So much for a quiet week with time to catch up and do the housekeeping that has still been carried over from the whirlwind that was Hu$tle. So far have had to deliver a website, get a Wordpress MU setup up and running on a server with 5 blogs populated. Installed a new version of Sage Accounts, updated all the data and closed off the financial year. Getting tenders together with relevant documentation, hire a truck mounted crane, quote for a job for a French Production company to film something over here for them and schedule in a job to do an epk for a touring US band. Bugger, and it's only Tuesday!
Anyway, not the real reason for popping this on, not really one to join the "how busy am I" brigade...
On the personal development / social responsibility side, things seem to be going well too. Have made some fantastic headway in the last few days on a project close to my heart that is looming close to it's "launch deadline" in March (self imposed deadline, but if you don't have one these personal projects always get swept aside for more pressing things). Big thanks to @gabysslave, @hadleypaul and Carl Chinn for helping me make headway when I seem to have been met with closed minds and doors.
Also in March it looks like I may now get to stay on in Austin for a few more days to do some interviews, launches and "behind the scenes" for one of my fave bands at SXSW Music.
Born out of a desire to “make something happen” @moxypark came up with the idea of #hackitude. 48 hours, willing volunteers and an idea….changing the world, one line of code at a time.
A site was put up where people could come up with ideas of the kind of thing that they would like to see us make during the weekend. Liking the idea and not one to shy away from another weekend at home, I got in touch with Mark and offered Aquila Towers as a possible venue. 13 crazy folk signed up for the weekend. @siwhitehouse and the team at Digital Birmingham offered to sponsor the food and drink for the weekend to help grease the wheels of code.
Starting the #hackitude weekend at 8pm on friday night were:
After going through the list of ideas on the website it seemed that many were leaning towards a hyperlocal feel so the team felt it was that direction we should be heading in.
@chimerax and @alexhughes joined us after the #gentlemenoftwitter tweetup and ended up popping themselves down on the “Joey ‘n Chandler” chairs for a fair few hours.
Saturday 28th November was the first of eight #conkertu events to be held at Conkers Discovery Centre in the heart of the National Forest. These events will cover many aspects of sustainability and sustainable communities ranging from eco homes to gifting and community banking.James (@xxmilkyxx) was still ill so by the time I had sorted him out for the day, swung by to pick up mom (@wrinklydragon) and hit the road, we had not left enough time to catch the “Green Bus” from Tamworth Station to Conkers.
As Saturday was also World Buy Nothing Day, the organisers had pulled out all the stops to help us all make it through the day without the need to spend any money.
The Green Bus Company had agreed to pick up anyone who could meet at Tamworth Railway Station and drive them up to the Conkers Discovery Centre in their WiFi enabled bus. Unfortunately the motorway was full of roadworks, traffic was very slow and most of us missed the departure time and the bus left almost empty. Pity, would have been a good opportunity to do some QIK and Audioboo from a bus!
The morning started with tea and biscuits and half an hour to allow everyone to get to know each other. Managed to get a few shots of the rising sun over the forest and lake, will post them up here as soon as I get a chance.
The Morning session was made up of 4 panellists, each giving a talk and then an open Q&A at the end of the session.
Julian Dobson: A writer, speaker amd commentator on regeneration and social policy issues, founding editor of NEW START magazine in 1999, the UK’s first weekly publication for community regeneration.
Jonathan Little: Has experience in economic development, specifically inward investment but now spends his time working in community development, helping communities “bounce back”. Works mainly with ex-mining communities.
Penney Poyzer: Penny Poyzer is a respected and avid ecologist who has worked for charities and causes, environmentally orientated for the past ten years. Penny started working for eco-charities such as Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth. Starting her professional life in P.R and Marketing, working for companies that didn’t share her ideology on environmentalism. It was here that made her realise that environmental issues need to be packaged in a way that was interesting for the public.
Jonathan O’Farrell: Current Chair and web-wrench for Ibstock does Climate Change which is one of these new-fangled ‘Climate Friendly Communities’ to support residents & local businesses in or around, the village of Ibstock, to consider, debate, act and adapt to the effects, positive or negative, of climate change, global warming and decreased availability of fossil fuels.
To keep up with the Buy Nothing Day ideals everyone was asked to bring along some local or home grown vegetables. Closet chef, Steve, @visitkonkers, whipped it up into an amazing mixed veg soup while the morning session was underway, accompanied by cheese and mead donated by local producers. Musical accompaniment was provided by @sianfiddle.
The afternoon session kicked off with Julian Marris from Rural Energy talking about energy from sustainable sources, the benefits, application and the design and implementation of the wood burning boilers replacing the oil burning ones at Conkers Discovery Centre.
Penney Poyzer was up next talking us through the experience of transforming a Victorian house in Nottingham into an eco friendly living space. http://www.msarch.co.uk/ecohome
Last of the speakers was John Merison from Ecotherm, explaining how they use cutting edge thermal camera technology to visit everywhere from private homes to large corporations and investigate ways to stop heat from escaping buildings, making the heating systems more efficient.
Members of the local Parish Council had been with us for the day and the rest of the afternoon was taken up with general discussion and Q&A while a “splinter group” formed a “surgery” helping the Parish Council set up a website for local information and happenings. They also produce a monthly magazine sent out to the 3500 residents and were keen to add an online version to their new site as well.
To finish off the day, Ben Walker ( @ihatemornings ) jumped up and sang a few songs and told us about his trip to New York. Three friends are going out to the Beatles Ukelele Festival and are doing gigs in office blocks and private homes to pay for their tour. Their progress can be followed athttp://manhaton.tumblr.com
Great day, well organised and attended. Thanks to Phil ( @philcampbell ) and Emma ( @zerocredit_uk) for putting so much hard work into making it go so smoothly. Learnt loads of stuff and met a couple of twitter friends for the first time as well as meeting a whole new bunch.
Looking forward to the next one in January. For updated information and to find out whats going on pop over to http://conkertu.com
Sunday 6th September saw the largest gathering of codebreakers and codebreaking machines at Bletchley Park since the war…
@dahiggs popped along with a camera and a couple of iPhones to grab some “aural histories” on Audioboo and see if we could convince any if the veterans to go “on camera” and share some of their wartime experiences. Just after pulling up, we bumped into Team Amplified who had the same idea. There were a couple of things @bletchleypark wanted me to get on film but after that I was pretty free to roam. Julia and Gaby were charged with hunting down willing volunteers to wave an iPhone in front of and James and I were in charge of the video.
The response to the day was overwhelming and the numbers of veterans arriving for the reunion far outnumbered expectations. The volunteer helpers seemed to have more on their hands than was fair, so Gaby and Julia laid aside their audio project (team #amp09 seemed to have that well covered anyway) to lend a hand in the organising of the day.
James and I got some really great interviews with visitors, veterans and exhibitors alike. Quite amazed at how many people were willing to share time and stories with us. (I have started to put some together and will keep adding to this page as I get round to them)
One of the things that really stood out for me was the interaction and enjoyment my two seemed to get out of the day. For them the veterans brought the museum to life, not just dusty old bits of tech, but living, breathing pieces of our history. Radio & coding rooms previously visited for ten minutes became hubs of activity, stories and memories flying, keeping them both mesmerised and “almost there”. We owe so much to this generation that is easily forgotten. Time is not on their side and it will not be long before they fade away, leaving us with only sanitised museums and emotionally disengaged textbooks to tell us their stories of sacrifice and bravery.
At the end of an emotionally draining as well as physically tiring (not used to lumping all the camera equipment alone) day I popped over to the area Christian and Matt had used for filming. It seems that they too felt that there was more that needed to be done to preserve this living history before it was too late. We can’t do much more to bring to life the histories of the ancient civilisations or the middle ages than we already do with archaeology, museums, movies and books, but to let this generation pass without giving them the opportunity to tell us the stories that can keep it “alive” would be a great shame.
A small plan has begun to form in my mind as to how we may begin a project that could see us darting across the country, organising get-togethers with groups of veterans, urns of tea, coffee, biscuits and sandwiches, a few well placed mics and a camera or two. A collection of stories and memories, digitally preserved for future generations to revisit. Watch this space…
Moseley Barcamp, the third outing for the WxWM crew was held at The Cross in Moseley on 28 June. For more in-depth information on the event as well as a round-up…the audio podcasts and links to the blogs or webpages of the panellists visit http://mozcamp.wordpress.com
Digital Birmingham and Aquila have been busy at the ICC streaming Lord Stephen Carter’s speech at the first regional debate and launch of Digital Britain ‘Final Report’ event. At the same time, Julia was running an Unconference at Fazeley Studios, which Lord Carter attended for an informal Q&A session with the delegates as part of Fazeley Digital ‘09. Watch Lord Carter, who is heading the government’s Digital Britain project, announce his findings that will set out the aims needed to address the challenges of the internet and other digital technologies that were highlighted in his Interim Report.
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