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.

Less is more: The 12 second blog killer

I am finding it easier and easier to just click record and speak my thoughts into some form or video blogging application.

It all began with Seesmic and now in addition (especially when wanting to cross post and use multimedia) I also use Phreadz. For live streaming (in my opinion), there is still only Qik.

The more I used these places the more I noticed a dip in my frequency to blog and podcast. It’s just too easy. If I have a question, thought, idea or master plan I would like to bounce off someone, I just press a button, speak my mind and before I have time to log out, I have an inbox full of answers replies and comments.

Coupled with the bind it can sometimes be to actually write a blog post and I am amazed these pages ever change.

Don’t get me wrong.. I love this Wordpress template. It has enabled me to cram all kinds of content onto the front page of my blog. It’s well laid out and easy to use.

Many of the settings lie dormant beneath the surface as I don’t feel the need to use all the whistles and bells at my disposal.

I love the integration of the images to highlight the articles on the front page but if I originally thought I would take my time to grow into this blog template, I am now finding that I’m taking too much time to do each blog. As a result I write less as I can’t just ‘bang out’ an idea and make it live. Not like I can when posting a video.

Just as I have massively reduced the production time on my podcasts by keeping it simple, maybe I can do the same here? Instead of having to upload two new and unique graphics every time I do a new blog, I think if I already have a selection of stock avatar-type images to link to on my server I am more likely to want to drop little ditties, thoughts and ideas onto a web page.

Sometimes I feel you have to worry less about how it looks in order to get the content out there. I guess I realized this a while ago. Maybe I just didn’t want to let go of my initial way of doing things.

Our Man Inside on 12seconds.tv
Now with the emergence if 12 seconds all hell has broken loose in my video blogging world. I’m not sure what it is that I find compelling.. Perhaps it’s fitting stuff within the time constraints.. Maybe it’s the distillation of peoples humour and the visual snippets of their lives? It’s all so easy to digest in small bitesize chunks without feeling that you should be doing something else.

No one rambles. There is no feeling of time-suck, your life ebbing away as you wait for someone to make their point. I guess this sounds selfish but when you surround yourself with creative minds, absorbing their media all day, everyday, be it blogs, podcasts or videos, you sometimes just want a mini media snack, not a full blown mind meal. If you do not limit the time you put aside to take all of this media in.. before you know it, the day has gone and you are wishing you turned off hours ago.

I don’t get that with 12 seconds, at least not at the moment.. Who knows where it will go. I guess I kind of like it being a different beast to the other places I frequent. If I want threaded conversation (..and i do.. often) I have those places. If I want a 12 second stand alone snippit.. it’s perfect.

Maybe we will soon see replies and threading, perhaps it will become more of a video-Plurk rather than a video-Twitter.

Part of me hopes not. Comments are enough for me right now and I think I would like to see 12seconds evolve along it’s own pedigree, not cross breed into another social media mongrel.

Only time will tell.

Phreadz and the New Media Expo

I was having a quiet night in on the net, flitting from one platform to another, posting a video here and a tweet there.

The chatter in the networks was all about the upcoming New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Having missed out on the Boston Podcamp while on a photo assignment I felt a pang of longing and posted this video..

Apparently I was not clutching at straws.. an hour later I was looking at an email from an anonymous donor pledging me the ticket money to the Vegas NME, providing I did what I said I was going to do, that is, utilise Phreadz in the perfect environment and demonstrate it’s potential.

Apparently there are some serious lurkers out there that really want Phreadz to be pushed more on the international tech circuit..

For me it’s a no-brainer. I have been a Phreadz Phanboy since February 08 It is the only thing on the web that does what it does.

Since I lost my Video blogging cherry to Seesmic I have dabbled in all kinds of online video platforms. Each have their own niches. If i want a large unknown mystery audience I post to seesmic. You never know what you may get back. If i am feeling spontaneous and creative i may blurt out a few 12 second video ditties on 12Seconds.tv

The thing that attracts me to Phreadz right now is its seemingly unlimited ability to show off any content I throw at it. If I want to post video, audio, photos, text links or even a slideshow presentation it will happily suck it all up in just about any format I can chuck at it. It can either be uploaded into the main time line or into one of the many custom channels that have been made.

Recently my very own Geeknbury festival had its own channel. I was really chuffed with this and the channel allowed this small geek festival to exist outside of the field it was born in and be enjoyed internationally. It even had its own musical continuation in the shape of a gig by Steve Lawson and Lobelia played and streamed from their very own living room right into the Geeknbury channel.

I don’t even need to sit here on my minimal countryside bandwidth waiting for files to upload as I can cross post with URLs from countless other video platforms including two of my favorites, Qik and Blip.

Where I feel most at home though is within the virtually instantaneous video conversations occurring across all channels, from either mobile or off my laptop.

Although still in a closed beta (soon to open wider, I hear), Phreadz founder Kosso, has not only concentrated on content but he has ensured community still plays a major part in Phreadz. Occasionally new channels appear out of the blue and, as users, we all quickly embrace another place we can express ourselves. After all, it is still the user who makes the content in Phreadz and because of this the conversations are always rich. Channels have allowed any exasperated rant or heartfelt tale to live side by side without content clashing, or meaning and context getting lost in the ever increasing flow of new and interesting dialogue.

One place on Phreadz I’ll be sure to spend some time next week will be the New Media Expo Channel, created as an experiment to cover The New Media Expo hosted in Las Vegas by brothers Tim and Emile Bouquin.

So although I will be in the channel, thanks to my mysterious ‘Angel’,  I will also actually be in Las Vegas, creating content, networking and showing anyone that loves new media an innovative tool that has not only indirectly given me this opportunity but that also inspires, homes and houses so much of my online existence.

The New Media Expo Channel is at http://newmediaexpo.phreadz.com and is open for all to see.

If you want to know more about Phreadz and want to join in with the beta testers, why not drop the site an email HERE

If you are an investor, contact the site as it is ripe and ready to take the net by storm, Kosso just needs smart folk with money.

And if you really want to help out right now.. make a donation to the chip-in on the front page here.. It’s worth it.

I am off to pack and charge geek stuff.. If you are going to the NME in Vegas let’s connect on Twitter

UPDATE: Anyone in Vegas sending New Media Expo content to nme@phreadz.com automatically gets an account!!

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..

Happy Birthday WordPress!

WordPress is five years old today! ..and although i haven’t even been using it five months I feel it only right to say not only congratulations, but also Thank You.

I was always a ‘Blogger‘ user and before that i just made my own random pages and stuck them out into the ‘tubes’ not knowing if anyone actually read anything until i upset them.

I do believe though that I am now hooked and unless something pretty drastic and/or amazing happens.. I will be here for a good time to come.

So why do i like WordPress so much?

I guess mainly it’s because there are so many people I have met through social media that use and understand the importance of such a powerful tool and enabler. Seeing others using this blog software as effectively as they were (and still are) drew me into having at first a peek.. and then jumping headlong into this bandwagon. A bandwagon (assuming this once was a reference to a vehicle of some kind) that at the click of a button can be a small pizza delivery boy on a bike..  or the next moment, a thundering juggernaught.

It is this flexibility and customisation that has hid from me the fact that, without knowing it, I seem to have always been drawn to sites using WordPress. Far more than sites incorporating other blogging platforms.

I love the flexibility to have a site in almost any shape or form, compatible with no end of open source plugins, costing as little as nothing, up to a nominal fee for something a little more in depth. All of this is easily accessible to people not at all versed in code and programing.

I threw myself in at the deep end with this ‘Revolution‘ theme and decided to splash out £40 even though I had never even tried to play with the free themes. Before i knew it, WordPress was installed and with the help of some online friends showing me the ropes and pushing a few buttons.. I had a site up and running that I had never dreamed of having just a week before.

We tend to bang on and on about how important content is but let’s not forget that it’s delivery is equally important. Thanks a lot WordPress and Happy Birthday!

Many thanks to Derek Mantle, Annie Boccio, Steve Purkiss and Phil Sorrell for their superior WordPress and CSS knowledge.

A moment ago I threw out a question onto Twitter asking who was using WordPress and got these links back..

Click on every one.. Go on.. I dare ya..

http://www.ihadfaith.com

http://www.sizemore.co.uk/

http://social8.co.uk

http://www.loudmouthman.com/

http://www.ethosmarketing.co.uk

http://suzemuse.wordpress.com

http://jestercreative.com/wordpress/

http://geekgrls.wordpress.com/

http://deekdeekster.com

http://mycountryside.org.uk

http://thegirlinthez.wordpress.com/

http://heavensgame.wordpress.com/

http://www.writeonfilm.com/

http://myblog.greguti.com/

http://speechification.com/

http://watchification.com/

http://www.thebillblog.com/billblog/

http://www.tc100.org/

http://www.rickwolff.com

http://amedievalhand.wordpress.com

http://www.kmeron.com/

http://www.kittenfluff.wordpress.com/

http://www.apollodane.com

http://www.bigtalkproductions.com/blog/

http://www.stormhoek.com

http://www.thealbumchartshow.com

http://www.claritypartnership.co.uk

http://www.blog.edgarwrighthere.com

http://www.industrymeme.com

http://www.lunarfilms.co.uk

http://www.thinmanfilms.co.uk

http://www.normanscoachsoho.com

http://www.farouq.me.uk/blog

www.thewayoftheweb.net

www.LetMeRephraseThat.com

www.blugture.net/blog

www.OurManInside.com

I see a theme forming.. 

OK guys.. I have linked you.. now link me back!

Dogwalking

I do it every day. Come rain or shine. It is at the moment my only form of exercise.

My dog is a Coltriever and needs three good walks a day. She has a wee and a pooh on all occasions and I sometimes wish my metabolism was that fast.

I am lucky where I live to have loads of intersecting paths through the Northamptonshire countryside crisscrossing all around so there is always a choice of direction and area. Not to mention a forest only a ball throw away.

Occasionally I tweet while I walk and throw the ball, sometimes I stream it live. Well almost live. Vodafone has not yet seen the benefit of equipping my part of the Northamptonshire sky with 3G.

Here is a Qik clip from today…

 

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

 

Photoshoot with the band ~ Talc

I have just finished uploading a few of the photos of the band Talc to my Flickr stream.

For most of Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of hanging out with the two awesome funksters Dr. Fun and The Gift.

They had imaginatively arranged for us to visit their local beer making establishment so as we could take some photos for their up and coming concept album and at the same time not be too far away from tens of thousands of pints of beer. (Probably more).

I have photographed these guys before and every time we meet we have a great laugh, always managing to bag a few decent shots in the limited time we have.

The Fullers Brewery (London’s last remaining traditional family brewer) was an amazing place of historical pipes and brass, leading us into a sci-fi setting of ceramic and chrome. They are obviously proud of their history and bent over backwards to see we had the freedom to take our photos unhindered. We worked our way through the factory, stopping to snap when we thought the setting inspired.

Our shoot wound up underground in a little private bar where, given a sleeping bag and a few pies, I could quite easily have spent a good few weeks sheltering from the outside world and saturating my body and mind with the various ales made on site and piped into this curious bar with no till and no way to take your money.

Paradise?

Even when my camera was back in the bag and we headed to the local (attached) pub for a debrief, our friendly guide saw that the round was free and we were to order what we wanted.

It’s just a shame i was riding the bike and had to maintain some form of sobriety as otherwise I would have had to stay and help the guys with their debrief lubrication.

Besides.. I had had more than enough motoring action earlier in the day to risk any more altercations with angsty London road users.

Thanks Talc for a great days photography and thanks to Fullers for not only letting us take photos but for going all out to make us feel as welcome as we possibly could.

Talc’s new album ‘Licensed Premises Lifestyle’ is due for release in July and will be touring Japan in September.

..for more information on the band check out www.TalcOnline.com (soon to be updated).

And here is the band talking and moving..