Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral

Curating Bristol’s Gurteen Knowledge Cafes

I am now ‘curating’ Bristol’s Gurteen Knowledge Cafes. Erica Hurley has agreed to co-curate with me which is cool.

This is good news as I:

• think that the regional k-cafes are well worth keeping alive as they have some great people involved and some great conversations
• enjoy the format: have participated in many k-cafes, and include them in events I design where suitable
• have got a bit of a thing going for physical events at the moment - find myself enjoying designing and facilitating events and group interventions more and more
• want to draw some of my attention back to the ‘knowledge’ side of organisations

The next gathering will be on Thursday 26 June in Bristol. I am putting together an announcement mail list and event booking widget and will do another post when it’s all sorted. Until then, you can sign up to be on the list by subscribing on David’s website

It’s a voluntary role (with a lofty title of ‘Gurteen Knowledge Community regional director, Bristol - England’), and Debbie Lawley has been doing great stuff with it, but she has passed the mantle on, so I hope I can take it onboard with aplomb and keep the spirit going.

Good work all!

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Pervasive Media Studio open on Fridays

Good news; the iShed team are opening the Pervasive Media Studio up on Fridays to anyone who wants to come and work there. It’s a great place to work and there are lots of good people to boot.

I’ll be there. Here’s the blurb:

Open Studio Fridays

iShed have recently taken over the top floor of the Leadworks building in Anchor Square and opened the Pervasive Media Studio.

Inspired by Jelly in New York, we’re opening the studio each Friday to anyone interested in casual co-working. From 9.30am to 5pm our doors will be open to people of any profession/discipline/sector to come and work in our space. We offer chairs, tables, wireless, a change of scenery and interesting people to bounce ideas off.

So, from Friday 2 May, bring what you need to need to work (laptop/mobile) and head down to the Pervasive Media Studio, directions here: http://tinyurl.com/28pcg4

Please email admin@pmstudio.co.uk if you are planning on turning up so we have a vague idea of numbers.

The Pervasive Media Studio, opened in February 2008, brings together the computing, communications and creative industries to research and develop new forms of digital media using wireless, mobile, display or sensor technologies. With collaboration across industry, research, academia and community groups, the Studio is an initiative led by HP Labs and Watershed.

http://www.ished.net/2008/04/24/open-studio-fridays-at-the-pervasive-media-studio

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Blended facilitation interview podcast

The indubitable Matt Moore and infinitely inspiring Nancy White and I had a three way conversation about ‘Blended facilitation’ recently. It was great fun, a privilege to share some time with them both, and gave me lots to think about.

Download the podcast from Matt’s site

Things I am ruminating upon since:

• My matrix of Public/Private/Personal/Political could be Public/Private/Personal/Professional
• A good word for ‘blended facilitation’ could be ‘amphibious’ (Mr Moore)
• It is OK to make mistakes and discuss them (just as well if you are as relentlessly declarative as me)
• Blended facilitation is not just a linear online/offline group knowledge transformation model - it is also to understand the modalities - video/audio/touch and how to switch between them so it’s almost becoming a design issue
• Personalities do play a big role in all this (I must write my personalities post soon)
• I still love the concept of group technology being “designed for the group, but experienced individually” (Nancy)
• Given this idea of individual experience, we must ensure that there is significant overlap (between a flickr fan and a blogger) so that the core group activities and communications are maintained
• The proliferation of new technologies is great for early adopters, but we as facilitators need to remember that our groups feel overwhelmed by it all and simply may not have the time to interact like early adopters
• We all agreed that the core community data (posting figures, behavioural stuff, reputation indicators) belong to the community and should be made available to them
• More reflective practice could be introduced into community facilitation - rather than saying ‘what do you think of X’ (moderation), perhaps we should ask ‘what do you think of my activity?’…

And more. Thanks to Matt for sorting it out, and Nancy for sharing her time with us. Again, again!

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Media Sandbox final event

We are planning for the final event to wrap up this year’s Media Sandbox commissions and give the community another boost with a physical gathering.

For background, you can read about the launch event, and the high level case study about the blended facilitation approach we took to the project as a whole.

Suffice to say, we want to wave farewell to this phase with a satisfying ‘whoosh’, and welcome in the new phase with an open and inquisitive ‘oooh ain’t that cool’ noise. And I’m keen for the event to afford as much open learning as possible while we’re at it.

It’s going to be a mix of serious workshop (knowledge transfer stuff about the actual business of the projects doing R&D), judging panel on the projects (for more support), exhibiting the projects’ work, playing some games, and an open opportunity for anyone to pitch their idea for cash and a Pervasive Media Studio residency.

And a village fayre. With bunting. And tea. And I have bought a new horn specially to honk at twitterers.

As always, it’s free and anyone can come. Official blurb here:

From public fountains to bluetooth fountains, street games to shop windows, over the last three months the six groups of Media Sandbox participants have been working on new applications in pervasive media.

This final Media Sandbox event is your chance to play with the prototypes, discuss the challenges and watch the final project pitches as the Sandbox participants present their work to a team of industry judges. And, at the end of the night, one project will be presented with a further £8,000 production grant.

Plus your chance to win £1,000

The event will also feature a pervasive media pitching session with a chance to win a £1,000 development grant and residency at the Pervasive Media Studio. Enter your idea here.
(Event link and booking here)

Come along. It will be fun. And we will learn.

Event link for more information

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All together now event

I’m looking forward to doing a speaking slot at the forthcoming ‘All Together now‘ event at Channel Four on May 1.

My bit is on how physical communities can be augmented by virtual communities, focusing on minority sports; pretty much as close to my core interests as you can get.

I’m going to consider a bit of theory and the importance of facilitation, then pull out some examples from groups support for less active people to the panoply of ways we interact in and around our local climbing centre in Bristol. Here’s the event blurb:

Over the course of the past three years the emergence of blogging, social networking services and platforms which showcase and share user generated content have transformed the possibilities of how we connect, converse and collaborate with one another.

’In the 20th Century, we were defined by what we owned, in the 21st Century we will be defined by what share and give away’ Charles Leadbeater, author of We Think

The potential for organisations and brands to harness these technologies and tools to engage with users, customers and their communities in radically new ways is becoming clear.

How can all those organisations working to promote active participation in sports and the brands that wish to sponsor their activates and campaigns work together to make the most of the unrivalled viral power and network effects of the web in the run up to 2012?

All Together Now will bring together leading social media developers and thinkers, sports governing bodies, communities’ sports organisations and some of our leading brands into a unique event to explore these opportunities.

Event site and booking here

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Skillswap report on project management

(thanks for the space, Pervasive Media Studio!)

We had some good talks and discussion around the topic of ‘Project Management’ at last week’s Skillswap:

• Joe Leech talked about being a small cog in many bigger systems: Presentation
• Laura Francis talked about how she uses Agile
• Fraser Stephens discussed the ‘what to’s of Prince2: Presentation
• Eben Halford talked about Scrum: Presentation

Peter Ferne and the Jiva crew produced plenty of free drink and snacks; thanks all!

Thanks for the excellent space, and good work to all attendees.

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Media Sandbox case study

(Most of the Media Sandbox projects)

Introduction

This is high level case study about the blended facilitation work ongoing with the Media Sandbox commissioning scheme managed by iShed. Here is the descriptive blurb:

Bringing together leading technology, artistic and media talent, Media Sandbox is a new commissioning scheme to support South West companies/organisations to research emerging possibilities in digital media.

The theme for 2007/2008 is pervasive media. By supporting a community of research around this cutting-edge theme, Media Sandbox will encourage business growth, share knowledge with the wider sector and reinforce the reputation of Bristol and the South West as a centre for cutting-edge R&D.

Traditionally, this type of commissioning involves a call for bids, distribution of cash to successful bidders, some relatively private research and development, and a ’showcase’ event at the end where the bidders tell us a few things and say thanks for the cash.

We felt that this commissioning construct could do with some spring cleaning by introducing community-type thinking and free open source software. This case study is a stab at reporting that…

Read the rest of this entry »

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Interesting games lab

Simon and the iglab collective in Bristol are running another night of games, gaming, game theory and other stuff like that down at the Pervasive Media lab on Tuesday 11 March. Anyone can come and all are welcome. :

This time it’s personal… thats not just hyperbole this month iglab has a theme. Personal relationships.

Recommended.

Event booking link

More on iglab

Simon’s been doing some serious head-scratching about Swarm theory and gaming as part of his Media Sandbox commission so he’s probably a good person to be running a game workshop too

I’m going through a bit of a lofi phase at the moment (just put in a proposal for an entirely physical conference intervention around pervasive group knowledge including post-it notes and bamboo poles) and am looking forward to the night’s lofi games as well as the techno-pervasive stuff, but all of it will be fun and and learning-oriented.

Here be a prediction: ’social networking’ and ‘gaming’ will become more prevelant as facilitation techniques in community development practice, but that’s another story.

Come and enjoy.

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skillswap project management

Joe Leech and I are convening March’s Skillswap in the Pervasive Media Lab. It’s called ‘Project manage this!’, and is about project management. I was a project manager once; there wasn’t enough human in it for me and way too much detail, but I remain deeply impressed by a good intelligent emotionally sensitive (but not wiffling) project manager.

We’ve got a good range of PM types to kick off conversations, and, as usual, attendees are expected to bring their brains, experiences and other stuff like that. Huge thanks to the Pervasive Media lab crew for the venue.

Here details:

Bristol Skillswap: Wednesday 19 March 2008
Title: Project manage this!
What: Project Management tips and tricks
Who: Joe Leech, Laura Francis, Fraser Stephens (and more)
What’s happening:
Our three presenters will stand up and give us some background and stories from their experience with project management tools and stuff like that in different sectors. Then we will talk about it.

 Group page with information on it

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Ideas for a troubled economy

Richard Sedley and his Customer Engagement Unit team are publishing a timely new book called: “Winners and Losers in a troubled economy”. Here is some blurb:

With all the talk and early signs of an economic downturn the pressure on businesses to prove ROI on their marketing activities is greater than at any other point in the last twenty years. This changing climate will dictate not only where budgets will go but which companies will win and which will lose…

It will be on sale in printed form from 11th March, but it is a free download from the Winners and Losers website while stocks last. If you can get to the event on 11th March, I recommend it (details on the site) as well as the book.

I was going to write a short piece for it, but things didn’t end up that way, so here was the gist of what it was going to be:

Ed’s top tips:

1. Use Open Source software or free products wherever possible (not neccesarily with organisational single sign-on for example, but how about openid?
2. Use Open Source models and ideas reported elsewhere
3. Learn your lessons wisely and share the findings from your work with others freely
4. Embed the learning and resources in your organisation

This is how I work wherever possible. Most of my findings and lessons learnt from last year with CILIP, Amnesty, Media Sandbox (case study out next week) and others are available for nothing.

Some call it idealistic, but that’s fine by me. I don’t believe that ‘Knowledge in a box’ has much value, and that business plans built on hoarding IP are really sustainable any more. If you stuff knowledge in a box and hide it, you get a Schrodinger effect (quantuum knowledge anyone?).

It is better to share it, learn from it, converse around it and build upon it. See more on this from Miguel’s excellent analysis, or Verna Allee’s brilliant book The Future of Knowledge, which presents a variety of examples of how to share your product knowledge with your consumers in order to drive its development forward.

This approach has new assessment frameworks, sure, but these can be handled with approaches like Outcome mapping, currently used in the Development domain, which are far more participative and pragmatic than any of the other assessment models I have seen, much more suited to the basic fact that business is complex, and highly suitable to online community stuff.

If you want some uplifting thoughts on this subject I recommend reading Charles Leadbeater’s new book “We think: The power of mass creativity” (Thanks David), and combining those thoughts with those from the book “Enough” (Thanks Toby). That’s what I’m going to hint at at a couple of conferences this week.

I recently read some bits from ‘We think’ out loud to some strangers on the train it was so good, and thought I would share one here (I think I’m going to have to add a quotes category to this blog):

Markets trade products; communities breed knowledge. Ideas do not live in the minds of individuals but through a constant circulation as gifts. In the century to come well being will come to depend less on what we own and consume and more on what we can share with others and create together, especially as consumption becomes increasingly constrained by environmental concerns that mean we have to live more within collectively binding limits

This points firmly towards the original Cluetrain directions about the incoming integration of markets and communities through conversation and sharing.

Good work all!

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