My links for 01 June 2008 through 02 June 2008, gathered semi-automatically:
Continue reading “Links for 01 June 2008 through 02 June 2008”
Oh dear, I’m going to Canberra…
… for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum on 25 June. It’s being sponsored by Microsoft, and I’m going as their guest. Apparently I continue to fool them.
The keynote is by Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine, followed by two panel discussions.
Panel 1 is on “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green. It’ll be nice to finally meet my editor!
Panel 2 is “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green. Very scary indeed.
At this stage it looks like I’ll be heading to Canberra on 24 June and staying overnight. If this is of interest, please register as a stalker in the usual way.
Heaps o’tweets from ReMIX 08
I’ve been Twittering fairly extensively from ReMIX 08. While it’s easy enough to follow my Twitter feed, you can get a mix of everyone’s tweets from the conference at hashtags.org or Twemes. The second one has all of my tweets.
What I’m doing for ReMIX 08
Tomorrow is the first day of my three geek-intensive days this week: Microsoft ReMIX 08, where they’ll be pimping their new technologies for making web stuff. I now have a plan!
I won’t copy what mainstream media folks do: either puff pieces extolling the wond’rousness of all things Microsoft or stories about how someone else did the same thing years ago, depending on how much of their advertising comes from Microsoft. Instead, I’ll see what I can learn from the assembled geeks about the state of their world — vox pops of some kind.
I’ve also booked a one-on-one interview with Tim Aidlin, a “Design Evangelist” in Microsoft’s Web Innovations Team. But rather than focussing on Microsoft’s new geek tools I’ll be exploring his worldview.
I’ve borrowed a Canon HV20 digital video camera for the week (thanks Garth!) so you’ll see at least some of the results on Thursday night’s Stilgherrian Live Alpha. Everything will be put online in some form, eventually.
For live updates during the conference, follow my Twitter feed.
How will I cope with the looming Geek Week?
Next week is packed! How can I get the best value out of CeBIT Sydney and the associated Transaction 2.0 conference, as well as Microsoft’s ReMIX 08? What should I record or broadcast? What should I write about?
CeBIT was always on my agenda. Despite being disappointing last year and despite annoying me with a flood of email, it’s still the biggest IT trade show in Australia. It’s worth going just to see who’s confidently spending money on promotion, if nothing else.
I’ll be touring the trade show floor on Wednesday 21 May. If you want to meet up, let me know. Maybe I should even do a Stilgherrian Live Alpha from the bloggers media room? Whaddyathink?
If you still haven’t organised your free pass, you can register online using my promotion code: stilcs08.
On Thursday 22 May I’ll be at Transaction 2.0, with an interesting set of speakers. Again, it’s a matter of choosing the priorities. Who should I talk to? Should I pick a fight with Jason Calacanis?
But I kick off the Geek Week on Tuesday 20 May with ReMIX 08, where Microsoft says I’ll “experience all that is new in Silverlight 2, Expression 2, IE8, Live and a host of other great web technologies… You will also see how local Australian innovators are creating the next generation of engaging websites and unprecedented user experiences for the web.”
Provided they build it with Microsoft’s tools, of course. 😉
That’s unfair. Microsoft is changing. It’ll be interesting to hear what they’re up to.
Now my only challenge is working out how all this fits into one week, while still leaving room to do some billable hours for clients.
More Thoughts on Twitter
Weird. I was thinking that today I might write about how I’ve been using Twitter recently, and I’ve just found myself writing in its defence.
Over on the Link mailing list were talking about Microsoft’s new Live Mesh when I noted:
It’s been interesting to watch the vastly different reaction here on Link with the (mostly) very positive reaction amongst the alpha geeks in my circle of friends on Twitter.
There, the reaction is all “When can I get a Mac version?” and “How can I hook this into X technology?” and about exploring the possibilities — what can be achieved. Here on Link, the reaction is often negative, “How can it go wrong?”, “Where do you sue?”.
Both reactions are necessary to provide a balanced response to a new technology. How to we get them to meet?
Systems administrator Craig Sanders was quick to respond, and I must admit I found his response to be almost a stereotype — something I later dubbed “old man syndrome”.