BarCamp Manchester Rocks

December 7th, 2010
mac-pc-barcamp

We battled the wintery conditions and slipped our way to MadLabs on Saturday to be greeted with a hot cup of coffee (a well needed caffeine boost for my sleepy weekend morning) and a biscuit….. What a pleasant start to my first ever BarCamp.

I was admittedly a little nervous about my first ‘unconference’, would they force me to run a  session? And if so, what on earth would I talk about?

Luckily, there were plenty of sessions already in place, so just this once, I was allowed to simply join in the sessions and enjoy the various discussion groups, my favourites included a discussion on the future of TV, ‘Beyond TV’, run by Ian Forrester, ( Apple TV is on my Christmas wishlist now, thanks Santa!) and a discussion about E Books run by Mathew Peppitt (I understand the pros of a Kindle, but i love the romance of reading a dog-eared book…There’s a sense of achievement in finishing a big fat novel).

Obviously, my absolute favourite talk was ‘How to win awards with Social Media’- run by the boss… Talking about what you know is recommended you know!

It was a really interesting, relaxed, friendly day, and now that I  know it’s not so intimidating, I will be happily running a session on high kicks for beginners at the next BarCamp.

by and tagged , ,
Posted in Democracy, social media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Twestival 2010

March 26th, 2010
Picture 16

A year has passed since the first Twestival in Manchester, and although I’m sure you’ll hear much about the money that was raised for @concern and the great work it will do, I wanted to highlight how much things have changed.

In 2009 Twitter was for those who wanted to share and embrace ideas, ask for help or off load their frustrations about the projects they were working on, it was real people sharing real things in a virtual world.  Twestival brought these people together and virtual relationships were cemented in real life. Many of the PR and media types were only just beginning to take the social media space seriously and a few uninitiated PR and marketing types hovered around the edges like fish out of water. (classical example, one PR agency put forwards a gadget as an auction prize that wasn’t MAC compatible – eek(!))

A year on, and we’re in HulaBar – the place is bustling as virtual relationships are cemented into real life. But the question is . . . . where are the Twitter fans of old? The event was full of PR people who are now firmly planted in the Twitter culture. I was asked by an interviewer my twitter name, why i use Twitter and my favourite celeb to follow – after admitting celeb followings isn’t really my thing the girl seemed to be at a loss.

I couldn’t help but think that the place I should have been was over in Madlab, where all the interesting people had got together to talk emerging digital, what’s new and how the landscape is changing.

The Madlab is a community space for people who want to do and make interesting stuff – a place for geeks, artists, designers, illustrators, hackers, tinkerers, innovators and idle dreamers; an autonomous R&D laboratory and a release valve for Manchester’s creative communities.

It’s here where PR and social media people need to be paying attention. It’s here where we’ll understand about what happens after Twitter. It’s here where we’ll learn.

So, I was asked at the event which person I’d recommend to follow this Friday – on reflection I change my answer to this follow @Madlab.

by and tagged , , , , , ,
Posted in Democracy, Industry | No Comments »