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17 After the Event- Carrying the Conversation Forward

Byrichard

There are two key events I have been to since the beginning of summer. These are PodcampUK and the Twitter Meetup. Both of these events have been followed up by a continuing collaboration between participants.

The first event was the London twitter meetup. I went there knowing just two participants, Sizemore and Jess. Over the night I would end up with interviews with quite a few members of the London twitter community but nothing much would be done with this footage as a result of not having known that I would be doing these interviews.

It meant collaborating with Jess and getting an edit ready in the hope that GETV would use it. They didn’t so that was slightly dissapointing.

I met another individual. Nik Butler of Loudmouthman.com. Following on from a good conversation on the twitter meetup night we decided that we would collaborate on other projects. One of these is ongoing, Twittervox. Twittervox is a weekly roundup of the week’s twitter news in review. It’s had over 2600 views over that time with up to four live participants at once around the world ranging from the US to different parts of Europe.

That project has been featured by Operator 11 on a number of occasions which I would like to believe is testament to it’s good content.

Twittervox is also of note because it introduced me to Phil Campbell and his work. Since this was a few weeks before Podcamp UK it meant that I would know at least two members of the conference.

At Podcamp UK I got to meet quite a few of those who are part of the British podcasting landscape, from teachers to academics, broadcast professionals and hobbyists. This broad range of people would lead on to more projects.

There were some interesting conversations and presentations which brought me some new ways of seeing certain aspects of the podcasting stream of content creation. It would make me think of podcasting as the equivalent of Amateur sports in relation to it’s “threat to broadcasting.” Within a week I was sitting at the Frontline Club listening to Andrew Keen but that was written abo

I’m glad I met Documentally whilst at Podcamp because of possible future collaborations we may work on in the near future. As of yet nothing is set in stone but already I’ve met him a few times to work on three or four projects which you can find on his website and on a number of video sharing websites already.

From what I’ve described above what I’ve found is that the conversations from events are leading onto some interesting projects and that it’s been a good transition from the student life into the professional one. It’s been a great opportunity to meet some interesting people and through blogs, twitter and meetings in the real world the conversation is as healthy as ever. I feel I’ve gained from these events and their aftermath and look forward to participating to many more in the weeks and months to come.

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59 Twitter is Too Simple- Twitter is Just Right

Byrichard

Twitter is one of those things that’s really hard to explain due to it’s sheer simplicity. It’s a website that allows you to answer the “what are you doing question”. That is the initial phase. When you’re new to twitter you’ll be confused because you know no one therefore the codes and conventions are blurred. You may tweet once or twice a day and that’s enough. Over time you will look at what other people are doing and that’s when you move to phase two of twitter use.

When I first started using twitter I had no idea how to use it. i thought that it was a storm of 140 character postings that are completely unrelated. Some refer to it as microblogging but it’s not a blog. instead it’s a great tool for entrepreneur for two key reasons. The first is brevity. Anything you say must be summarised to 140 characters. As a result you’re efficient. The second factor is the interaction between twitter users.

If you take a look at my profile and my twitter block then you’ll see the ten most recent tweets in my public feed and what everyone within my circle are talking about. As a result of this you’re entering a communal environment. Out of those I’m following on twitter I know from ten to twenty of them, occasionaly meeting a few of them two or more times. As a result I know what they’re doing and they know what I’m doing as well.

Each one of us is in charge of a number of projects we find of interest. I’m a recent graduate therefore I tweet about one set of things. Loudmouthman and Documentally both tweet about other things that are related to their activities. Links help to get all of this information and work distributed to the right people. Most of those on twitter have at least one website and quite a few profiles on a variety of other websites. We’re embracing what’s called web 2.0 by many people.

It seems to be the tool of choice for entrepreneur to keep up to date with what everyone else is doing at the time. Just take a look and you’ll see this for yourself.

Twitter is a great tool for it’s brevity and it brings together a great number of content creators who are having a conversation across borders and timezones. It’s boundless in that it can be viewed from the mobile phone to the Itouch to the computer. It’s versatile and quick and I’m going to continue using it for many months to come.

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The Brogan hundred

Byrichard

Chris Brogan recently wrote a list of one hundred things he would like people to blog about and I would like to make my way through the list. It may take 100 days but it may take fewer. It depends on how busy I get and what interesting things are there to sidetrack me.

The first question is about Facebook and how we use it as individuals. In order to answer that question i must describe the four groups of friends I have on the website. The first group is made up of many friends I have met over the last three years. This includes university friends for the most part. Within this group of friends are many complex friendships with many overlaps between networks of friends and there is a true sense of community in the real world sense. We share photographs, videos, events and more.

There is a communal history which makes for some insider jokes. Groups such as “The curse of the N18” reflect how this network of friends has grown use to catching a nightbus home after a long night of fun in the centre of London. If you’ve ever taken the bus you’ll understand why the group gets such a name.

The second network of friends is made up of friends I’ve known for more than three year but may not have seen for a decade. These are the highschool friends from life in Switzerland. Almost every single one of these friends has been to study at University and completed that phase of life and is now moving into the professional life. They are spread globally although there are the occasional communal group meetings that occur where we all meetup. This group is part of the International community and they are not too hard to identify.

The third group of friends are those I know through other social networking websites. This group is about people whom I got to know through websites such as the Flipside back in the days when the Internet and World Wide Web were the realm of anonimity. Everyone had a nickname but through facebook that nickname has disappeared.

The last group is that of people I have met only briefly and know relatively little about. This is due to two reasons in particular. The first of these is that “we randomly facebooked each other” or simply that we met and chatted for a few minutes in real life without taking it any further so far.

What this means is that Facebook, for the most part, is a network of close friends that I have known for a number of hours in the real world. They are people I have shared adventures and travel with, good nights out and many boring/interesting lectures with. As a result of this keeping up to date with what they are doing allows me to see what we have achieved  as a group of friends. In brief I use Facebook almost exclusively to keep up to date with what real life friends are doing thus the reason for which I avoid adding “randoms”.

Yet another episode. Twittervox 4

Byrichard

Yet another episode of twittervox was recorded today at the new time of 1pm British summertime whilst outside the weather is more autumnal. Nik Butler of h and I discussed the new media landscape and how social networks in the real and virtual world were interacting together. Loudmouthman focussed his attention on social media networks and businesses whilst I took a look at the new Iphone release in the UK and how Documentally and I came to be the owners of an Itouch each.

Phil Campbell was also present but following a meeting with a client taking place simultaneously he was given observer status and gave us his own thoughts on the topic via feedback.

 

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The mobile phone app

Byrichard

Everyday at least one friend has one of their friends lose their mobile phone and all numbers on that device. As a result you find that there are hundreds of groups with the title “named individual has lost their phone” where everyone is expected to post their mobile number for quick synchronisation.

It would be quite simple to implement. As everyone adds their contact details into the database and as you acknowledge that those in your contact list are your friends you could develop an api that would allow you to download all that information straight to your phone whether HTC, motorola or nokia. It’d be an interesting application to have.  It would also slow down the rate of “i lost my phone” which in itself would be a great improvement.

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Friendships and twitter

Byrichard

As I left the University halls for the last time so it signalled the beginning of a new era in my life. No longer would I go to the student bar or the editing suites to chat with friends and see what they were doing. Now it was time to move to another part of London where new friendships would be made.  Some of these friendships would be helped along by twitter. It’s like a chat room you can take with you anywhere.

At first this is a daunting chatroom. You see updates from thousands of people telling you of their latest thoughts and what they’re doing. It’s a blur and it’s hard to stick out. Over time, as you grow more familiar with the twitterverse so it becomes easier to understand. You see people living in your area so you add them and start following what they do. They add you and they know what you’re doing. Over time you get to know their daily habits, when they tend to start their day, how they organise their time and more. As a result of this it creates a feeling of communal living. That’s when you take it to the next step.

For me that next step was the twitter meetup. My experience was the following. Two people I had previously met, and many I had never met, met up in a restaurant for food and drinks and to talk about subjects they enjoy. As they did so it created a new sense of what twitter was about. It’s a technology that lets you get to know those on the other screen better than you would through traditional postings, comments and more. It’s alive and current rather than static and passive.

Twitter went even further to being an interesting technology at the Podcamp UK because at this event I got to know at least five or six more twitter users and added them to those I am following. As a result twitter is a link between a group of people interested in related industries and conversations. As a result of this there is a new level of community that forms via the medium of text. In effect conversations are taking place between people who are not in the same part of the world.

Funnily enough we are in the same part of the world, as you’d see from my “following” list on twitter. It’s a tool, an enhancement like many others that enables communities which are spread out, in nature, to communicate instantly as if across a garden fence or on their daily walk. It’s a great tool which, in this age, is essential to make people feel more involved.  We’ll see how it progresses from here.

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Slow data transfers and self satisfaction

Byrichard

Playing with technology is a great way of learning new skills but occasionaly you are let down by it. This happened to me tonight when I wanted to do episode four of twittervox. The entire day I had an excellent connection and things were downloading at a good speed. Wait until it’s time for twitter vox and the connection crashed down to just 500 bytes per second up and 1.5 kilobytes per second up. That’s hardly enough to do text chat.

There are two reasons why this problem may occur. The first of these is that someone is downloading torrents and this is eating up all the bandwidth. The second option is that because this home is using a cable rather than adsl connection the speed ebbs and flows according to how many people are using the connection.

Tomorrow at some point during the day I will record some answers to the various points in such a manner that I will have participated even if it’s with a lag of several hours. If I can’t use the technology when I want then there is so much redundancy that I will use other methods.

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Podcamp UK – A conversation about the Social Media

Byrichard

During two other main conversations in other rooms a group of people of which Phil Campbell, Loudmouthman,Jeff Buckley, Jason and others talked about what they thought web 2.0 was about.

video name

View the video 

This is no more than a cursory look at the type of conversations you could be a part of by joining the next Podcamp UK.

It’s there among my other video

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PodcampUK – Part 1 of the debrief

Byrichard

There are many podcamps but Podcampuk was my podcamp. This was an event which was similar to just one previous experience. It was an event where everyone you talked to had at least one website and others may have had several. They also used twitter and prepared radio programs.

What is great about the podcast UK crowd is that they’re a creative entrepreneurial group. Rather than take a 9 to 5 job some work as freelancers. They have a variety of skills from drivers to information technology people, university and schoolteachers and more. They range in age from mid twenties and upwards. It’s a nice sample of people.

When I arrived on Friday night I heard John Buckley talk about his podcast Dissident Vox and it was interesting to see him describe the cost of creating podcasts. He was talking about time. For certain topics he would spend more than seventy hours researching the topic in order to gain an in depth understanding of his topic. Another podcaster mentioned how the personal nature of podcasts, reaching their audience through earphones, meant that he should be careful about how to present his research. In reality certain podcasters are highly informed people who want to present their ideas and worry as much as academics about what they present.

Podcasting I simpler than some thought initially. One great example of this is the presentation by Jason Jarrett who talked about how he had complicated his own life when learning about podcasting. Equipment requirements for podcasting are not as great as some had expected. He talked about how he had purchased one piece of technology and then another to attempt to resolve an issue he was having, sound in just one ear. It’s only after a few weeks that he was informed that the problem was mono sound. He was a great presenter getting many laughs from his audience.

Another presenter that was of interest is the one by Trevor Dann from the Radio Acadamy talking about broadcasting. What I got from his presentation is the contrast between professional sports and broadcasting. In both mediums people who are at the top of the scale can make really good money whilst those at the bottom do so mainly for the pleasure. One point which I thought was of particular interest was that of amateur cricket players not taking money away from the professionals. In other words both could cohabit quite easily. I really appreciated that sentence.

For months or even years I have been worrying about the new media and what effect it will have on me whilst I look for work. If more and more people want to get content for free and appreciate mediocrity would this mean that there is less space for professional content to be in demand. According to that speech I understood that whilst people’s consumer habits are changing the need and appreciation of well-produced work will still be great enough to make a living. In effect both complement each other.

As more and more people pick up a microphone and camera to create their content so the same passion from amateur footballers watching the best of the best is transposed from the amateur viewer to the professional player.

Podcasting has a great diversity of talent and some participants of podcamp UK looked at this from an education point of view. Joe Dale from the Isle of Wight was telling us about how he was using podcasting within the classroom. He is in charge of students ranging from 7 years and up and encourages them to create audiovisual content which will help them learn French. They have to produce, write and script their own shows. As a result of this they are involved in improving their written work as well as their aural skill. This is a great, and for young students, far more fun way of learning. It also creates an opportunity to link with people living in different parts of the world. If you’re in England and you’re learning one language then via the World Wide Web it is easy to reach a global audience who may give feedback as to how you could improve.

What made Podcamp UK so interesting is the European flavour of the event. One person travelled from Rome to be there whilst UK podcasters came from everywhere in England. As a result of this we saw what the British podcast environment has to offer rather than be limited by what’s going on in San Francisco. I’m glad I got to meet so many interesting individuals with so many interesting projects and I hope to remain in contact with them and see how their ideas progress. It was a great look at the podcasting sub-culture and how it’s progressed in parallel with mainstream media.

tired from the event

Byrichard

It’s been a good evening at Podcampuk. The afternoon’s sessions were quite funny and the band was good. I enjoyed filming the band thanks to the diversity of shots I could aim to get.

We had some interesting interviews of which two were with teachers. One was a University level professor whilst the other was a teacher for 7 year old children. The children were podcasting for students in Australia as well as America therefore we see a nicely different use of the medium. This topic never ceases to surprise people.

It’s been a good complete weekend night and whilst I enjoy podcamp UK I do want to have a rest at home. There’s nothing nicer than getting back from a trip and dumping the bag in your bedroom and walking around feeling much lighter.