I have been pretty busy recently and had not as much time to do much blogging. To be fair my mastodon microblogging has increased quite a bit, can’t think why…
During the busy last few months, I gave a talk at Durham’s Bright ideas gathering. It was a really good event which felt like a TEDx with a number of different topics and speakers.
Originally I was going to give a talk about the recently launched Adaptive podcasting but gave it more context with why its a important project. Along the way we stop at the big changes coming to the BBC looking at my own personal view of moving to Manchester.
Thank to Herb and the team which delivered another excellent conference even in the middle of train strikes.
I shared the slides on slideshare (which is still a thing it seems)
I booked on Funzing to see and hear from the amazing legendA guy called Gerald. Originally I booked to see him on the 10th October but on my journey on my scooter back from work caught a text message on my pebble watch that Gerald was in a motorcycle accident and the event would be cancelled.
FUNZING EVENT UPDATE: We are very sorry to inform you that A Guy Called Gerald has been in a motorbike accident and will not be able to hold the event tonight. The good news is that A Guy Called Gerald will make a full recovery and be able to hold the event in the future. We will be in contact in the next 7 days with a new date. Apologies for any inconvenience caused – Funzing Team
Quite spooky being on a motorcycle when seeing this but great to hear he was fine.
7 days later another text message from Funzing.
FUNZING EVENT UPDATE: A Guy Called Gerald: Acid, House and Hacienda.
Due to Gerald being in a traffic accident the talk was postponed. Gerald has since made a full recovery and the talk will now take place on 21st November. The talk will be held at the same venue as before – The Frog and Bucket, Manchester.
Great it happens to be on a day when I can make it I thought…
The day comes around and I’m looking forward to it. After settling down in a chair with a drink. Things start with a guy in a massive hat and dungarees climbing on stage, closely followed by Gerald who is looking very cool in his sunglasses and relaxed style.
Its clear that the guy with the massive hat and dungarees is there to keep Gerald on track and ask questions. As Gerald talks, he draws on the backdrop but he gets annoying when he’s not spelling the words correctly and asking how to spell words to write (now I understand why). As a man with dyslexia, I would avoid writing things on the back if it wasn’t necessary and I wasn’t sure how to spell it. Heck I would let it go. But it happened again and again. It started interfering with the Gerald’s talk. Worst still this man was interrupting Gerald more and more.
Frankly it got worst and worst, his interruptions and rambling was getting out of hand as he started telling his own story. Some people shout for him to shut up and let Gerald talk.
Finally Gerald gets his story out, while talking to his cousin.
They were right we had came to see and hear Gerald not this other guy, who called himself Trafford Parsons? To be fair the first time he said his name I heard Trafford Parsley. I never heard of him and frankly never want to hear from him again after ruining my and other peoples night.
He took the option to turn an event about a legend into a story about himself and that is unforgivable, disrespectful and just bang out of order. I only came back in the second half because I hope it would get better. It only slightly did but I also did wonder why for all the talk about Geralds music, nothing was played at all. The first half had no music and the second half had a random playlist from the late 80s. Like a Spotify playlist or something on low volume for background.
It was simply a car crash to watch and deep down frustrating to see every time Gerald was interrupted. I think if Trafford had not shut up in the second half more, I might have walked out for good. I wanted to ask a question but by the end of the night I was so annoyed that I couldn’t be bothered and Trafford didn’t leave enough time for proper audience questions.
I ask Trafford, wheres your self-awareness and respect for Gerald?
It was like he wanted to share the limelight! Sorry no you can’t that night was about Gerald not Trafford. If you want your own, speak to Funzing and get your own night. For me this is unforgivable. He ruined the event and my night. I’ve already asked for my money back!
Would’ve been a whole heap better without Trafford Parsons! A rude man who didn’t allow Gerald to tell his story or share his experiences. Boring and a waste of money
Interesting journey through Gerald’s music history. Co host was a little irritating at times although I appreciate he was trying to keep Gerald on track, it wasn’t always necessary
I have always wanted to take to the stage of Thinking Digital and 3 years ago I joined Adrian at Thinking Digital Newcastle when the Perceptive Radio got its first public showing during a talk about the BBC innovation progress so far, since moving up the north of England. I got the chance to build on 3 years ago and talk about the work we are doing in object based media, data ethics and internet of things. I’ve been rattling this around my head and started calling it hyper-reality storytelling.
Visual Perceptive Media is made to deliberately nudge you one way or another using cinematic techniques rather than sweeping changes like those seen in branching narratives. Each change is subtle but they are used in film making every day, which raises the question of how do you even start to demo something which has 50000+ variations?
This is also the challenge we are exploring for a BBC Taster prototype. Our CAKE prototype deployed a behind the curtains view as well, which helped make it clear what was going on – it seems Visual Perceptive drama needs something similar?
I honestly do think about this problem in Visual Perceptive Media and Perceptive Media generally. Something which is meant to be so subtle you hardly notice but you need to demostrate it and show the benefits.
Its tricky, but lifting up the curtain seems to be the best way. I am of course all ears for better ways…
…a game in which nice single people are roped into a horrible game with others, resulting in cognitive overload, shocking manners, narcissism, algorithmic prejudice, financial loss and decisions based purely on appearances.
Would you date a 36 year old divorcee who is a left-leaning feminist and self confessed geek?
…a game in which nice single people are roped into a horrible game with others, resulting in cognitive overload, shocking manners, narcissism, algorithmic prejudice, financial loss and decisions based purely on appearances.
I’m just back from TedxManchester which was at homemcr, where I gave a presentation about onlne dating and some of the things I’ve observed about it. I believe I’m the first person to publicilly ask for a date from a Tedx stage.
It went well but I did have to speed up at the end, which did mean loosing some of my connecting points.
Maybe I’ll do a full breakdown of my thoughts but for now here’s some of the higher level ones.
Online dating sites and services are fundimentally in conflict with the goals of its customers.
There is too much evidence suggesting that online dating sites are unlikely to do what they say they do.
Online dating services are using gamification to prolong attention to collect even more data and make the service addictive
I believe the birthday paradox is a good reason why regardless of what dating sites do, there will be people who will pair off
Meetup, brisklr and other niche services which bring people together should have equal amount of successful connections as the likes of the big dating sites. They just don’t shout about it like the rest.
You shouldn’t let the tools dictate how you conduct yourself online.
The short talk I did for Primeconf is now live like most of the talks on the site. I blogged about the conference here already but its funny looking at the talk from a audience point of view. Not only because there is a 3min section which is dropped in to cover some technical problem, but also because I now notice the lack of smooth transitions between sections. Putting in the books as reference was somewhat missed too, which is a shame.
I didn’t know I was running over, as the mac timer said 6:50 mins when I finished. I certainly wouldn’t have elaborated on certain areas if I knew the time. Its always best to have a countdown clock somewhere very visible for speakers. Must remember to never trust a mac with keynote…¿
So as a whole and based on the fact it is a subset of a much deeper talk. Its not bad. It would be good to explore in more detail some of the sections and bring in some of the video evidence I have. But alas that’s for another day maybe…
Part of the LSx series, Ignite Leeds is fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global— a high-energy evening of talks by people who have an idea—and the guts to get onstage and share it with their hometown crowd.
Head on over to igniteleeds2012.eventbrite.co.uk for details of our awesome lineup of speakers! They’ll cover everything from dating etiquette and DIY biology to shooting a film in three days and the secret dreams of your mobile phone…
So we’re kicking off with part 2 of the sexygeek series. Of course we always planned to do more. But I got a feeling part 2 might shock people because its quite distinct.
This time its all about the female geeks, except instead of the usual discussions about woman and men which we’ve all heard quite a few times. We’ll be digging down into the deep mystery of relationships between the two.
How do girl geeks and guy geeks interact in the geek community?
What happens when we go from techy hack day to romantic hack date?
What are the problems we have to overcome?
What can we do to make everyone feel comfortable in their role?
Yes the nitty gritty or you might prefer the nuts and bolts of male and female relationships within the scope of the geek culture.
Most discussions center around woman in the workforce, as entrepreneurs, in places which were along time ago though as only for men. But there is little talk about relationships of men and woman. In actual fact I’m kind of lying. There is quite a lot information but they tend to be buried deep down in places where most of us don’t go looking. So we’re uncovering and discussing it on Friday 4th Feb at Madlab. We may also have a very special guest stopping in, so what you waiting for? Sign up now at our event page.
Disclaimer
Now I have to add the very serious disclaimer because people are going to get very irate about the whole thing.
We are fully aware that this title and concept is only a vague approximation to reality and that gender is not just binary. We are in no way assuming that there are only straight, cis, monogamous, male or female geeks. For the purpose of the talk we picked the most obvious intersection for arising problems, which is the role of women in the geek community that is usually only discussed from a professional point of view.
We hope this decision does not offend anyone (although I got a feeling it will) and that people of all genders and orientations join us for the talk. Please do get in touch if you have got serious concerns.
The whole series
I said in my new years resolutions for 2011, a lot of things regarding Take Geek Culture to new heights. We (me, Samantha and Hwayoung) have worked hard on the series and have some cracking surprises to come. I really hope people bear with us, the first one was great and we learned a lot from that one but it was ultimately very difficult because we tried to cover a load of issues in one overview session. In this one we will stick to one subject, so it will be a lot more tighter. We’re also hoping to have a special guest join us for the event, who that will be will be revealed later. To get you all started, there is this Comfort-a-Crying-Woman
Next in the series we will be exploring Gay, Lesiban, Bi, Poly, Transexual and what ever else there is. I’m happy to say we have some help from Simon Carter who has stepped up to help us better represent section of geeks talk sexy. Me, Samantha and Hwayoung are not that familiar with most of these. So to do them any real justice we certainly need help.
Of course its all about part 2 right now, so what you waiting for? Sign up now!
So finally we did it, yes the geeks talked sexy at Madlab.@smanthabail, @hwayoung and myself have been planning this series of talks for a while now and after the last change of dates we managed to get over 30 people to sign up to the 1st in a series of talks. Although we did so many signing up, about 20 turned up on the night but to be fair, we all had a great time. We kicked off at 19:30 with loads of geeky cocktails nicely provided by @MadlabUK. My favorate has to be Sex on the geek, which packed quite a punch.
To start we got everyone to write down some geek stereotypes which we then later read out, twittered and dispelled after the break. Here’s some of the stereotypes…
Geeks have bad dress sense
Geeks are Reclusive
Geeks don’t wash
sexually inactive
there all virgins
Obsessive and socially backward
geeks are young, anti-social and overweight
geeks only do it in the dark and missionary only
girls don’t like geeks
geeks only have online friends and partners
We broke down every stereotype with some evidence for each one. After the break, we started running through some of the rubbish we’ve collected from the main stream press on geeks. Things such as 10 reasons why woman love geeks and my personal favorite 10 real reasons why geeks make better lovers. All before descending down into the pits of the internet with tron style sex, erotic falconry and a live demonstration of chatroulette and the all new adult themed citizenx.
End of the session, I think everyone really enjoyed it but there was a feeling we can or could go much further that even we had imagined. Because of this we are going to juggle things around a little and see if we can go a little further a bit earlier that expected. I’d highly recommend you come to the next one (sometime in Jan/Feb 2011), but it will be much more serious that the last one. I expect number 3 will be much more fun and a lot more erotic.
Me and Sarah's third podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it. This time we slide from topic to topic and get interupted by a few people at 1am in the morning. If I need to tie this podcast down to something, I would say its about the dark side of the mobile phone. Bluetooth, Toothing, Happy Slapping and now Happy Shagging. Luckly we never got into this which is terriable to even think about.
So yeah I hear Robert Scoble is back for another Geek Dinner on the 10th December via Ben's Blog. But I've got an announcement to say that I'm currently arranging with Tim O'reilly a geekdinner for thursday 13th October. I'm sure Tim will say yes and hopefully by the time I blog this, he would have agreed already. Lee Wilkins is fully aware of this and is stand by waiting for the final go from myself (just sent him the email).
Obviously he will also be doing some presentations and interviews around the BBC before. So if your a BBC member of staff working on the 13th October, try and keep your calendar clear on that day, so you can either attend a session in White City or Bush House with Tim. If your interested but have never heard Tim talk before, please check out this recommended podcast by Paul
