I’m here!
Just settling into the speakers lounge facilities – coffee, wifi and a wired connection.
Sadly it looks like I’ve got conjunctivitis in one eye, so I’m feeling sorry for myself and expecting great sympathy wherever I go.
Poverty. Best not to think about it.
This morning in London.
Extraordinary? No.
Sad? Only if you think about it. About who she is, what she’s dreaming of, how she got there.
So, probably best not to think about it.
Taking Responsibility in Commercial Relationships
Ouch!
I’ve been trying to write something about this for a while but finding a title that didn’t mention VRM was important to me and now I’ve just done it, it looks scary but worthwhile. “VRM” (or vendor relationship management) as a term doesn’t look scary or even interesting let alone worth putting some effort into. It’s a cute shorthand, but, in my view, talking about “the reciprocal of CRM” will only work for the intersection of two groups: those who understand CRM and those who understand what a reciprocal is…
We’ll be hosting a bolt-on (starting at 12.30) to this week’s new-fangled Tuttle at the ICA in preparation for a conference (at which I’m speaking) on 3rd November: “Unlocking the see-saw” organised by the unstoppable Adriana Lukas.
I’m interested in particular in:
Why it’s time for us to take power back from vendors who’ve come to dominate and control our relationship with them.
How we can make the whole thing a lot more fun.
What successful personal relationships can teach us about improving commercial ones.
How we start to take more responsibility for our part in commercial relationships.
What freedoms we can lay claim to.
How relationships are affected by being codified into structured data.
How the social web can be used to manage such relationships for our benefit.
Which is to say, I haven’t written my presentation yet beyond those few bullet points.
Come, help us think it through on Friday.
Women in Tech Panel at Web2.0
I’m very honoured that Suw has asked me to contribute to her “panel” in Berlin on the tech gender gap (taking place on the Thursday afternoon).
Here’s the description:
“It is undeniably true that there aren’t enough women in tech, that women are not well represented at conferences, and often don’t get the promotions, rewards and acclaim they deserve. We also know that the issue of gender is not a simple one: there are complex societal and psychological pressures that influence how we all behave, men and women, and we’re not always clear on what drives us to do what we do. This participatory session will attempt to unpick some of the threads around gender and will aim to produce ideas for how we can collectively act to level the playing field.”
I have no opinion on the numbers of “women in tech” really – I don’t know enough about it at the sharp end, but I do know that I sit in many conferences listening to men (in suits) drone on, often about something that a bunch of other people have done. I find tuttle encouraging in terms of our gender mix – and there were plenty of women leading sessions at socialmediacamp last week.
But I’m also aware that these are just my perceptions and are subject to gender bias too, so I’m looking forward to exposing my views and experience to some debate and discussion that will hopefully lead to some action.
If you want to take part, of course you’ll be very welcome, but you’ll have to come along to the conference. Which means you’ll have to sign-up. And there’s no better way than to use the 35% discount code webeu08gr43 on the registration page.
Who? Why?
Walking past Elle on Wigmore Street, I actually looked in the window for once. Smack! went my gob. The turquoise crocodile skin shoes with matching belt combo hit me first, but I was equally shocked by the crazy bow ties and paisley silk jacket. Or how about that rainbow shirt?
Well Kat seems to like it. But don’t expect to see me strolling through Soho in clobber like this any time soon.
Boris haz a fear
Though apparently nomophobia is a fear of not being in mobile contact, which makes sense really as I can’t imagine Boris being afraid of nom.
External mic on N95
OK, so I thought everyone knew this already but it seems that it hasn’t gone as widely as I assumed.
I picked up this hack initially from Jackie Danicki at Qik who did a little video of it. That led me to google “external mic for N95” and this article
So in order to make it work you need an N95 and the TV-out cable (with mini-jack and three-way A/V connectors) that came with it. If you threw the cable away, you should be able to get one for a few quid on e-bay. Then you need a female to female phono adapter – the gold one in the picture below and a female mini-jack to male phono adapter (the black one) – both available from Maplin for a couple of quid each.
I use the external tie-clip mic that I’ve had for ages (again from Maplin I think and about £20) it’s one of those with a battery driven pre-amp. The mini-jack from the mic gets joined to the A/V cable as shown.
And err… that’s it. If you check out my post where I interviewed Oli Barrett, you’ll see an example of a video shot with this set up. I’ll try and do another one showing the difference more starkly, but there’s an example in the shelbinator article above.
social media camp london
I’m just writing this at social media camp in front of a bunch of people who came expecting to see something much more interesting and their being very polite.
Decisions, decisions
I’m taking a forward look at the programme for Web2.0 and it’s getting tricky to decide what to go to and when.
I have to admit that last year, I went in and listened to some of the sessions, but the halls were so cavernous and while I knew many of the speakers (at least by reputation) there were few who I really wanted to hear.
It’s made me see how my conference going has evolved – when I went to Les Blogs for example, it was cool just to see people like Doc Searls in the flesh, let alone get to chat with them. I then went through a phase of seeing people so often and reading them too that everything I heard, I’d either heard in public before or I’d read on their blogs and filtered through several other interpretations. Now, I find that as there are more people to read and I have less time per person, I am back up for listening to them in a conference hall because it’s a luxury again to spend more time chewing over what they’re saying.
There are four simultaneous streams: Strategy & Business Models Design & User Experience Marketing & Community and Development. They’re all slammed together in one programme together with workshops and keynotes on this page.
The problem will be sorting out who to see when and when I’ll also get time to lounge around in the lobby and chat with folk…
If you haven’t booked for yourself yet – get on to it. And use this code webeu08gr43 for 35% off.
HubKX – nice concept – a bit swanky, but hey!
The ground floor of the new HubKX in York Way is a cafe space, on the next floor up there are three meeting rooms and on top there is a “library” space with room for people to hunker down and do some work.
Sound familiar? Yup, it’s very close to what I suggested here. Err.. except it’s real, it’s happening and it’s opening on 1st October.
Oh and it’s a bit more exclusive. The intention though is to focus on social interaction among members and light-work rather than providing an alternative workspace – that’s what the Hub Islington continues to provide. I went along for a preview visit yesterday. It’s very nice, a bit swankier than I would like my own place to be, but will suit a wide range of people. The full membership rate is £40 per month or £400 for a year in advance. This membership gets you in the door and able to use the cafe and library facilities subject to a fair use clause. Let’s hope fair use in this context turns out to be fairer than some mobile operators ideas in association with ‘unlimited’ data tariffs!
Hire of the whole space will be possible for some evenings and weekends. Friday night will be social night with a licensed bar from 6pm. The meeting rooms are on an hourly fee depending on size. There are discounts on this and on membership fr charities and businesses whose turnover is below the VAT threshold.
No. This isn’t Tuttle Phase 2 (you’ll hear about that soon enough) but it might well play a part in Tuttle Phase 2.5…
If you go along (especially if you sign up for membership) do let them know you heard about it from me – I’m trying to build some real-world link-love.
Perfect Path 