NLab: creativity and collaboration

Fun at Amplified08

Photo courtesy of Billy Abbott

Very interesting time at Amplified08 yesterday, hosted by NESTA. I couldn't resist the session entitled "come and play, have fun" and I ended up playing some impro ball throwing and catching games (not real balls), and trying out the co-creation exercise that led to the pictures above.

 
Photo courtesy of Billy Abbott

Here's a picture of everyone gathered together for the mid-way whole group session and feedback from some of the workshops. Amplified08 managed to be that hardest of things - both well-organised and remarkably relaxed and informal. The event was put together and run by a host of people, and their enthusiasm, energy and goodwill was infectious.

Photo courtesy of Phil Campbell

Sessions were organised, hosted and facilitated by Amplified08 participants. If you had something you wanted to say, a topic you wanted to explore, you just signed up in advance on the wiki. On the day, you selected your time slot and space (boardroom or pod?), and anyone who was interested joined you. Many of the sessions were filmed (link to follow), and you can see the results along with a host of other cultural products. Here's the instructions for finding the 61+ pages of Twitter comments (tweets) made by people about the event:

Many of the tweets will include links to blogs, pictures and videos.

The next Amplified event takes place in February 2009 - register your interest on the wiki if you are interested in getting news (remember to include your e-mail address) or follow @shanitomorrow, @suethomas on Twitter. The timing of the event was 4-8pm - very handy for people from Leicester wanting to take advantage of cheap travel.

NLab goes to Amplified08

It must be a year ago that Toby Moores @sleepydog and I sat in a bar in Leicester while he rolled out huge pieces of paper across the table to show me his plan for a 'network of networks', radiating out from CreativeCoffee Club, a Leicester/London based group which we set up in Autumn 2007 in partnership with David Terrar @dt and Shani Lee @shanitomorrow (and joined more recently by @sizemore).  A year ago it seemed like a grand vision which would probably be too complicated to ever materialise but Toby is nothing if not dogged and this week his idea is coming to fruition with the first event.  Amplified08 will happen at the offices of NESTA in Central London on Thursday 27 November 08 and it looks to be full capacity with 200 people.

Blurb from the blog:

Essentially, Amplified08 is an opportunity to bring together those who meet in various UK social media, technology production and mobile media and related fields to come together to share your ideas and projects, to discover new ways of working together, and to break through the generation of silos among social media communities.

We also have a lot of interest from groups who still come together virtually via Twitter and the like who will now have the chance to chew ideas over, face-to-face for the first time. We’re also welcoming groups and individuals who are quite new to social media but want to learn while adding to the experience. Importantly we’re reaching out first and foremost to practitioners who are already full of ideas and opinions.

There's a programme wiki here  and much of the event will be streamed through Twitter using the hashtag #amp08. 

It looks like Leicester will have a strong presence there. Shani and I are going, as are Rakesh Parmar from the Phoenix, our DMU colleagues Stephen Brown, Jess Laccetti, and others, and Tia from our MA in Creative Writing and New Media. See you all there!

x-posted from my blog

Social Networking for Small Businesses

Great post from Mark McGuinness giving an overview of some of the most popular sites including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.

At the end, Mark asks the following questions:

"What part do social networks play in your creative and professional life?
What are your experiences of the networks on this list?
Have I missed out your favourite network? If so, please tell us
    Where it is,
    How you use it and
    What benefits it offers creative professionals.
What tips can you offer people who are new to social networking?"

What would your answers be?

Obama used social media as a vital tool in reaching huge audiences

Barack Obama has taught the world a lesson in the use of social networks. This former community organiser already knew how to connect with many different cultures and communities, then he combined that knowledge with an understanding of social media, and his reach became huge (thanks also to a large and skilfull team). Now we can learn from his success and apply his methods to our own projects. More on this in Read/Write/Web's Obama's Social Media Advantage

Events and Conferences

There's a lot happening over the next few months and I've picked just three key events for you, two of which are free. They are the Future of Creative Technologies (registration closes this Friday 7th November, so hurry along), Amplified08 and LIFT09. I've also included some travel information for the event in London:

This conference takes place on Thursday 20th November from 9.30-5.00pm at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester. Registration is free and closes on Friday 7th November - so book now to be sure of your place.

Jess Laccetti, who, for a long time, was part of the NLab team, is one of the organisers.

Next is Amplified08, which I posted about at the beginning of the week. It takes place on Thursday 27th November from 4-8pm at NESTA, Plough Place, London. This event has only two hundred places, so if you are interested Declare Your Interest now. The other really interesting aspect of this event is that you can set the agenda - you can share your ideas and put forward topics for discussion, so that you really get what you want from it.

The late afternoon timing of Amplified08 means that you can benefit from off-peak rail travel and maybe even get one of those £1 only fares on National Express. I got a deal for £9 each way - can anyone do better?

This will be the fourth LIFT conference in Europe - and I can recommend it. A huge themed array of fascinating speakers, some engrossing workshops and multiple opportunities for networking, gathering, talking. All the presentations were filmed and are available on the LIFT website. Here's one about forecasting the future:

I also loved Geneva, and I'm looking forward to going back to the Cafe de Paris which serves just the one dish: entrecote steak (plus some marvellously extravagant desserts). it gets very busy and if you want a table to yourself, I suggest going early.

Photo credit: OperationOF

And here's a picture of the steak, complete with herb butter:

Photo credit: Joe Gratz

And another review. 

CreativeCoffee Club - Autumn 2008

You might have wondered what's been happening with CreativeCoffee Club after our first meeting of the season on 24th September ...

We've had some busy events with new CCC-ers Jaqui Crooks, Gillian Heggs, Jennifer Jones and Ishi Khan-Jackson as well regular supporters Kathy O Driscoll, David James Ross and Thom Corah. Other visitors included Stephen Brown, Stephen Peak, Ashley Carreras and Benoit Welch from De Montfort University and Rakesh Parmar and Sue Porter from Phoenix Arts.

Here's Ishi performing at the Brewery Tap Comedy Club earlier this year:

We also had a visit from Rohan Gunatillake:

Rohan leads the Web Connect strand within the NESTA Connect team, which explores the role the social web plays in innovation. Among many other things, NESTA supports Amplified08 and Ken Thompson's work on SwarmTeams. Ken spoke at the NLab Social Networks Conference in the summer.

I went down to London for my first visit to CreativeCoffee Club London on 1st October and saw for myself the amazing view from the Heights Restaurant at St George's Hotel in Langham Place, Regent Street.

Photograph courtesy Toby Moores

CreativeCoffee Club London is very different to CCC Leicester and well worth a visit. The event is enjoying a nomadic life at present, looking for a new home, but for the latest up-to-the-minute news about where it will be on any given Wednesday, follow @DT, @sizemore or @sleepydog on twitter.com.

I met lots of interesting people including Allix Harrison-D'Arcy, whose company does rapid prototyping for esoteric platforms, and who has some great quotes on his facebook profile. I think this one might be my favourite, but it's hard to decide:

"If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." - Zapp Branigan

Other great people included Steve Lawson (due at CCC Leicester on 5th November - I'm really looking forward to that), Jenny Brown, Joanne Jacobs and David Jennings. Here's a cute mix of Leicester and London CCC-ers from Flickr:

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public items from Flickr tagged with creativecoffee. Make your own badge here.

CreativeCoffee Club London is reviewing whether it should change its hours from 10-12pm to 11-1pm. I've suggested the latter would be really helpful for Leicester people who'd like to visit as we would be able to take advantage of off-peak travel. If you have thoughts about this, or you have something to say about anything else included here, please add your comments below. We'd love to hear from you.

Amplified08 - Thursday 27 November 2008

News of a really exciting event in London - Amplified08: The Network of Networks
Thursday 27th November 4-8pm at NESTA, Plough Place, London.

This is a really great way to meet other CreativeCoffee Club like-minded folk, expand your network and your mind at the same time!

Shani, Toby and I will be going and we really look forward to seeing you there.

Tickets are limited - only 200 - and I recommend that you sign up as soon as you can.