geekdinner could be something bigger that it is now.

Back to tonight. I've finally worked out all the details.

When: Friday 7th July 2006 (today)
Where: The Bottlescrue
53 – 60 Holburn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2FD
Nearest Underground: City Thameslink (Holburn Viaduct) or Chancery Lane Station
Time: 18:30 – 23:00
Special Guest: Chris Anderson
Cost: 5 pounds (Final price)

Hope to see you all there…

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Next geekdinner is the @media Social

@media 2006: Europe's Premier Web Design Conference. London, 15th - 16th June.

Something I've been working on for the last few months now, has now finally become reality. The next geekdinner will be part of the post @media social event. And the whole event is FREE for anyone to enter enjoy. Unlike most geekdinners, we are going to be open for 10 hours. Right off the bat, between 1pm – 2pm will be the @media lunch. Which will be a chance to have lunch with some fine designers while discussing the previous nights at the conference or webdesign generally. Then we dive into some key webdesign issues like CSS, Accessibility, Javascript and Design generally. These get togther sessions will quite adhoc and may contain a small panel of people if we get enough people interested. This is also a good time to relax with some beers or wines with likeminded people in the different areas of the Livery. Just before 6pm its a good idea to put your order in for dinner, because from 6pm we will be having a tradional sit down geekdinner with maybe some entertainment or discussion before the party at the end of the night.

So the date for your diary is Saturday 17th June from 1pm onwards at the Livery. Which is 130 Wood Street, just off Cheapside or a short walk from St Pauls Station which is on the central line. I hope to see you all there.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Diggnation in London?

Diggnation 45 at E3

So me and Sarah were watching Diggnation episode 44 and at the end there was a email from a guy called Martin in York (england) who asked if the guys were coming to England any time soon? At this point Alex and Kevin start talking about coming to London… Now its no real secret that me and Katy have been talking to the guys about coming to London for a geekdinner but this was a suprise for even me. I've got the whole 1min (3meg) clip on my server in Xvid and Divx formats.

So if you would like to show your support for the Diggnation guys to come to London, do email them on diggnationfans@gmail.com.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

London geekdinner’s the most popular geekdinners?

London geekdinner top of flickr clusters

I spent a lot of time on Flickr this week, something to do with our BBC awayday presentation. Anyway I was amazed at the quality and quantity of photos. The longtail effect can easily be witnessed on Flickr. But something struck me while looking for pictures of geeks. First if you do search for the tag geek in the cluster format, you will notice Londongeekdinner is 3rd on the right and theres a selection of pictures from the last few dinners. But also if you search for geekdinner, London is 1st. So if you do the maths, according to Flickr's engine. London has the most popular geekdinners in the world?

Looking at Google, the same is also the case. Amsterdam gets a mention at 3rd spot and Denmark gets 5th place. Although Google still thinks I'm searching for gardiner. Google's blog search for geekdinner echo's pretty much what the regular search has. Theres actually quite a few pointers to this blog in the top 10 list. What I find funny at the moment is the lack of American geekdinners, so I thought I'd try searching in Technorati. And believe it or not, only a single geekdinner from north america came up in the top 20 results. The Sussex geekdinner came up first with talk about Amsterdam and other European countries not far behind that. Singapore was also mentioned a few times, which is great to see.

So it looks like London is the popular geekdinner destination right now. I'm expecting this will contuine with some of the great events being aranged in June by myself and July/August by Sarah Blow of Girlgeekdinners. Oh on a side point if you try searching for girl geekdinner in anything, you always find links back to the London Girl geekdinners. There doesn't seem to be any other part of the world doing girl geekdinners.

Talking about Geekdinners the interviews from the last geekdinner are now up on Archive.org. There all in Xvid format for now, but licenced under a share-a-like licence so your welcome to re-encode them.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Last nights geekdinner with Marc Canter

London Geekdinner with Marc Canter

So how did it go? It was bloody awesome! Marc Canter was a fantastic guest and really went into lots of detail in regards to his next project – The digital life aggregator. There were tons of questions and as usual a bit of a conversation broke out in the cellar bar of the Polar Bear. Marc loves interactivity and started asking questions of the audience which was a little amusing. The turn out of people was close to 35, which is not bad for a Bank Holiday Monday before work the next day. A lot of the regulars were not there due to other commitments with Family over the mayday Bank Holiday. But once again we had a healthy mix of new and regulars at the geekdinner. You know Geekdinners have a good rep when people start attending from another country. No but seriously Eric and Anne were passing through from Chicago and decided to come along to the geekdinner too. Thank you guys for coming and next time someone says I would attend but its too far, I will remind them of you guys who made it from Chicago.

I did do a selection of video recording on the night but not Marc Canter's talk. However Kosso might have the last half of the talk recorded. I expect to have the other videos up online maybe over the weekend once I clear it with the interviewers. One of the weird ones which will go up pretty soon is Me being interviewed by dotBen who is leaving the shores of the UK for the golden shores of America soon. Other videos include Deirdre talking about Content 2.0, Tom and Kosso talking about OPML which has also been captured here. Simon talking about SXSW and how he got there and of course Marc Canter summing up how he felt the night went. There's a whole bunch of Geekdinner pictures from me, Rachel and Lloyd on Flickr using the tag geekdinner and Londongeekdinner.

A big thanks to everyone who attended the event and made it another great geekdinner event. I'm hoping to do one when I get back from the states (June). But look out for the Girl geekdinner on the 16th May maybe at the Polar Bear. There maybe a suprise geekdinner with someone quite big in the web 2.0 world in late May, hosted by someone else. Best thing is to keep an eye on the Geekdinner.co.uk website for future details. And don't forget to send me a email if your would like to be on the Geekdinner mailing list.

Thanks once again to everyone who attended once agin and a big thanks to Marc Canter who was the mashup meetup tonight. See you all at the We Media Fringe event tomorrow.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

London’s Intellectually Curious dinners?

Food for thought, from Slashdot on Wednesday by an anonymous reader.

Slashdotters are certified geeks, but apparently there's a bunch of other people out there who are very interested in science, technology, politics and culture but they don't want to be known as geeks. A media consulting firm called OMD did a study for the company that owns Space.com and LiveScience. They conclude that 60 million Americans can be called “intellectually curious.” Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them.

I know for all the progress people have made with the word Geek, people still cringe when I ask if they fancy going to a geekdinner. Its kind of weird being a self confessed geek and seeing geek tendious in other people but they refuse to submit to these natrual urges. So i've been thinking maybe just maybe we would actually attract more people if the name changed. Not to say I'll be changing it, its just a thought that we could actually be celebrating the side effect of intellectual curiousity not the source its self. I guess like celebrating a blogging application rather than the application of blogging?

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

One of the meetup features I miss

Meetup

I will be first to admit that Meetup.com has some good features, but since they started charging the group origaniser it seems like there has been a move away from its system. The problem is where do you move to? Eventful and Upcoming are my prefered services but there are things like Zevents also. However all of them don't quite have all the features of meetup.

One of the features which I miss from Meetup is the ability to print out signs to attract people to the event when your at the actual venue. Last nights London Blogger's meetup was a small affair but attracted some regulars to geekdinner but I also finally met Jo. Jo printed out the meetup sign and placed it on the long table in all bar one, soho. I certainly miss this.

So I've decide to build a XSL transform to generate one of these for Eventful events. My first thought was to transform the XHTML page which already has microformat data for the event.. But quickly realised that the page isn't XHTML at all, for example my next geekdinner event. So unless I cleaned up the HTML first using something like Jtidy first it seemed pointless. So I started looking at the RSS and ATOM feeds. And there is where I struck gold. In the ATOM feed there is everything you need and more. Unlike the RSS feed which is simple RSS 2.0 with A9 Opensearch and Yahoo Media RSS extentions, the ATOM feed has some google data extention. The schema links no where but contains the event dates, location and more. All defined in nice namespaced elements which means its easy to pull out the data needed for the XSL transformation. I was hoping to adapt the XSL to transform not only Eventful ATOM feeds but also upcoming events. But there syndication is either ical or some odd combined html/javascript yahoo or google export. Which really sucks because its not valid XHTML. I'll post my XSL one I'm done. But I'm also considering a XSL-FO transform instead of CSS and XSL. Although its tempting to use XSL 2.0, I 'm going to resist so people can download it and apply the XSL locally. Humm maybe a simple Greasemonkey script will make this even easier to apply to any eventful event.

So using Cocoon and a simple XSL, you can now see any event from Eventful in a design which can be printed out on a black and white printer and pinned up at the event or before the event. Its not quite the table things I was thinking about before, Instead its a useful A4 poster. To use the service? simply enter the eventful unique code into the url after http://cubicgarden.com/cocoon/eventful/poster/{eventful code}. So here's a list of test events.

Please note you need to view the print preview to actually see the correct poster, because I'm using two stylesheets one for print and another for the screen. Oh and the current XSL is here. Please modify it if you feel the need, its released under a creative commons licence.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

London’s Geek entertainment dinner TV

Len, Meredith and Irina

Slightly borrowing from Geek entertainment TV a little, I've started to do short video for the London geek and internet scene. Think of these three interviews as screen tests. In the meantime don't permalink to these files as they may get moved to Archive.org. At the moment there all copyrighted to myself till I get written permision from the people being interviewed that its ok to release them under a creative commons licence. The format used is Xvid which will play back using VideoLan's VLC or any decent mediaplayer with the Xvid codec.

David Teten on his geekdinner (8.8meg) and some links David recommends (0.9meg)

Ben Metcalfe on Social Networks (15meg)

Tom Morris on OPML (20meg)

All the videos are now creative commons licenced and free to download and mashup at Archive.org

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Last nights Geek Dinner with David Teten

Interviewing Ben at the interview

Ok before I start ripping in to what went wrong last night. Can I just point out that Anina (yes the Supermodel and Fashion goddess) was at the geekdinner and I didn't even realise till she asked a question of David Teten. There's a hour long interview with her at Nerd TV. If I wasn't so damm busy trying to make up for someone not turning up to host the geekdinner, I would have asked her about being a guest at a girl geekdinner or just plain geekdinner. Oh well opptunity missed, unless someone got some contact details for her? Ben? I also regret to say I never actually took any pictures of the event, but I did get 3 good interviews from David, Ben and Tom. Unlike pictures and even audio these will take a bit more time to edit and upload somewhere. I've also promised to show them to the interviewer before uploading them to Archive.org. So expect another few days before there somewhere public.

So on to my major beef for the night. Lee Wilkins. See before this night I've been sitting between Lee and someone who might prefer to be nameless for now about the domain Geekdinner.co.uk. I always thought Lee owned the domain name but he doesn't, actually Nick Swan does. Nick Swan came and offered me the domain because he felt Lee was profiting from the hard work I've been putting into Geekdinner's. He felt it was just simply unfair or maybe unjust? And uptill last night I wanted to just stay out of the disucssion. But then Lee put on the David Teten Geekdinner and didn't even turn up to host the event. I turned up about 8pm to a angry pub owner asking whos charge and about 15 people looking a little lost. David Teten introduced himself to me which was nice of him, but I felt was the wrong way of doing things and so started looking for Lee Wilkins (who I've never actually met). I quickly realise that Lee was not there and didn't seem to be planning on turning up (multiple people tried to phone him). This meant all the food which was ordered would have no one to pay for it. And at 150 pounds worth of food, the bar would not be happy! Hey would you be?

So me, Sarah and Ben basiclly took over and started to host the night. Ben went around and took money from everyone who was still there and Sarah went out and got sticky badges. God knows how but Sarah found stickers at 8:15pm in the area of Leicester Square. Trust me thats some achivement! Anyway back to the geekdinner after finally getting close to the amount of money we needed to pay the bill, the food came out and boy oh boy was it a lot of food. Credit to the polar bear, it was a wide variaty of food and lots of vegatarian food by the way (It was all on seperate plates too). By 9:00pm it was all in full swing with David talking about the concept of the Virtual Handshake (download the book here for free). And honestly David was great, the questions were a little slow to start but before long a conversation was happening. I had to cut it a little short after about 45mins because we had to arrange the Prize draw for a signed copy of David's book, which happened about 10mins later. Davids Talk as I said was really good and caused a little bit of a stir. I was almost tempted to buy his book for 10 pounds right there. I know a couple of people actually did buy it on the night. Its interesting his thinking behind keeping a public and personal profile online. There was lots of debate about how this might be the wrong way of looking at things, but David came back with real world figures and suggested that things may change but not right now.

After all the drama at the start of the evening, things tailed off pretty quickly as people left to get trains home. I know a few people left before the food came out and I'm sorry they missed a good night, but I understand why. It won't happen again if I have anything to do with it.

Ok so I finally got in contact with Lee Wilikins yesterday night via Skype. Lee's partner Jenny went to Accident and Emergency earlier that day. . Yeah I'm really sorry, honestly I do. You know I'm not heartless. But I'm still pretty mad about what happened and stick by what I've said. Once Lee writes a entry or public applogy I will link to it. But I have said sorry to Lee, and hope Jenny is doing better now. I hate talking about what I would have done because were all different and would act differently so I won't. What happens with geekdinner.co.uk and future geekdinner's I don't know quite yet.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]