Dear Twitter

Dear Twitter,

I have had a great idea…

I suddenly realised that over here in the UK you have no offline presence at all. No skyscraping head office, no billboards and no sponsored parks or roundabouts.

How could this be? Especially with you being such an incredible international social media tour de force.

This got me thinking. I believe I have one of the most sociable cars ever built. It also just happens to be ‘Twitter‘ colour. As the car is so rare in the UK people already stare as I drive by. Wherever I park, people approach to find out more. What is it? Where is it from? Why do you have it?

Imagine how different the questions would be if my car had Twitter emblazoned down the side…

What is this Twitter car? What’s it all about?

It would be a cinch to also have real-time, location based tweets scrolling across the rear window.

Social media folk know all about Twitter. Let’s make social media even more sociable by reaching out of our echo chamber and into the wider world.

I am happy to be the driver/chauffeur/pilot of the ‘Twittermobile’. I could even do interviews in the back seat.

Talk to me and lets take twitter offline and into the minds and streets of the British people.

If you are not following me already on Twitter i am @Documentally

Random donations are always welcome and deeply apreciated on my support page.

A Chat With Vinvin On Videoblogging

I met up with Cyrille De Lasteyrye aka @VinVin at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. We had an impromptu chat about Seesmic, video blogging and social media, captured on camera by Matt Rawlinson aka @barnstormed from the Open University in the UK.

There is much more New Media Expo content on the Phreadz Channel.

Seesmic is open to join but if you want an invite to Phreadz contact me through this site or my twitter page.

Thanks for watching..

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.

Tweet Generation

Tweet generation is a book being put together by Butterbeep, (Dave Goodchild) about the power of social media and the people who use it as a enabling tool and a way to create wide-reaching and potent connections. The book, which touches on a number of social networks and prominent posters, geeks and visionaries, is different from many books about tech in the desire to capture the intersection of art and science, the heart and the mind that is so prevalent in these emerging communities.

Can these tools, in the right hands, be a force capable of reclaiming the human heart and placing it smack bang in the middle of the technosphere. Who knows.. but it’s going to be a lot of fun finding out.

If you haven’t already.. anyone can contribute to the book by going to http://butterbeep.com/tweetgeneration and sending in their quotes, experiences and thoughts. Not every upload will make it - think of them as frenzied spermatazoe on their way to the ovum. Make them fertile and fast, and you are in with a chance.

Dave plans to have the book finished by August 28 2008 and final submissions will be accepted up until August 15.

He has put in loads of work so far and peoples comments, feelings, favorite tweets will all go to glaze the cherry on top.

I have dropped in a line or two but may have another go as everyday my networks amaze me.. It’s all moving so fast. So much of what we do passes our eyes in the flicker of a monitor, I will be surly ordering my own copy of the finished book and if that solar flare does come to erase all our data.. At least I can thumb through the pages of Tweet Generation and remember.

Happy posting!

That link again.. http://butterbeep.com/tweetgeneration

Note: this blog post was hacked together with slolen words from Daves own site. It’s late.. i am tired.. and it looked better than just posting a link..

I Got Hacked!

I guess it was bound to happen.. There I was happily tweeting away (on twitter obviously) and @jopkins told me something was up with my site.. I myself tweeted what had happened and @loudmouthman of Reduced Hackers was as ever the most easy to hear over the twitter static.

He told me to call him and I did immediately. Less than eight minutes later my site was back up and Nik had fixed it in the simplest of ways by first assessing all of the possibilities and then simply dropping a new index.php file onto my server.

He gave me some invaluable tips on how to protect myself in different ways from other possible attacks and did all of this whilst simultaneously dealing with a client in another part of the UK!

I have changed all of my passwords that could have been compromised but we won’t know for sure how they got in until we get the log files back from www.nxs.nl. Needless to say I have backed up again and realise i am more than a little lucky. Lucky because in about ten years of having websites this is only the second time that this has happened.. The first time was a nightmare. The difference now, is that with a single tweet, an expert like Nik came to the rescue and sorted it out in around half an hour. 

Nik is also the reason I have a Drobo sitting under the desk humming away casually backing up all of my data to protect against just such an event like this.

Not wanting to give him too much advertisement, the hacker is Turkish and had placed a page protesting against what he was calling..  ’Stop Bush Crusade II’. I am wondering if I was targeted as @Delboydare suggested because I have a short photo piece on Kurdistan.. We may never know.

Thanks to all of the other Twitterati that came to my aid with advice and suggestions as to what may have happened and how to sort it. There is a massive writhing beast of knowledge and skill out there in the collective mind.

We are connected.. with our fingers on the keyboards and our eyes fixed to screens.. It is almost as if the technology were grafted to our beings. We are the Twitter Borg.

 

[Check back in a little while and we may know more about how they got in to the site in the first place.]

Social Media Picnic

Whilst on Twitter I mentioned in passing that I was thinking about holding a social media picnic at the site of George Orwell’s grave and the response was pretty good. Mostly people wanted to say that they were sorry they lived so far away and that it was a good idea.

Why do we not have more social media meet ups outdoors? Especially in places of relevance to a theme? For this very reason I have been thinking also about a social media music festival (If i say social media one more time in this post i think i may shoot myself) and/or getting some geeks out ‘Bushcrafting‘ too.

Granted, at the moment as I write this it is raining outside, but on the whole the Summer is a time to be outdoors, even in the UK.

We tend to be much more chilled and relaxed when outside (i.e. no suits) and I feel the unconventional nature of an open air meet may draw out a flavour of thought we would not normally see with ties constricting blood flow to the brain.

I wish Google’s Campfire One and the Picnic Network were more like a hippy geek meet up round an actual camp fire deep in the woods. Once everyone’s arms were tired from waving their phones above their heads for a signal, who knows what the suits could spawn.

I still have Geek Retreat to organise but what with my Dad’s farm always being in demand for people willing to pay for it finding the perfect venue is not that easy to come by..

So why not just do away with most of the facilities and arrange to meet a select few people in a field somewhere..? We organise who brings the potato salad and who brings the wine and that’s all we need really.

I am up for it and I think Orwell’s Grave is a good start. It has a pub nearby, so in an emergency the toilet can be used and I am sure when picnic supplies run low, a steady flow of good local ale would safely ensure the ideas also kept flowing.

I have bought the domain SocialMediaPicnic.com and would be happy link it to a site listing other open air events going on in the world.. Anyone want to build a wiki/blog or hub site?

Let me know in a comment below if you are up for the first picnic at Orwell’s grave, I have preempted the local Vicar and she is happy to have people sat around on the grass on the afternoon of the 25th of June (Orwell’s birthday), providing no one needs burying that day.

Never-the-less.. Me and Eric will be there with bread wine and cheese, no doubt tweeting, possibly streaming, certainly drinking and eating. Well maybe not Eric. But i’ll bring enough for him too.. just in case..

Here is the postcode: OX14 4AE

People Interested in attending the Social Media Picnic

Me - Documentally

Dr John Perivolaris - JohnPerivolaris

Phil Campbell - PhilCampbell

Derek Mantle - DelBoyDare

Steve Lawson - SoloBassSteve

Ben Read - BookPirate

Richard Galbraith - Ricgalbraith

NOTE: Although the event is burial dependent.. There is always the pub, which I have already tested.

Electric Empathy.

Attempting to stay offline.

I say attempt as as yet I am not able to succeed in any major fashion.

I have come away on holiday with family to Canada and really want to do my best for those who do not understand (or care much for) social networking and it’s incessant need to be monitored like a newborn baby.

With all the apps out there that assist me in maintaining my international links there is nothing I can (as yet) plug into my subconscious so I can monitor it without it eating into my ‘real life’ time.

The closest thing in the UK is my mobile phone but with international roaming as expensive as it is I pretty much have my phone turned off nearly all the time here in Canada. That is unheard of for me in the UK.

Wherever there is wifi.. if I am not going to be stared at like a freak by anyone who knows me, I am sure to be on Qik as soon as i can press the button.. Seesmic gets the final file after it has streamed but I have to wait till I have a decent enough window of time to get my proper Seesmic fix. I don’t like just popping on and popping off. I like to partake in a conversation. Exactly what Seesmic was intended for.

So.. in fits an spurts I close my seesmic browser, dam the twitter stream and then head out un-encumbered by any technology.. Not even my mobile phone.

Then what happens?.. I bump into and have a chat with Gene Simmons!.. Typical. Standing there talking to a rock legend without any of my documenting tools.

My social media world and my real life world exist on two very different dimensions at the moment. It’s very difficult for me to be in the two places simultaneously without causing a brief rupture in my space time continuum..

If i try to bring my real life into my social media world I feel i’m cutting away a life raft and heading into choppy uncertain seas. If i attempt to bring social media into my ‘normal’ old school, lo-fi life.. I quickly ostracize myself from those that have no intention of embracing the technological advances I have come to know and love.

It’s almost like I’ve found a TV that has over a thousand channels but all those around me would like to stick with the ones they are familiar with.

I guess this is the life of the early adopter and in many ways I do enjoy the exclusivity of it all. We all like to be part of a ’special club’ at some pont.. Even if only for a sense of validation.

When, if ever I experience some kind of convergence, I think a little part of me will have to be trimmed away as I assimilate the two lives I lead.

I definitely feel a little schizophrenic right now. Perhaps this schizomedia is making me sociophrenic..? With the million and one possibilities out there for connections, contacts and opportunities there are moments when I am really thankful of even a couple of hours of downtime. Some headspace in a low tech sanctuary where nothing beeps to tell me something I may or may not be interested in knowing…

But soon enough.. somewhere in a dark room a browser opens and I am instantly connected to a thousand other people, all perhaps feeling the same way.. Perhaps not. An electric empathy, no more or less real than this other world I am a part of. 

If I switch one off.. it takes messages till I get back.. a kind of suspended animation.. If i dial the other out.. that’s when life can really get a little complicated.

I am switching off now.. I will be in New York next week at Podcamp NYC 2.0 Plenty of time to saturate the social media half of my mind..

Talk later?

www.twitter.com/Documentally