public - wordle

For the 2gether conference:

2Gether and Yeardot

Very excited about 2 things this week. First up is the 2Gether08 event, organised by Steve Moore and funded by C4. The event is aiming to linkup many of the social and digital innovation community in the UK, including AMEE, Interesting; and Social Innovation Camp.

There's a fantastic line-up of speakers over the 2 days, including Umair Haque, Julian Baggini, Martha Lane-Fox, Matthew Taylor, Jane Jacobs, Euan Semple, and my favourite - Russell Davies, talking about 'Interesting for Change'. Should be a really fun and mind-expanding 2 days. See you there?

Also this week, our YearDot project has properly launched. This is an ambitious online and TV project where we'll be following 15 teens as they live 'the first year of the rest of their lives'. Its aiming to see how living on the web is changing the way that teens make choices in their lives, and how networking, collaboration and search are affecting the difficult transitions that most teens as they leave home, school or college and have to make their own way in the big, wide world. Its been a fascinating process working with So Television and Holler as we've discussed how to get the approach and tone of this project right for the different spaces it will exist in. I think we've got it right for the launch, but one of the good things about the project is that we can be flexible throughout the year. I'd be very surprised if the project didn't look vastly different by the end of the year. To find out and participate, here's the main hub site, and our Myspace page.

The Geek Season

Nearly through a rash of conferences, amidst a rash of toddler birthday parties. This has meant that around 50% of my diet in the last 2 months has been either danish pastries or fairy cakes. I'll leave you to work which is responsible for which.

Working backwards, Mashed08 was at the weekend. Just like last year, it seems there's something magical about getting a few hundred geeks together to hack over a weekend. And just like last year, Alexandra Palace's roof opened, although this time it was the (planned) pyrotechnics inside the venue, rather than the (unplanned) lightning outside that was responsible. Or rather, Ewan Spence's socialflightsim crashing on to the stage.

BTween transplanted itself from Yorkshire across the Pennines to Manchester, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The event expanded to fill the space, and was much better to boot. Highlights for me were Kaiser Kuo puncturing some Western assumptions about China, the Chinese and their Internet use; and Bill Tidy's live-drawn insights into the lives of the over-60's. More stand-up cartooning at tech conferences, please!

Bill Tidy's session would have fitted in nicely at Interesting08, which I missed for the second year running, as I did MediaFutures. What is it about geeks that, as soon as the sun starts to make an appearance, we organise loads of indoor conferences? Can we co-ordinate ourselves to make them *not* clash next year? Or perhaps hold one outdoors?

Before all of these, I was at Thinking Digital in Newcastle, which had an eclectic lineup including Greg Dyke, Ray Kurzweil, Tara Hunt, Aubrey DeGrey and Fake Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, due to another clash with the Big Chip Awards dinner, I had to leave after the first morning, so didn't get to see much of the conference. But I did get to attend the fantastic Speakers Slow Dinner at Secco in Newcastle, with a very inspiring talk on all things Slow from Carl Honore. Although he broke his own Slow philosophy by herding a group of us into a cab to the Baltic for the second half of the Champions League final before they'd even served dessert.

Next up is the Hide and Seek Festival at the Royal Festival Hall, and then next week the last of this burst of events - 2Gether08 - which will try and round up lots of the other events into one geeky social innovation bundle.

The Geek Season is well and truly established. We just need a bit of co-ordination, and a good drinks sponsor for the whole damn shooting match...