I’m talking to some lovely folk at a top-secret location somewhere in the North-West of England.
We’re talking about the social web and how they might use it. This blogpost is an example. While I’m writing this they are all sitting quietly and I’m also uploading some pictures to flickr.
I’m showing them how I write a post – and forgetting half the time that I’m doing that and that I should explain more what I’m doing at the time.
11 minutes past midnight. Bloody hotels.
I spent this afternoon at Bicester Village, the Disneyland High Street of outlet stores in Oxfordshire. Equal parts weird and fascinating. Most frequently overheard was “darling, can I get you this sweater/bag/pair of shoes for Christmas?” You know, the sorts of people for whom all shopping from mid-October on is a part of Christmas shopping. There are a hundred or so (yes we were given lots of figures, but I wasn’t paying full attention) stores there, mostly clothing, but also homey places like Le Creuset, Bose and Wedgwood, a Books etc plus a Starbucks & a Pret. Lines are all last year’s with between 30% and 60% discounts.
The day was facilitated by Helen Keegan (brilliantly, I have to say, even though she’s one of my longest-standing friends, everything just worked without any fuss), who’s working with BV on their online marketing strategies and there were a range of other tuttlers there. We were given a nice goodie bag including a 10% off card (though that was refused me at L’Occitane on purchases less than £25) and a generously endowed gift card. I found it quite strange, going shopping, going shopping in luxury brand stores, going shopping in luxury brand stores having been given money specifically for spending there. But somehow I managed to make some purchases. I had to have a good walk round first, and probably popped into every store except that very posh one at one end of the village that’s so posh that they don’t want us to talk about the fact that they’ve got a store at BV. I then had to go and sit down with a cup of coffee before I ventured out to actually buy something – it showed me how conservative I’ve become in my wardrobe choices (or rather, just stuck, there was plenty of conservative clothing but not what I’d want to wear). I tried to get some chino’s in Ralph Lauren but they didn’t have anything in my size. I had to ask one of the foppish young men assistants to explain the labelling because I couldn’t believe that some of the trousers had 38″ legs, but it was true, I unfolded one pair and if they’d hung right at my ankles the waistband would have been tucked under my armpits. There was only one pair in anything resembling my size according to the label, but either I’ve got tubbier or they’d been cut on the small side – I fear the former is far more likely.
In the end, I settled for some smelly stuff from L’Occitane, some notelets from Smythson and a scarf from Jack Wills. The last purchase took me very slightly over the limit on the gift card, which proved quite a trying experience for the poor girl who was serving – she had to work out 10% off, then get two of her colleagues to check how to make the till understand the combination of gift card and my debit card. All part of the entertainment.
All of the assistants in the stores I visited seemed to be county boys and gels either working through college or in a gap year, I got the feeling they were all quite excited to be there, presumably they get even more of a staff discount on the discount on the discount.
This is what I do for a living. Man, it must suck not to be me.
Potential – remember that? I wrote about potential during 2gether08, about the huge potential that builds up at events where we all get together, about how intoxicating it is, and interesting to see what happens to fulfill that potential – it’s not always obvious, the links are not always clear.
I’d like to really do something with this network of networks, use the occasion to do more than talk about what we might possibly do and actually do some stuff. I’m pootling around with a few ideas for candidate activities, and of course we have the wiki to develop some of them. Come play with me there.
I’m thinking of two streams of stuff – one that requires some tech support and ability and one that requires people who’ve thunk a lot about the cultural, moral and ethical issues – both can create something useful and important – can we do that please?
That was the title of the VRM shindig today. It was fun and interesting and stimulating.
I left ready to do something. I don’t think my coding teeth are strong enough to join in with that bit, but some more co-ordinated and detailed requirements analysis or user testing would suit me fine.
I did a bit where I pulled out my wallet and went through some of its contents. The loyalty cards and what not. Needs a bit more time to go through that in detail. I’d like to, because I think it’s got some legs. For example, the difference between the relationship implied by Caffe Nero’s bit of cardboard as opposed to Starbucks’s pre-payment card. But not tonight.
My main point there was not well developed either, because it only really came to me as I was doing it – it was the empirical evidence of how engaged I am in managing my own personal data – I may say that I’m up for it, but my wallet actually tells a slightly different story.
Thanks to Adriana and Alec for their sterling organisational efforts and to my collaborators for lots of good thinking.
I’ve missed the last couple of Loic’s uber-conferences since they morphed into LeWeb, so it’s actually 3 years since I went to the second LesBlogs. I hear that the food has recovered from the curse of the microlunch… I’m looking forward to finding out more. If you’d like to come too, you can register here.
Last time I was in Paris, I came away quite depressed by it all – it felt like we as Europeans hadn’t found our voice. We knew we had something different to offer from the Americans but weren’t sure what it was. The silliness between Ben Metcalfe and Mena Trott epitomised that. We’ve all learned a lot since then, haven’t we?
I think I’m most comfortable with it now because I no longer have great expectations of participation. I get my participative kicks elsewhere – this is big and it’s going to be like watching telly, it just is and if I don’t feel like watching every minute of what’s on stage, I shan’t be too bothered, because I’ve built my network up now to the point where I know I’ll be able to find plenty of people to hang out with, either online or off.
Having said that, thanks to the excellent blogger outreach programme, I will be there to write about what’s going on and there are some prospective super-goodies in the programme – Brian Cox, David Weinberger, Paolo Coelho, Chris Anderson and Joi Ito stand out for me – I’m glad to see that there’s a split on the second day between the plenary and “deep discussions”
And Marc Canter is running a panel on the second morning, so the book’s open on when he’ll sing and when he’ll be asleep.
Thanks to Tim Davies in the comments of “No to Quotas” for helping me see why I’m getting worked up about this one.
Where is the problem that we’re trying to solve here?
The problem with Innovation Edge wasn’t that the wrong people turned up. It wasn’t that certain groups or parts of society weren’t represented in the whole. It was that hundreds of super smart people did turn up and then were strapped into their seats and lectured to by a very small group of super smart people. It wasn’t a diversity problem – it was a power problem.
No matter which event we’re talking about, what I’m interested in participating in is a shift in designing gatherings in terms of the form and the rules of engagement, the way that a wide multiplicity of views and opinion can be expressed and worked through in conversation rather than meddling with the composition of the group.
Too late on a Sunday to be writing any more, but there is more to say.
Perfect Path 