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I met up with Maryam at the Geek Dinner in London in June and she’s a scream – here she’s a little quieter, but still lovely. Go read her blog.

tag: lesblogs & maryam scoble

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[Not sure how well this will work, but I’ve just uploaded this video of Suw over lunch to my typepad blog using videoegg and now just copied the code across]

First of a couple of videos from today – much easier to get people to talk animatedly with a video camera in your hand – plus no-one gets confused about whether you’re going to put their words on the internet like they sometimes do with a podcast.

tag: lesblogs & suw

To the Brixton Academy last night to see Bob Dylan and his Band in concert. Cool man… very cool…. this guy was a Columbia recording artist four years before I was born! It took me a while to get used to standing up all the way through a concert which I don’t think I’ve done since I saw The Pretenders at Poole Arts Centre in 1982-ish. I also struggled for a bit with irritation at just how tall some people can be especially when they are standing between you and a glimpse of a music legend.

So I don’t know whether it was me or the great man who took time to warm up, but it wasn’t until two-third in with Hard Rain that I felt it really started to get going – and the encore, Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower, were probably the best bit of the whole night. I was grateful however to be reminded of that great little song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and to hear it straight from the man himself in his white hat, box-back coat and rhinestone seamed trousers was transcendental.

This morning I had very tired calves, knees and hips from standing on a slope all night and sore shoulders from way too much overhead clapping. Yeah, now is the time for your tears.

Thanks to Euan for pointing out that Perfect Path is up for an award at this year’s International Information Industry Awards The shortlist for Best Implementation of a Business Blog is:

Ask Jack/The Guardian
English Cut
Panlibus (the Talis blog for librarians)
Perfect Path
UK FOIA blog

So clearly, I’m gobsmacked and chuffed to be in such esteemed company. I’m also thrilled to see that Euan’s up for IWR Information Professional of the Year – wooooo-yay.

So the question is what to wear to the ceremony? I’m torn between wet hair and a towel round my waist or else black tie (just black tie, you understand, nothing else!)

OK a bit more detail on this. These products were given to me free by the g-room (on London’s Carnaby St) on the understanding that if I had anything interesting to say about them, I’d probably blog it, in a blogvertising sort of way. I haven’t been otherwise paid for this, neither did I receive the products under any conditions or constraints – I was free to do nothing but use the products and tell no-one if that’s what I wished. I tried (honest) to take it seriously and give you a real picture of my reaction to these products. Trouble is, I don’t really do serious very well.

In today’s episode you get to see me testing the shower gel. Ahem. Now, I don’t want to spoil it for you but I’ll just say that it is entirely safe for work. This is a family blog. If you want to see me testing shower gel with all the details, you’ll just have to get to know me a bit better. Perhaps buy me dinner, or at least some flowers once in a while.

For the squeamish among you who can’t bear to watch and see even the barest (ha!) hint of nudity, I liked the shower gel, but it was a bit thin and runny – it smelled nice and it got me clean.

Now since then the lovely lucie has pointed out in the comments that this sort of metrosexual nonsense is on the way out but unfortunately all the episodes are already in the can. I may do a sequel, if there’s sufficient demand, in which I eat cow pie, strike matches on my bare chin and go around grabbing young wenches by the hair and snogging them… hard… but only if there’s sufficient demand, you understand.

Tomorrow….Shampoo!

tags: g-room & shower gel & videoblog & london & blogvertising

Phew! My first serious blog holiday on Perfect Path. For those of you who don’t know, a fortnight ago I went away for a few days in Brighton to refresh the batteries. When I got back, I really was not refreshed enough and so I’ve done very little since then.

But this morning I’ve just (joyfully) written cheques to the Inland Revenue, Customs & Excise and Companies House, all of which reminds me that I’m supposed to be running a business here and that two weeks hols is quite enough.

So as an hors d’oeuvres for the next period I give you the introductory video from the G*room videoblog. More on G*room later, but I think you’re going to enjoy this.

After the e-word extravaganza (yeah, yeah stuff’s coming) I popped down to Fulham to meet up with Saira Khan who’s reporting on blogging for BBC Radio Five, but who British TV audiences will know as “that feisty, gobby woman with the megaphone who should have won” from The Apprentice. I’m so glad that when I wrote here about the show earlier in the year, I was nice about Saira and picked her (or James) to win. Note to people in the rest of the world – Saira was pipped to the post (as I also kind of predicted) by the dull but worthy Tim.

So anyway, we had a great chat – Geoff Jones was being interviewed as I approached the ‘crowd’ consisting of Suw Charman and two other guys who I’d seen before, but never got really introduced to, so I can’t tell you who they were with any certainty, though I think one hangs out here and the other is here but they could both be the same guy… or not. We were joined a little while later by Sal – everyone seemed to be Australian, but that’s not a bad thing.

[Update: Alan Connor was there too, doh! my brain! and he’s now kindly linked to this piece in one of his Weblog Watch pieces for the BBC News Magazine section – hello people from BBC-land]

Saira was delightful, excitable, very sweet and clearly easily drawn into the Perfect Path charm machine. She’s also just amazed that there’s this enormous subculture that she didn’t know existed until recently. We recorded a little interview (I believe it’s going to be part of the Julian Worricker Show and it’s called the 5 Live Report due to be broadcast at 10:00 BST on October 2nd – should be listenable across the globe through the BBC player for a week thereafter. I also got to meet the lovely Clare, who’s producing the show (and is a closet podcaster who’s about to jump out and reveal herself as such)

The bar we were in was visited by some wandering masseuses and you can read about my massage experience on Geoff’s blog including a picture of me being attended to by Melissa (oooooh) from urban chill (great massage, but ditch the Flash on your website, guys)

Rather than wait until I’ve got my act completely together to put something else together (a pattern is emerging here) here’s a (highly compressed) sampler of speakers from Our Social World, in speaking order: Ben Hammersley, Simon Phipps, Tom Coates, Johnnie Moore, Lee Bryant, Loic Le Meur, (lunch) Euan Semple, Suw Charman, Julian Bond, Simon Grice, Max Niederhofer, Colin Donald and Ross Mayfield [sadly the overrun meant that I’d gone before Hugh spoke]

Still, hope it conveys a flavour of the day.

If anyone featured would like higher quality clips of their bit, do give me a shout.

tags: oursocialworld & our social world & blogging & conferences

To make up somewhat for the dismal showing so far today (see below on The Secret Agent) I give you a very scrunched up version of all the video I shot on Saturday at Podcastcon UK.

See if you can spot among the audience: Alex Bellinger, Nicole Simon, Rachel Clarke, Kosso, Jo Twist, Ben Metcalfe, Hugo Schotmann.

And now that I’ve seen how to embed video (even if I can’t get it to work yet), here’s a surplus picture of Alex for his many adoring fans:

tags: podcastcon uk & podcasting & podcastconuk

Today marks the first anniversary of the inaugural posting on Perfect Path. And though I know one shouldn’t anthropomorphise blogs (it really freaks them out apparently, well the more sensitive ones anyway) I think it’s worth celebrating. It feels kind of strange – it took me a while to find my voice I think, but now it feels like home and I’m glad to have had this place to reflect on how Perfect Path Consulting has grown and I’ve grown with it.

Soon after starting this blog, I went along to Blogwalk IV and then KM Europe where I met so many of the people who’ve been part of my mental landscape this year. I had the opportunity to see what it was like to work full-time on projects and not blog about it but also times when I’ve been able to be completely open about what I’m doing or thinking. This has also been the place where I became one of the UK’s first (and arguably among the best) podcasters – I say arguably because whenever I say I’m among the best people argue with me! I’ve videoblogged once and no doubt will do it again. And my wiki provided me with an entry into the glamourous world of event management.

I’m also now on the brink of doing some exciting and entirely blog-centric work where before it was a small part of what I was doing, but trying to encourage people to use. Now most people I meet know what a blog is and are interested in how they might use them, rather than how they might avoid using them.

So happy birthday Perfect Path and many happy returns of the day!

tag: blog birthday

Photo note: the chaps in this photo have nothing to do with me – I assume that they are friends of amatern, but it was the funniest picture I could find on Flickr with the tag birthday and a CC attribution licence.