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Newsletter Archive
2008: Issue 1 | Issue 2 | Issue 3 | Issue 4 | Issue 5 | Issue 6 | Issue 7
2009: Issue 1
Amplified09 Newsletter 1 - 25 January 2009
Happy New Year from Amplified09!
In this issue:
* Amplified News
* Future of Online Video event
* TeachMeet at BETT09
* Amplified09 Events
- Dates for 2009
- Regions and how to register for regions
- Venues
- Session topics
* Sign up for Amplified London February 2009
This is the first newsletter of the year and has been developed to report back on the first dedicated mini-Amplified event of the year, the Future of Online Video gathering, held at the Institute for Contemporary Arts on The Mall in London, on 21 January 2009. We also have details of the forward plan for events in 2009 and the places to go to sign up as regional participants and representatives. This is a collective effort folks, so please feel free to make suggestions for topics and seminars, as well as contribute to the growing archive of content streams associated with Amplified.
A few important things to remember:
1. Amplified is a Network of Networks, so it’s about drawing attention to issues and ideas emerging from other networks. If you came up with something at Facebook Developer Garage, Social Media Camp, First Tuesdays or Likemind - or any of the other 100+ professional networks focusing on emergent technologies and technology-mediated practices - and you are looking to take that idea to the next level, then Amplified is the place to do it.
2. Amplified events are FREE. This is essentially a volunteer based organisation and in order to broaden participation and to ensure that creatives and thinkers from any discipline can take part we keep events as non-fee paying. You may have to pay for coffee/tea/food/drinks when you get to the venue, but only if you want to consume anything there.
3. The Amplified twitter tag is #amp09. Any tweets you have about Amplified, please tag. It just makes traking you all that much easier!
So on 21 January at the ICA, the first mini-Amplified event took place and a sizeable gathering of people turned up at the ungodly hour of 9am for small conversations on topics of interest surrounding online video. When I asked @sizemore what his ambition was for the event he told me that he wanted people to be able to come out with a value addition in their engagement with online video. Whether that was an increase in knowledge about online video tools and resources, or a better understanding of business models for online video, or how to target content, tag it and so on, so long as people felt that they made good connections and had a useful conversation, this is what mattered.
And it seems that’s exactly what mattered to those present. Participants were overwhelmingly positive about their interest in conversations and several new tools, resources and business models emerged in sessions, and several new research areas opened up.
We also had a new innovation at the event, that being the ‘virtual table’. This consisted of a live streaming session from one table and enabled participants accessing the stream to ask questions, chat amongst themselves, and to respond to the ideas being put forward. We plan to have this format duplicated at all Amplified events, event allowing multiple livestreaming feeds available from Sleepydog and @philcampbell’s eventca.st channels.
For those who missed out on the Future of Online Video event, there are several recordings from the event, including a copy of the live streaming feed, as well as tweets and pictures, at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thegravity.
You can also see details of the twitter feed and there are individual links to the videos at the event page on the Amplified wiki at http://amplified.pbwiki.com/Future-of-Online-Video/.
In addition to the Future of Online Video event, the kind folk at BETT allowed the Amplified crew to participate and record a livestream and record tweets for the TeachMeet session on 16 January. TeachMeet is a dynamic and fast-paced affair, with over 200 people gathering in one large space, to listen to 7 minute presentations, timed so that you get a camel thrown at you if you fail to finish on time. And getting a chance to present is based on a kind of lottery, with an electronic fruit machine picking names of presenters out of a list, drawn from the wiki. It’s essentially a celebration of all the great things going on in the education sector with social media, and it was a joy to be part of the buzz.
For more details, see the TeachMeet site at http://www.teachmeet.org.uk/ and check out the twitter posts at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23tmbett09. Thanks to @digitalmaverick for letting us be there and recording the event as part of the broader Amplified series!
Never let it be said we’re not ambitious. We want Amplified to be the vehicle that connects all the networks in the UK and brings together all the thinkers, practitioners and creatives in social media and related industries and amplifies all of their work, their interests and any opportunities for new collaborations. But in order to do that we need to ensure we’re not London-centric, and that we have enough events to carry on conversations, rather than just presenting an idea and forgetting about it. So we’ve scheduled four main Amplified festivals for 2009, located in eight regional centres, and we’re open for more events, as participants indicate interest for them. We’d like for all regions to hold an event in as many of the festival seasons as possible.
THE DATES
Amplified festivals will be held during or around the last week of February, May, August and November 2009. That is:
23-27 February
25-29 May
24-28 August
23-27 November
Events will normally take place during the afternoon and early evening on one date during these weeks, typically 2:30 - 7:30pm.
THE REGIONS
Each regional centre will have one event of at least 4 hours in duration during these weeks. Locations may shift about a bit (especially in Scotland where there’s likely to be events swapping between Glasgow Edinburgh and maybe even Aberdeen and Inverness). But the locations recommended are:
• London (February event confirmed for 24 Feb, 2:30 - 7:30pm).
• Brighton
• Cambridge
• Cardiff
• Birmingham
• Manchester
• Glasgow/Edinburgh
• Belfast
If you wish to take part in any of the regional events, please register your association with a region at one of the regional pages for Amplified, at: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/Regional-Events.
We are also still looking for event hosts to put their hands up to run an event, and get together some willing representatives who are prepared to promote the regional event and look after technology needs at events in all the regional centres. It’s actually not a huge job, and we have all the resources pretty much ready to go (including checklists, venues in most centres, IT needs and a wiki page for each event) but if you are prepared to get up and host and meet a couple of people in your region a couple of times prior to each event, then when you add your name to the regional section, just put “Interested in facilitation” beside your name.
THE VENUES
Thanks to some fantastic work by Janey Dowding, we have entered into an agreement with the restaurant and bar chain, Tiger Tiger, to host Amplifier events in February. Tiger Tiger have venues all over the UK, and they have whole private rooms we can use during the 2:30 - 5:30 time slot, so long as we buy a few coffees and drinks at the venue. If we want to go past 5:30, we can often negotiate this, and if people want to hang about after the event for a meal or a drink, then everything is on tap.
You can have a look at the venues here: http://www.tigertiger.co.uk/
You can see a version of the standard menu here: http://www.tigertiger-london.co.uk/menus/
Looks like we may well get some discounts on food too!
We are negotiating the wifi and livestreaming infrastructure for all Tiger Tiger venues too, so it looks like a really good option for the kickoff events in 2009.
THE TOPICS
Now all that remains is for you to start entering topics for Amplified conversations. As the London February event is already confirmed you can run on in to the wiki and start entering topics. But if you’re in a region and have a topic you want to cover, feel free to go in to a region’s event page on the Amplified wiki: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/
Sign Up for the February event at Amplified London
Thanks to @loudmouthman, we now have a sign-up page for the February event. You can access this here:
You can also start to enter topics for the London event here: http://amplified09london.eventbrite.com/
That’s it for the first UK-wide newsletter in 2009! Remember if you have anything you would like added to the Amplified newsletter, please contact [email protected] (@joannejacobs on twitter). I look forward to seeing you all at various events in 2009.
Handy links:
Amplified home page: http://www.amplified09.com/
Amplified wiki: http://amplified.pbwiki.com
Amplified Regions page: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/Regional-Events
Want to be part of the Amplified organisers group? Just contact @sleepydog, @sizemore, @loudmouthman or @joannejacobs to be part of the team!
Amplified Newsletter 7 - 15 December 2008 (Follow-up)
by @joannejacobs
First of all a HUGE thank you to everyone who attended, participated and/or contributed to Amplified08. Feedback has been fantastic, and as a result of Toby Moores’s ‘One Tweet’ initiative, we even peaked at #3 internationally as a meme on twitter! 2 and a bit weeks out and we’re all still buzzing from the event, and many Amplifieds are already acting on the conversations begun on the night and conducting further conversations or they are planning ahead for Amplified09 events.
We also wanted to say a huge thank you to NESTA for hosting the event, and to the Institute for Contemporary Arts, Soda Pictures, Jon Bishop and Sleepydog for supporting the event with goodies for the event showbags or in the case of Sleepydog, the bags themselves. You all rock. If anyone missed out on a showbag, there may be some left over, so let us know and we’ll see what we can find for you. Jon Bishop also wanted you to know that if anyone missed out on his stuff, please contact him via twitter @jonin60seconds.
From here, we’ll only be issuing about one newsletter a month at most, but the objective is the same; to circulate your ideas and opportunities raised at Amplified or as a result of Amplified, and to plan ahead for forthcoming events anywhere in the UK.
IMPORTANT: We’re looking for people to now make a post to twitter with #amp08 and #sum to sum up your response to Amplified08 and another with #amp08 and #goals, to identify what you see as the objectives and purpose of Amplified09. We’ll aggregate these twitter posts to define our ‘manifesto’ - an update to the famous Cluetrain Manifesto’s 95 Theses, if you like. So go tweet! (You know you want to.) More on this below!
The Plan Ahead
by @joannejacobs
Events in 2009: We’re going to have 4 event periods next year, in ALL regional centres. Very roughly our meetups will be in February, May, August, and November. We haven’t sent dates yet - this will partly be dependent on venue availability, but will also be dependent on people in regional centres taking it upon themselves to run Amplified09 events.
Organisation: If you are champing at the bit to improve the way Amplified runs or works, please volunteer to take on responsibility for some of the tasks required to make Amplified great. We’ve out together a list of roles and tasks. It’s not an exhaustive list and if you can add to it - fantastic! But Amplified is a volunteer based, self-organising group, so if you can help all I can say is THANK YOU!
Mike ‘Sizemore’ Atherton’s Highlights of the event
by @sizemore
* Sitting around the corner from NESTA in a pub grabbing some pre-Amplified lunch as our table is chastised by the Landlord for
having too many gadgets on it.
* Walking in and seeing @delboydare’s Amplified08 logo projected up on the wall for the first time.
* Watching the whiteboard begin to fill up as people arrive and grab slots. Warm fuzzy feeling.
* Accidentally dimming the lights in the main conference hall just as the opening session begins.
* Looking across the sea of faces, happy to recognise so many people, but happier that so many new faces are here.
* Watching the crowds disperse into their sessions, taking a moment to have a drink in the calm. Eye of the storm moment.
* Noticing the Amp08 hash tag on Twitter begin to go into overdrive.
* Checking with as many people as possible as to how their first session went. Not a single piece of bad feedback.
* Sitting in on the Mainstream Media & Social Media session to see how the BBC, Reuters and local media mix it up.
* Drinking, nibbling and chatting. But mostly drinking.
* Amused in the nature and cyberspace session as someone online claiming to be GOD joins in.
* Watching my fellow attendees draw the non physical world we spend a lot of time in. It’s more colourful than I expected.
* Enjoying attendees groping for single words to sum up the experience.
* Suddenly realising I only had time to send a single Tweet myself.
* Consoled by the fact that this is a good sign.
* More feedback. None of it bad. Amplified08 bags very popular.
* Going to the pub. Drawing Che Guevara. Don’t ask.
* Getting home. Reading all the Amp08 hash tags on Twitter. Takes a while.
* Opening a new file. Naming it Amplified 09.
Roland Harwood’s Highlights from Amplified08
by @rolandharwood
1. Pre event excitement about the way it all came together so (apparently) effortlessly, turning into pre event dread about how it could all fall apart, turning back into mild hysterical delight when everyone turned up and the noise of the chatter got so loud before we had even started.
2. Realising that our air conditioning can’t cope with that many people!
3. Having the privilege to say a few words to start things off and asking us all to aim high, making the UK the most connected place on the planet.
4. Panicking slightly when things broke up for the first session - but people seemed to find somewhere to go.
5. Being part of 3 really interesting conversations.
6. The 1 tweet feedback session facilitated by Rebecca was brilliant and my favourite part of the day.
7. Managing to get in first ahead of @sleepydog to characterise the day as ‘amplified’ in our one word summaries at the end.
8. Making the mistake of going upstairs to check my email afterwards instead of going to the pub.
9. Going home and reading the blog posts and twitter feeds that followed and being astounded that we were the 3rd most popular topic on twitter!
10. Warm, fuzzy, but slightly confused feeling the following day (when in another unconference as it happens) trying to figure out what that was all about?
11. Finally being able to digest all the comment and publish my own in possibly the longest blog post I have ever written.
12. A good feeling that we have been part of the start of something big and important.
Amplified 08 - What happened? What next?
by @DT
Everyone that we’ve spoken to who physically attended Amplified 08 has been very positive about the experience and the atmosphere generated by around 200 smart people, from just under 40 different networking events, who got together at NESTA to discuss 27 topics and initiate something that we hope grows in to a significant movement. Some of us involved in getting this off the ground got together for a debrief and to review the feedback that has been generated so far on Twitter and on the Amplified wiki. The first question we asked probably shouldn’t have been “what went wrong?”, but although that set the tone for some initial negative feedback, we are delighted, both in terms of the quality of the output, and the smooth running of this first outing.
It’s important that we restate what we were trying to achieve. Our intended audience is the community of social media practitioners here in the UK. We are not trying to evangelize the topic to the wider business audience yet, although that will become part of what we do over time. We were asking “What works? What doesn’t? What next?” because we want to take the whole community forward to make us more effective at what we do in our various public, non-profit and commercial sectors that we work in. We want to provide a focus for some of the key messages, and generate thought leadership within our community. We want to build in stages towards a major, “TED like” event in 2010, and we want to be as inclusive as possible.
We feel the unconference, barcamp style worked very well for this first event. For future events we feel we will need to have better moderation and expanded rules of engagement - more focus and wider participation in every session. We know that it would have been to have more than just one board to create the schedule, which was a bottleneck in the first half an hour of the event, but everybody has commented on the energy and positive vibe generated. We know we can improve on our online presence - next time we’ll allocate more resource for managing and moderating streamed video in each room, and we’ll use Ustream rather than BLOG.TV. Session guides will be encouraged to bring in contributions from remote participants as well as from those in the room. We’ll continue our use of a session number #tag, both for Twitter as our major output from each session, but also on the wiki and the blog, and any satellite sessions or events. The session numbers will continue in sequence with new topics from #28 onwards.
We want to encourage extra events to extend particular topics, but we hope that the output uses the same #tags so we can always collate the material. In addition we will be extending the use of the Amplified blog site, do some wiki gardening, and shift topics to separate pages. We want all session guides to become editors on the blog, and for anyone who has already posted to join in too. As well as the 4 events in London next year, we plan to run up to 4 similar events in Birmingham, 4 in Manchester, and hopefully something in Glasgow. It’s important that we get input from across the UK , rather than the usual London and South East focus. If you have any suggestions for sponsors, or anyone who can help in the regions - please let us know.
The two things we would like you all to do next is to give us your “one tweet” summarizing what you got out of the event tagged #amp08 #sum, and then another “one tweet” giving us your view of what the goals for Amplified should be tagged as #amp08 #goals. Carry on posting your feedback, your photos, and any write ups. You should expect to see more of that output aggregated to Amplified09.com over the coming weeks.
Okay I think that wraps the last newsletter of 2008 for Amplified. Wishing you all a very happy festive season. Stay safe and well over the new year and I’ll send as many warming vibes as I can from Australia!!!
Amplified Newsletter 6 - 24 November 2008
by @joannejacobs
Just two days to go, folks. We’re looking forward to seeing you all there on Thursday afternoon. We kick off sessions at 4pm sharp, so if you can start arriving at 3:30pm that’d be great. And thanks to @loudmouthman, we now have a schedule up online on the wiki, so if you have agreed to run a session, please enter where in the program you’d like it to be now. Go here to edit the page: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/Schedule.
This edition of the Amplified08 newsletter we have another piece from @DT on leadership and organizations, as well as a review of Chain Reaction from @magitam. Lloyd Davis from Tuttle tells us why he’s coming to Amplified08 and we have all the last minute instructions on the event. Thanks to those who have contributed!
From conscripts to followers - new forms of leadership and organization
by @DT
On the amplified blog @euan wrote about Piss ups and breweries. I responded with Of managers, conscripts, leaders and followers. The default structure for organizations, even start ups, is the “natural hierarchy” that evolves in to the organization chart and eventually corporate command and control, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a precious few examples of different organization structures and management approaches that work, but they do exist. Even in the world of the military strict commands are being adapted to a commander providing a minimally constraining intent statement, that empowers their subordinates, so they can adapt to any situation they confront. The power of the Web, and the use of social media tools creates an opportunity for a different way of working as never before, with Seth Godin’s Tribes highlighting how this can empower the individual, wherever they may fit in the scheme of things. This discussion will explore the move from managers and conscripts to leaders and followers and the new ways of working and management that social media tools and better communication can help facilitate. @DT and Anne Marie McEwan
Summary of Chain Reaction08
by @magitam
Chain Reaction 08, was created in order to provide an environment where business, government, and the third sector could all gather, and share what successes they’d been working on.
The first day was one action packed day, with the launch of global entrepreneurship week, CEO’s of many large and reputable firms all
speaking, including the heads of IBM, Royal Mail, and Accenture. The common message was that businesses gain from aligning their “volunteer” or CSR activities, in line with what their staff value, and that an engaging program, led by staff, on a local basis, leads to greater measurable returns, across the board, including financially.
There was also two Dragon’s Den Celebrities, on stage, James Caan, and Peter Jones, who were later joined by the PM himself, Mr Gordon Brown. All of them talked about how in a down economy, there exists a thriving marketplace, for entrepreneurs who can see the opportunities that exist. That when a company survives a downturn in the economy, it just makes it stronger, and more thriving when things turn around. The key message was that entrepreneurship is all about thriving with challenges, being fuelled by your passion, and believing in yourself, and your ability to succeed as an entrepreneur.
We were also given the chance to talk with some of the Prime Ministers Global Fellows. Students, aged 18-19 who had spent 6 weeks abroad, and learnt about another culture, through spending time in a school, business, and also by studying the local language and culture. Inspiring to see that finally the prospect of a “global” community is being considered mainstream, and action is being taken to bridge some of the gaping holes.
The second day of Chain Reaction, was far more relaxed, and laid back, compared to the first day. It was almost as if a cork had been popped, or all the hot air had been let out of a balloon. The day was much more relaxed, there were fewer people, less stress, and altogether, a day to have more conversations, rather than listen to them!
I ended up spending a good part of the day talking to people about Web 2.0 technologies, and the IBM evangelists that were floating about
enlightened me on how using Avatars, and 3D virtual spaces to conduct conference calls, the 5 minutes traditionally wasted at the start of a meeting was put to good use, allowing interactions to occur, when normally you’re just in limbo waiting for the call to occur, when you
can’t visually tell who’s on the call. (They shared a whole bunch of other really interesting stuff too - but thought I’d just mention that one for now!)
A really interesting discussion that I seemed to engage with throughout the day on Tuesday, was about us already having all the technology we could need - but that the real challenge was in helping people understand the difference between web 2.0 as being a participatory
medium, vs. another place to collect information from.. Once someone was comfortable posting a pic on flickr, it was almost mentally easier for them to do it again - but just that first time, was always perceived as being hardest, or most difficult.
The message I left Chain Reaction with, was a clear and resounding fact, that we already have all the solutions we could possibly need,
technological or otherwise, what we need is to start finding smarter ways of connecting together the dots.. Cue Amplified 08..
if you want to join in the conversation, come and join in at
http://chain-reaction.crowdvine.com/
Why I’m coming to Amplified08
by @lloyddavis
I half-joke that I’m the founder of the Tuttle Club because I found it. Doubtless it’s someone else’s witticism that’s filtered through my sub-conscious, but it suits well my preferred way of leading a group like this. In particular, it acknowledges that the group existed and continues to exist with or without me. All I’ve done is give it a place and a time to come together and to attract new people who either didn’t know they were part of the group or else didn’t know that the group was coming together physically in this way.
So I have a lovely network of people with whom I meet every week. Why would I want to take part in Amplified?
I’ve asked this question in lots of ways and have heard it whispered around too. The most cynical and mean-spirited version is something like “Isn’t this just an ego trip for the organisers who can’t get anything off the ground by themselves so have resorted to a simplistic addition of other people’s meetups in order to extract value from the hard work of others?”
No, I don’t think so.
Addition of nodes means multiplication of connections. So yes, it’s a simple thing to do, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be powerful. The power of Tuttle is that there’s an abundance of new, random and diverse connections to be made every week. Because we’ve always been non-exclusive about membership, we get all sorts of freaks and weirdos. When it comes to making connections in a network, I’m not just looking for more people, I look for people who think and act differently from me and I look to build rich relationships with them.
This kind of group and egoism don’t live together for very long. I strongly believe that the effectiveness of any group like this is that those who lead and organise do so from the perspective of service to the group and some higher ideal, rather than bigging themselves up. I recognise that trait in all the organisers of Amplified08. “They” are all people who’ve done a great deal to contribute to the success of other individual networks.
The organisers may or may not be figureheads for other groups, but none of them are clueless opportunists. I have met some clueless opportunists along the way - they come looking for an easy opportunity, ironically there are a multitude of easy opportunities on offer, but they, being clueless, don’t see the opportunities for what they are, they go away and leave us to get on with it.
So what am I looking for? New connections and action - I want to meet new freaks, so do please come up to me and introduce yourself as such and I want to use the time at Amplified to get started on real stuff, not just talking.
That wraps up the last newsletter before Amplified08. Can’t wait to see you all on Thursday. And remember, this is just the first stage of a longer process with Amplified09 and Amplified2010. Please bring your ideas and opportunities with you to the event on Thursday and we’ll see what we can generate collectively!
Amplified Newsletter 5 - 21 November 2008
by @joannejacobs
Less than a week to go till Amplified08! Thanks to everyone who is pulling out all stops to get the event into something of which we can all be proud in the past few days. You all rock.
So far, The Institute for Contemporary Arts, Soda Pictures and Jon Bishop have offered goodies for the event bag and/or door prizes for the event. But we’re always open to more offers, so let us know if you can provide.
And @DT has put together a guide to how you can participate at the event, and has captures the session times, official hashtags etc at http://amplified.pbwiki.com/Amplified-08-rules-of-engagement.
This edition of the Amplified08 newsletter we have a major piece from Peter O’Neill on social media measurement, and another session amplification. Thanks to those who have contributed!
Social Media Measurement
by @peter_oneill
One of the hot topics around social media is how to calculate the ROI from it. Alternatively, should you be trying to calculate the ROI of your social media efforts? And taking it to another level, should you even be trying to get a return from your investments in social media?
Social media consists of online conversations. The reason for measuring these conversations in some way (and the reason for all web analytics) is to collect data that can be used to make informed and therefore better business decisions.
Now if the data is not used or is not useful, there is no point in doing the measurement. This is not to say that the only use for measuring social media is to calculate an ROI in terms of sales (or equivalent conversions for non-ecommerce websites). But I firmly believe there is value in collecting whatever data you can collect, acknowledging it is incomplete and will always be incomplete but then using it as a guide in the decisions you are making.
As with any spend within an organisation, the first step should be to define objectives, what you would like to get in return for your spend. Simply tying social media to immediate sales, while easiest, is likely to underestimate the contribution it is making to your company. But not recognising that there is a need to justify the resource allocation (spend, time, etc) on social media in terms of how it is helping a company to meet its overall business objectives, will put at risk the existence of those resources.
The compromise may be a Balanced Scorecard that contains a mix of metrics with associated targets based on what you are trying to achieve with your complete marketing campaign, of which social media is one element. These metrics could include revenue, cost of providing customer support (targeting a decline), brand awareness across the internet, visitor participation on corporate blog, website engagement, ideas generated through customer feedback, etc.
This Balanced Scorecard would show the value and impact of social media to a company beyond the basic ‘how much money did it make us’. The metrics used would be tied to business objectives so they are relevant and meaningful to management. Each metric would have a goal so that performance can be clearly evaluated. If goals are not being met, then that is a trigger to say that action needs to be taken in order to bridge the gap. And any decisions made would of course be a more informed decision using the data that has been collected through the measurement of your social media efforts.
I guess the point of all this is to say that people need to be thinking about how to evaluate the performance of their social media strategy from the initial stages, this is not an afterthought that can be tacked on at the last second.
Session Focus: New Models for Creative Distribution
Steve and Tim (@solobasssteve and @encosion ) will lead a discussion on the new models for distribution for those in the creative sector, be it music, film, books, comedy, etc. looking at Open Rights issues, building an audience, what social media means for us and how to make enough money from it all to call it a job… @solobasssteve is a musician and writer, has been running a record label to release his
own albums for 10 years, and has managed to avoid the entire music industry while still having a pleasantly successful career from
playing, recording and teaching music.
* Editor’s note: You only have one more chance to outline your session, so if you do want to let people knwo what you want to achieve in sessions, then you need to get your contribution to @joannejacobs by no later than Tuesday morning, 25 November.
That wraps up Newsletter 5. Thanks to all those who are really banding together over the last few days before the event to help make it great. But remember, this is just the first stage of a longer process with Amplified09 and Amplified2010. And part of Amplified08 is to plan ahead for these other events; thinking about the needs we have as professionals in our businesses, and considering what we’d like to help create. So as we count down to the event, I encourage you again to give the wiki a good look over, and think about how you can help be part of this watershed event.
Amplified Newsletter 4 - 18 November 2008
by @joannejacobs
Welcome to the fourth newsletter for Amplified08. As Chain Reaction (http://www.chain-reaction.org/) bubbles away over on Southbank, Amplified08 is being designed to provide the space for those technology and business entrepreneurs to realise some of the ideals proposed there. It’s good to be part of such an active community!
The good news on the ticketing front is that we’ve discovered some people who have actually registered twice via our registration system so a few tickets opened up. If you haven’t got a ticket and you’d love to be at Amplified08, now’s your chance. So get over there and register now!
The bad news is that no-one has offered any goodies or gadgets or services for the Amplified08 event bag. We’re not looking for brochures so much as actual hard goods. Does anyone have any materials they are prepared to donate.
This edition of the Amplified08 newsletter focuses on some of the basics, and provides another session profile. There’s also a fabulous entry on the development of linkages between participating communities provided by @DT. Thanks to all who have contributed!
Some of the basics
by @joannejacobs
Lots of people are now asking us to provide regular links to all the sources associated with Amplified08. So here they are.
Main site - http://www.amplified08.com
Wiki - http://amplified.pbwiki.com/
Event Brite Registration page (providing full list of attendees) - http://amplified08.eventbrite.com/
Twitter posts - (hashtag #amp08) http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23amp08;
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=amplified08
NESTA - http://www.nesta.org.uk/
NESTA location (1 Plough Place, London, where the event is being held) -
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=EC4A 1DE
Newsletter 1 for Amplified08 - http://www.amplified08.com/2008/11/last-fridays-newsletter/
Newsletter 2 for Amplified08 - http://www.amplified08.com/2008/11/amplified08-newsletter-2/
Newsletter 3 for Amplified08 - http://www.amplified08.com/2008/11/amplified08-newsletter-3/
Let me know if you need anything further!
LWW and CCC London joining the Network
by @DT
I’m involved in facilitating two of the groups that will be contributing to Amplified 08. The common theme of the London Wiki Wednesday community is application of wiki technology to improve collaboration, with people involved from a all types of organizations from business, to education, to not for profit ventures. Although we have some Wikipedians in the group, the emphasis is more enterprisey and practical rather than technical. Meetings are very much community led discussions, but with everyone having the chance to stand up and present or speak for 5 minutes on their particular project, issue, or idea.
CreativeCoffee Club London is a small band of creatives, professionals, photographers, musicians and practitioners who are interested in creativity and innovation. We all believe that creativity should be part of the day to day processes of the businesses and organizations that we work for, and we all believe that our education system doesn’t put enough emphasis on thinking skills. Sir Ken Robinson’s book, Out Of Our Minds, is a great manifesto for highlighting how our education system was designed in the 19th century for the Industrial Age, and needs some radical reform to cater for the 21st Century and the Information Age. Our meetings tend to involve very free ranging discussions across a whole gamut of topics related to what comes next in innovation.
Both the communities see the power of the network effect that we’ll get by combining all of the meetups in to a regular Network of Networks. We’re all enthusiastic about how the current social media tools can amplify what we do, and the power of the idea of coming together to ask “what works, what doesn’t, what next?”. We also think that Europe is poorly served when it comes to events that bring together innovation across all of the sectors of industry, government, and broadcast media. If we can work with NESTA to make the 2010 event bridge the silos and have something of the flavour of a TED conference for Europe, that would be quite an achievement - well worth aiming for!
Session Focus: The Future of Online Video at Ampified 08
by @freecloud
The Future of Online Video at Ampified 08
In this session at Amplified 08, I will present a summary of findings from a research project we have undertaken over the last 2 months. We will examine the current situation:
- structure of the online video market value chain
- structure of the players in the market
- rough market sizing
- relative prospects for growth
I will also give some views as to the future of the market, in particular the interplay between:
- Content : UGC vs Curated, Short Form v Long Form
- Rights: Piracy vs Copyright issues
- Economics: ‘FreeConomics’ vs building a sustainable businesses
- Which Screen?: Fixed vs Mobile video
The last section will be for prospective startups where the opportunities seem to lie, and I hope to have a good & robust discussion on all these area. Here is the url link for an initial slideshare pack for the session:
http://broadstuff.com/archives/1377-The-Future-of-Online-Video-at-Amplified-08.html
* Editor’s note: I’m still looking for more sessions to be elaborated in these newsletters. 1.5 more chances, folks, so get your descriptions in now!
Well that’s four newsletters down. There’s only two newsletters to go, folks, so if you want to get your sessions profiled in this newsletter, your best bet is the edition that comes out this Friday, as the last newsletter will include last minute instructions for the gig. So if you haven’t already done so PLEASE get your session descriptions in to me ASAP!
Amplified Newsletter 3 - 14 November 2008
by @joannejacobs
Welcome to the third newsletter for Amplified08, with our event only two weeks away! The finer details of sessions and resources at the venue are now coming clearer. We now have a very active team of people all doing different things to help make this event something to remember, and with an ever-growing waiting list of participants, there’s a responsibility to ensure that every opportunity to participate is realised.
This edition of the Amplified08 newsletter focuses on what we need for the day, and on the kinds of things that YOU can do help make Amplified08 a success. We have a couple of sessions for the day given a bit more detail, as well as a list of groups represented at Amplifed08.
What’s happening and what’s needed
by @loudmouthman
We’re in the process of collating resources so we can stream as many sessions as possible online during the event. Phil Campbell has agreed to provide us with his ‘Ammo Boxes’ which he assembled for use at PodcampUK, and we’re now trying to work out how to courier these across. But we could always do with a few more microphones and webcams, so if anyone else is willing to provide these at the event, we may be able to hook these up to the backbone at NESTA, leaving the wireless bandwidth free for much tweeting, blogging and idea sharing at the event. Please let @loudmouthman know if you have any tech you can provide for us at the event.
The public wifi access available at NESTA can support Flash sites and Second life, so we’re planning to have the event accessible through SL. However, we are aware that the bandwidth may fill uo fairly quickly so we’re talking to some possible providers of additional public bandwidth at the event. Again, if you or your business contexts are prepared to support Amplified08 in providing more bandwidth, please let us know.
Finally, we are keen to reward people for their fast action in registering and participating in this event. If you have technology products or services, gizmos, gadgets and other marketing goodies that you’re prepared to donate to Amplified08 either as part of the ’showbag’ participants get on arrival, or as a door prize at the event, please could you get in touch? We promise to be very grateful indeed!
The important stuff: Food and drinks
by @joannejacobs and @rohan_london
Rohan from NESTA has confirmed that NESTA will be providing tea and coffee and bickies on arrival at NESTA at 3:30pm, and that there will indeed be beer, wine, juice and nibblies from 6-8pm. After the event concludes, there’s also been a general suggestion of retiring to a pub somewhere for further drinks and perhaps even the odd spot of dinner. We haven’t settled on a venue for the after-party yet, but stay tuned for more on that…
Session Focus: Cockroach Economics - Credit-crunch strategy, open chat suggestion
by James Cherkoff
Paul Graham, super-hacker and founder of the Silicon Valley VC Y-Combinator recently wrote about recession. “Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible. For years I’ve been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill.”
Is the cockroach-approach the right way ahead?
James’s blog on this issue: http://www.collaboratemarketing.com/modernmarketing/2008/10/where-are-the-m.html
Session Focus: Bretton Woods 2.0 - how social media and open source collaboration can assist the governance and regulation of financial markets and society
by Paul Massey
This weekend, the G20, World Bank, UN and IMF are meeting to discuss ways out of the current financial crisis. The meeting is billed as the start of a process of institutional reform; a “<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system”>Bretton Woods II</a>”. Amongst the possible roadmaps, Robert Zoellick, the World Bank President, has suggested “<a href=”Zoellick: Break Up the Group of Seven”>a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy</a>”. The statement demonstrates how fundamental social media has become to our lives. However, is Robert Zoellick right and is the world ready for Bretton Woods 2.0? This session will discuss the potential of converging technologies, collaborative social media and open source to tackle the converging social, economic and environmental challenges of C21.
Could Facebook be a useful model or is the Holy Grail an open source kernel, lying hidden in Cyberspace, waiting to render multilateral reform? Hopefully after the session we can connect with Mr. Zoellick and provide perspectives from social media practitioners in the UK.
Bretton Woods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
Zoellick: Break Up the Group of Seven - http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2008/db2008106_029088.htm
* Editor’s note: I’m still looking for more sessions to be elaborated in these newsletters. 3 more chances, folks, so get your descriptions in now!
Some of the groups participating in Amplified08
by @joannejacobs
Some people have been asking who is participating in Amplified08 and what groups they come from. You can now view the names of the people who will be attending at the EventBrite page. As for the gorups, this is by no means a full list but it’s a start. We’re happy to profile more groups in these newsletters if you’re prepared to submit your details!
Creative Coffee Club: http://creativecoffeeclub.com/
Tuttle Club (Social Media Cafe): http://tuttleclub.wordpress.com/
Social Media Camp: http://www.socialmediacamp.co.uk/
Social Media Mafia: http://socialmediamafia.com/
Minibar: http://www.meetup.com/minibar/calendar/8229093/?eventId=8229093&action=detail
Facebook developer Garage: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5282952746
2Gether08: http://2gether08.com/
Mobile Geeks of London: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2821560179
London Wiki Wednesday: http://www.socialtext.net/wikiwed/index.cgi?london
chinwag: http://www.chinwag.com/
One Media: http://www.one-media.org/
Fresh Networks: http://www.freshnetworks.com/
Social Innovation Camp: http://www.sicamp.org/
And that concludes Newsletter 3. Please keep submitting your session focus details to me, and I’ll be happy to add these to the content for the next edition.
Amplified Newsletter 2 - 10 November 2008
by @joannejacobs
Well it’s been a blindingly fast start for Amplified08 with 200 of 210 tickets for the event going in about 5 days. If you haven’t <a href=”">registered on the Event Brite site</a> already then do so! Otherwise you may miss out. If you didn’t get a place or if you can’t be part of proceedings though, please be comorted: we plan to live stream as many sessions from the event that we can, and you will be able to follow the back-channel through twitter. And on that note, we can now say that <strong>the official twitter hashtag for the event is #amp08</strong>. You probably guessed that anyway, but we thought it’d be better if at least one formal space made that clear.
Thanks to all those who provided feedback on the first newsletter, and to all those who have offered to add content in to the next editions. I’m hoping to get two of these out every week. Today’s edition focuses on the session that @anniemole has registered as a topic for further explanation, as well as some commentary from David Tebbut on the focus of sessions. Plus there’s some guidelines for participation on the day as well as a basic structure of sessions and the venue. So let’s get to it….
The venue and schedule
by @joannejacobs, @sleepydog, @rohan_london
First of all, you can find details of our venue at NESTA here: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/The%20Space%20@NESTA.
We have essentially 5 separate rooms and one larger conference room which for break-out sessions we can also use for at least 4 if not 5 separate conversations. There’s also corridors and reception areas that can be used for sessions where necessary. And we plan on having 3 sets of breakout sessions, so we have room for about 25-30 sessions throughout the event. It’s up to you to plan ahead for what you would like to discuss and what you would like to prepare for sessions. We’re allocating 40 minutes to each breakout session, and we don’t want these to be presentations, but rather, conversations. By all means register your interest in hosting a session, and hosts should be prepared to provoke conversation, but it’s not about one person presenting. See below for participation guidelines, but the objective is for all participants to have a chance to contribute to discussion.
Our schedule is as follows:
3.30 - Arrive and registration
4.00 - Whole group meets to introduce the event and general announcements
4.30 - 1st Breakout Sessions
5.10 - BREAK
5.20 - 2nd Breakout Sessions
6.00 - BREAK
6.10 - Whole group session to feedback on sessions and to plan for Amplified09
6.40 - BREAK
6.50 - 3rd Breakout Sessions
7.30 - BREAK
7.40 - Whole group session to feedback on sessions and to close
8.00 - CLOSE
For those who want to hang about or go to the pub after the event (or join us there if you didn’t score a ticket or can’t make the timing) we’ll be publishing details of where to meet in coming weeks.
Participation guidelines
by @sleepydog
Once again, Amplified08 is designed to be an opportunity to amplify ideas by bringing together people from different social networks and with differing skill-sets. This way we can share our projects, theories and products across networks and plan ahead for collaborative projects at Amplified09 and Amplified2010. But in order to achieve that information sharing and collaboration, we felt it was important to come up with some guidelines for participation. This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor is it going to be policed. It’s also open to your own suggestions for amendment, clarification and expansion. But it’s a start.
* Two Ears, One Mouth: we ask that your listening to contributing ratio be to listen at least twice as much as you contribute. Unless there’s only two people in a session this is always possible
* Good, Bad, Interesting, Next: We would love you to think about what’s good, what’s bad and what’s interesting about your session and see if you can articulate that either collectively or individually. Then if you can have a plan for what comes next that will give us the building blocks for further action.
* #amp08: If you’re tweeting, can you please tag all posts with #amp08. This makes it easier for us to track conversations during and after the event.
* 1 tweet: If everyone who attends sessions - digitally or physically - can sum up their understandings or response to each session with 1 tweet, this will capture a live zeitgeist of the event. There’s a bit of controversy over how we hashtag this (see the Amplified08 blog), so feel free to add your commentary. We may even have to put it to a vote!
* Step Outside your Comfort Zone: Please don’t just join sessions because they are run by people you know. Try and break out of your current networks and exchange ideas with new people, and join sessions because you find the topics interesting and feel you would like to contribute. That doesn’t mean you need expertise in a field; anyone who wants to contribute ideas should feel welcome to do so.
Session Focus: The Future of the Book
by @anniemole
Annie Mole comes from the old skool “I love reading - Physical books are wonderful - Kill all e-books” Luddite approach & Billy Abbott is more of a “e-readers look really interesting I want to see how they can enhance my reading” school of thought. And Chris Meades as Director of if: book London has the practical experience of talking to & working with publishers and authors on the Future of the Book.
We will lead a session looking at some real examples of what’s been going on in this field from an EU and global perspective which should help to open discussions and we’ll be collecting others examples of these technologies & “future of reading and writing” initiatives.
Some ideas for topics to talk about:
* What is the future for the traditional paper book? How will ebooks effect them? What new technologies are there that can push the old skool book & make it even more valuable or make it obsolete?
* What is the future of the ebook? How will they develop over the coming years? What are the pros and cons of their adoption over paper books?
* What is the future of reading? How will the increase in the usage of mobile devices affect the use of books (both paper and ‘e’)?
* What can we as consumers and creators of books, stories, expreriences & content do to stay current with the trends in books? What should publishers be doing with their IPs? How can authors leverage new technologies to expandtheir readerships?
At the end of the session we’d like to have a record of a bunch of ideas of how we think things are going, what we could and should be doing to stay on top of the changes in books, and how these ideas could lead to publishing projects & challenges for us all.
Annie Mole - http://london-underground.blogspot.com
Billy Abbott - http://cowfish.org.uk/blog/
Chris Meade - http://www.futureofthebook.org.uk/ http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/
Context is everything!
by @joannejacobs on a suggestion from David Tebbutt
David Tebbutt contacted me this week, and he made an important point about Amplified08. Here’s some of what he said:
“The discussion is strongly flavoured with advocacy and what works and what doesn’t, but I think that much depends on context. Perhaps that will fall out naturally from the groups represented. But I have a sneaky feeling it won’t, unless it’s encouraged”.
I couldn’t agree more. Context in terms of the technology/method of communication, the business or service oriented environment in which communication technologies are being used, and the socio-political and economic environments in whcih communication is taking place, can all impact on any methodologies, products or practices which emerge from Amplified08 sessions. We need to be wary of coming up with too many hard-and-fast rules for technologies or communities, without clearly articulating the contexts where any rules apply.
David has said he is still evolving his thinking on this and he’s said he would like to put something together for us after the event on this, so I’m hopeful that may happen!
That’s it for this newsletter folks. Please keep submitting your session focus details to me, and I’ll be happy to add these to the content for the next edition.
Amplified Newsletter 1 - October 2008
by @loudmouthman and @joannejacobs
Thank you for registering your interest in Amplified08, the network of networks event being held at NESTA from 4-8pm on Thursday 27 November 2008*. Although we kick off at 4pm we chose the timing so people could also pop along after work. Of course there’ll be plenty to get your teeth into at 4pm, but as we’re running multiple sessions through the event there’s plenty still to do if you arrive later or indeed have to leave early.
This newsletter is designed to keep you up to date about the sessions and people involved in the event, and to clarify for those who are still wondering, the focus and purpose of the event. Normally it won’t be as long as this newsletter, but we aim to get these out about twice a week.
Essentially, Amplified08 is an opportunity to bring together those who meet in various UK social media, technology production and mobile media and related fields to come together to share your ideas and projects, to discover new ways of working together, and to break through the generation of silos among social media communities.
We also have a lot of interest from groups who still come together virtually via Twitter and the like who will now have the chance to chew ideas over, face-to-face for the first time. We’re also welcoming groups and individuals who are quite new to social media but want to learn while adding to the experience. Importantly we’re reaching out first and foremost to practitioners who are already full of ideas and opinions.
Some of us attend social media camp, some are Tuttlers, some are bar campers, some are wiki wednesdayers and some social media mafia. Some of us are doing fascinating work with social media in education. Many of us belong to several or all or still other groups. But all of us want to make the best of the skills and innovation present among the social media advocacy/production/development community. We’re all interested in social media so it simply makes sense to meet together as representatives from a range of groups and to cross-pollinate.
We’re hoping that mass events like Amplified08 and its successor, Amplified09, will give us the opportunity to explore issues of interest, and to set up the basis of an ongoing annual event for the movers and shakers of the UK social media community. We don’t expect the Amplified events to replace any of the great work and social communication happening in all those communities out there; we just want to capture and celebrate the skills, resources, ideas and projects that are developing in those networks, and to share them across those communities. A true ‘network of networks’. And we want to do all this for free, for all those interested in participating (thanks to the sponsorship and volunteering of the Amplified08 community).
Our aims are high. NESTA have invited us to build an Amplified 2010 event that will run in conjunction with their own Innovation Edge conference. We’re building towards 4,000 attendees that year. Combine that with the NESTA attendees and a fringe festival and we’re looking at 10,000 practioners from across the UK. Amplified 09 will be nationwide and begin to build those numbers up. A large part of the focus of Amplified 08 will be how we take the topics discussed and amplify them to that level. We’re aiming to construct an opportunity for real change, but we’re starting with three simple questions:
What works? What doesn’t? and what next?
By applying these questions to our own ares of expertise we should begin to build a unique picture of social media and creativity in the UK. So the objective is to meet, share, discuss and generally find out new things about the industry. If you haven’t already done so, please consider some sessions you may want to participate in or host via the Amplified08 wiki.
* Yes, we know it’s Thanksgiving in the US that day but I’m afraid this is the only day we could get everyone together in the late afternoon.