2008 a journey with friends

The Documentally podcast in it’s iTunes form started in 2006, i started video blogging and using twitter in 2007 but it was 2008 that felt like social media really took off for me.

Maybe because I felt like I was no longer just a photographer. My ability to take photos and document things was now just one shade on a growing multimedia palette of skills that had community in mind.

I guess things really took off with my trip into Jordan for the United Nations. This was a big job for me, the ground covered, audio interviews, photos and final editing into a podcast assembled with the assistance of people like Phil Sands and Bill Cammack. It was in Jordan I introduced an Iraqi Refugee to Seesmic. This blew his mind that he could reach out into the homes of the western world and report first hand what he was going through whilst escaping with only his life from the mess that was/is Iraq.

I felt this would be an incredibly important use for video conversation platforms. Today they seem to concentrate on conversations with celebrity and have not yet been adopted by areas of the worlds community in real need of talking about their plight. Hopefully myself and Mike Sizemore will be able to push the use of video conversational platforms in the political sphere. We have already had great success using Qik during talks with political party leaders with Thompson Reuters, thanks to people like @ilicco.

Shortly after Jordan was a meetup in Paris, then SXSW in Austin, Texas. This was made possible by more sponsorship. Jeff Pulver bought the tickets and myself and Phil Campbell’s socializing was more than covered by Seesmic. It was here that many online friendships were cemented and connections made. People who’s lives I still follow daily and think of as good friends. Some of these friendships were fortified more with my trip to New York for Podcamp NYC 2.0. Also made possible with sponsorship from Seesmic.

There are too many people to name with whom friendships were made and are still maintained. If you look at my Twitter friends and scroll back to the first 30 or so pages.. these are the people from this time. These are the people I would do most anything for. The web weaving warriors who have made sense of this digital wasteland.

After SXSW I was bridging out from mobile media making and into Consulting. Geert Van Kesteren commissioned me to fly out to Amsterdam and help him with his media mountain. Towers of hard drives containing incredible photo stories waiting to be reformatted into online portfolios, podcasts, films anything that gave them new life.

Las Vegas was another big event of the year made possible with the help of Steve Purkiss, @Kosso’s Phreadz and The Open University. In fact Phreadz and The OU have gone on to play a massive part in many more of this years adventures. Berlin Web 2.0 was made infinitely more interesting and Geeknbury really came together with the online participation from those that could not make it.

Work for me this year has been a pleasure. Which is just as well, if i’m not doing something for an assignment, I am doing more of the same for the love of it. It was great working with Carl (@FellowCreative) and the University of Creative Arts online projects. Speaking at places like the UCA and the MDDA really punctuate the year nicely and allow me to learn through talking more about what it is we do.

I finished this year by running video blogging courses. A full day of looking at kit, learning how to use it, filming editing uploading and dissemination.

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2008 what i would be doing throughout the year, I would have had no idea how fast and how far this social media wave would travel. Surf’s up and it’s 10 foot and tubing.

If you ask me now I’ll say I just want to stay on the surfboard, anything else is a bonus.

I look forward to doing more with these people in 2009. More projects with the likes of Dave @BuddhaMagnet. More experimental stuff with the OU, more teaching with the MDDA.. More with, Nick Butler, @sleepydog, Phil Campbell, Mike Sizemore.. Just more.

Of course I have the little matter of a baby arriving between March and April so my focus may alter somewhat in the first quarter of this year. If I thought 2008 was epic, 2009 it is bound to be more so.

This blog post accompanies a podcast I have rushed out in the last couple of hours of 2008. Not really a concise summery. Just a ramble whilst walking the dog on a cold December night. Trying to get my head around the year and at the same time trying not to freeze to death in the dark Northamptonshire countryside.

You can subscribe to my ever so neglected podcast in the iTunes store.

If you feel you can add to this please comment. It’s great to get feedback, thoughts and ideas.

Don’t forget you can support this blog here and a review on my podcast in Itunes may do more good than bad.

I won’t ask any more from you other than to stay in touch. Communication got us here.. Staying connected will carry us through. A journey with friends.

PICNIC’08 - A meeting of creative minds.

“From 24 to 26 September 2008, thousands of creative minds from all over the world will come together in Amsterdam for the third PICNIC. …”

So how does one particular creative mind get to this kind of event on a budget? It looks huge, expensive dripping with free bars and full colour laser projection backdrops.

Yes, I am talking about me… I am just putting my feelers out there at the moment but it looks like a fantastic event that I could get so much out of as well as (I hope) add something too.

Not Just PICNIC, I also plan to get over and talk at Podcamp Hawaii. This could all be pie in the sky as quite obviously all these events cost money. If I got to go to all of the worldwide social media events I have my eye on, I would never be home. More to the point I probably wouldn’t have a home as I’d have to sell it to fund all these social media miles.

It was the day after I got back from the New Media Expo in Las Vegas that I spotted Picnic08 online.. It talked about the worlds top creatives, networking, melding ideas and pushing the boundaries in all forms of media.

This was for me.. in fact, how could this go ahead without me?

Ahh.. then i saw the costs involved.. (£1013 for a full conference ticket), Hmm it appears it is not just for creative minds.. It’s for rich creative minds. “OK..’ I thought. “Don’t let that dissuade you from going..”

It may not be the kind of event I am used to.. Free like a podcamp or a max of $400 for NME, but surely this event is not just limited to those who have already made their name in the business world, the established minds of the corporate elite who would not think twice at bunging 1000+ euros at a networking event in Amsterdam. What if i forked out the money and then, as with many other events, found the value in the corridors and hidden spaces. The places where the unconventional unconferences dwell?

Shortly after deciding to lay off the photography and venture into the social media mayhem, I manage to go to SXSW, Podcamp NYC and then recently the NME Las Vegas.. All with relative ease.  In most cases I was asked to go and my costs covered by either sponsors, or clients. I would like to think some apps were well tested, some profiles raised and decent content made in the process. There were definately connections and contacts made.

But here we are, the most local of all the bigger, massivly funded events.. specialising in my main passion (creativity), just a mere hop across the water and it may as well be a million miles away.

I’d Love to get sponsored to attend Picnic08, there is little chance I could raise the funds in time otherwise.

Like many of my social media friends, I am a hand-to-mouth blogger, vlogger and multi media mongrel. Things continue improving the more projects I get my teeth into, but it’s looking like I would need in excess of 2000 euros to attend this event and I just don’t have the ready cash lying around. *checks the mattress*.

All these ideas and inspiration to share.. Just no piles of hard cash.

If this were an advertisement attempting to sell my services in exchange for passage over the water to Holland, I would  ask anybody who does have the spare cash to contact me and find out what I can do for you in exchange for sponsorship. I would talk about the seemingly endless provision of creative content, coverage and exposure..

I would say get in touch through Twitter or through this website (top right envelope).

But this is just another blogger talking about being on the edge and in the middle of this strange warping world of social media..

If you have just arrived at this site and are not sure what I have been up to recently.. check out:

my blogging on http://www.Creative-Choices.co.uk

Some of my video content in other places..

I use Qik A podcast I did for the United Nations in Jordan.

..And here is a channel on Phreadz I contributed to for the New Media Expo.

In many ways you have to be a creative mind yourself to see the value of content creators working within social media networks. It is still a new field and the role is evolving all the time.

It would be bloody great to go to PICNIC’08 and I will keep my bag packed just in case I need to make a last minute hop across the water.

Still, I have a back up plan..

Another meeting of creative minds, an imagination collaberation in Birmingham on the 26th. Far closer to home and as cheap as a drive up the motorway,

Birmingham Social Media Cafe comes from the same gene pool as the Tuttle Club in London and the Creative Coffee Club in Leicester.

These are the new generation of networking meets.. No stareing bleary eyed into a cold egg as a cushion cover embroider trys to sell to you over the dawn chorus. No costly subscriptions and suits are most certainly optional. This is truly a meeting of minds where creativity and inovation is quenched in coffee as the future of media is forged from white hot ideas.

These are exciting times. Lasers and robots, holograms and segways. Even with the big social media events grabbing the attention of the corporate world.. a pot of coffee is all you really need to attract a meeting of creative minds.