Birthday? Time for a Conference! (And a BBQ)

Last year we used my birthday on May 12th to invite people from both our different on-line and off-line circles of friends and bring them together for a BBQ. We thought that worked out great!

This year Elmine turns 30 next week on August 30th. We have taken that as an opportunity to invite a broad selection from our friends and family. Just like last year, but bigger and better. To make a longer trip more attractive this year the BBQ will be accompanied by a 1-day conference on August 29th.

The BBQ will be about good food, but what will the conference be about? Both Elmine and I work in a networked world. Not only in terms of technology (though technology is a very visible aspect), but in terms of skills, attitudes, work forms, organisational forms and who our peers are (or our fellow global villagers as Gerrit Eicker put it in my last post). Though we often like to create models and use abstract terms to describe these changes, we think how these changes affect our day to day lives and work is often shared and shown too little. For the conference we would like to put those concrete changes in your and our own lives, little and big, in the spotlight. The format depends a bit on what the participants want, but will probably be a mixture of what usually happens at a BlogWalk and a BarCamp.

We welcome you to Twente University for the (un)conference day (photo by WJ Maaskant)

We therefore would like to invite you to share your stories on:
- what the driving forces are in your work;
- what you struggle with;
- what projects/things you're working on;
- how you connect with other people and sustain these connections;
- what type of organisations, teams, settings you work in;
- how you take charge of your own life
- how you balance work and private life, or if that distinction still exists
- how your life has changed, or not, in the past years
- what your typical day looks like.
- how you create value for yourself in what you do

Or whatever story you would like to share to make what we often discuss in abstract terms more tangible.

On August 29th, some 25 of our friends and peers will come to the University Campus here in Enschede to learn, share and inspire. But this being the end of August means lots of you could not make it, due to vacationing. Nevertheless we would like to invite you to contribute to the event by sharing your stories with us on the topics mentioned above. Via e-mail, in your own blog (as Bev Trayner already did here, here and here), in the comments here, or on any other platform you think appropiate. Elmine and I would love to hear your stories!

Want to attend after all? Or come to the BBQ on August 30th? Well, sure you can! Send me an e-mail that you would like to attend. And read more info on what's planned for next week in Elmine's wiki.

We welcome you to our house for a BBQ party

Tags: worklifebalance, walkingthetalk, elminewijnia, tonzijlstra, bbq

Immediately at Home, Half-way Around the Globe

Weaving the network fabric
When I talk about the effects of internet and mobile communications as an infrastructure I try to point to the effects this is having off-line. My use of the internet since the late 80's has always been about connecting with people. Nothing virtual about it. Our summer, which Elmine and I spent in Canada, was again proof of the fabric that gets woven thanks to the internet collapsing obstacles of distance in space and time to 0.

In the woods with Chris, and cooking with Boris (photo Elmine)

Globalized villagers
Gerrit Eicker a while ago asked me to respond his statement that there is no global village, just many globalized villages. (I'd add 'and globally oriented villagers'). The short answer is I agree, and I don't see it as the balkanization of the internet or as a threat either. My personal global village gives me neighbours I would not have had in any other way, without taking away me being rooted in a local community. Globalized villagers, as I tried to convey in my recent talk at Reboot, are people who have seen their circle of empathy enlarged to a global scope, which informs their local actions. It used to be nation states served as the middle man between the individual and global level and as a conduit for empathy, motivation, (as well as hate). The internet and mobile communications as infrastructure are taking out middle men left and right, and they are chipping away at the relevance of nation states in much the same way. Nation states are on the way out, I am sure (but it will be a long way).
Our trip to Canada (and the US) this summer was basically a tour of part of our globalized village.

Dinner with Jon, Raman, Cyprien and Renee, cycling with Roland and Simon

Canada, a place, a group of people
We had never been to Canada, yet we immediately felt at home.
Fellow globalized villagers, contacts and friendships originating in on-line interaction, followed by f2f meetings in Europe, have had an important role in finding our step in new cities and a new country for the past month. They formed catalysts into the rhythm and pace of Vancouver, introducing us into the local life. Within two days we started being part of those hanging out in coffee bars for conversations, spend a summer evening on the porch with neighbours enjoying a BBQ, doing our own cooking as well as ate at great little restaurants tourists wouldn't find. Jon and Raman, Cyprien and Renee, as well as Roland, and Boris made us part of their daily lives in Vancouver, as did Nancy and her family in Seattle. On the other side of the continent, on Prince Edward Island, Robert and Robin, and Peter and Catherine did the same during our stay on their red island inviting us into their homes. Along the way we also met up with Andy, Lee and Sachi, walked in northern rainforests with Chris having conversations that were basically an exploration of shared values and notions, talked about the potential of globalized villagers to network themselves out of problems with Marc and Christine, had a first f2f meeting with Dave over dinner in Toronto, and (again) met up with Jon giving us an insider tour of Montreal and dining with some of his friends. Meeting all these friends, some for the first time, was the common thread through our trip for me, next to being a 'regular' tourist in some amazingly beautiful landscapes, three major cities and musea, and seeing various kinds of wildlife.

Photo fun with Nancy, drinking Grolsch with Lee and Sachi

Take it forward
Touring our globalized village, or at least the Canadian neighbourhood of it, (not surprisingly) turned out to be inspiring both personally and professionally, and will probably be felt in a lot of the stuff I will be thinking, reading and writing about in the coming 6 months. And I intend to make sure it will lead to some tangible collaboration with at least some of those we met this summer.

Dinner in Toronto with David, dinner party on PEI with Peter, Catherine, Rob and Robin.

Tags: canada, social networks, globalvillage, friends

Metaverse: 50 Virtual Worlds

Gary Hayes posts his video impressions of vacationing in 50 virtual worlds. Of those showed I visited about 10, and use(d) 3 regularly. In his blog Gary also shares a few interesting observations across all virtual worlds. (found via Marketingfacts)

The Anthropology of YouTube

It's raining here today on Prince Edward Island, so time to read books and RSS feeds. I came across (at Johnnie Moore's blog) this presentation of Michael Wesch. With his anthropology group at Kansas State University he's made some very worrthwile video's already. This is a video production of a presentation he gave last June at the US Library of Congress. An hour worth of worthwile watching.

In general I think anthropology is important in making sense of the internet-induced/katalysed changes around us. The Monster-theory, based on the work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, is an example of that as well. The participatory observation Wesch and KSU do is something I try to stress in my presentations as well: you have to use social media tools to better understand what they can do for you.

Phweet, a Step Towards Flow

My old blogbuddy Stuart Henshall released Phweet as alpha today. With Phweet you connect in voice directly from your Twitter messages, simply by clicking a url.

This is an important idea, as it creates flow from one channel to another, from one level of interaction to another. Something we as humans do seamlessly, but where technology usually struggles or tries to lock you in. These type of steps towards seamless taking conversations through different channels are therefore key steps in the evolution of social media.

This is a screenshot of Stuart and me doing a voice session, originating from a direct Twitter message. Had to test this, even though I am vacationing in Canada currently.

New Complexity, New Attitudes, Skills and Tools to Match

At last week's Reboot 10 Thomas gave me the opportunity to give a presentation in the main hall (see proposal). I talked about internet and mobile communications as two infrastructures that have come of age recently. I wanted to provide a way to look at the macroscopic changes this is working in our societies and step away from rear guard fights, or discussions muddied in details that are only relevant to singular tools, causes or incidents. However, providing such a more macroscopic picture should still work when seen from the individual. So that each of us can decide how to respond. That is where Monstertheory comes in, and a discussion of the attitudes, skills and tools that go with our new infrastructures. Also, these new infrastructures themselves are geared towards individuals looking to influence macroscopic events. So we are actually in a good position to take on the monsters in our vicinity. Provided you are able to recognize them.

The slides of my talk are up on slideshare, where I annotated the slides in the comments. In a next posting I will go into my story in some more detail.

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Tags: reboot10, monstertheory, internet, mobiletelecommunications, philosophy, tonzijlstra, tonzylstra

Reboot 10: First Impressions

Management summary: I had a great time

Reboot of course is much more than just two days of conference. It was almost a week of intense and rich learning, meeting old and new friends, and going home with your mind spinning with all the new angles on things you thought you had a pretty good grasp on.

Prebooting
Reboot really started already on Tuesday, when we drove up to Copenhagen. Mark Wubben accompanied us in the car, together with all his stuff, as he was moving to Copenhagen. Wednesday was already filled with conversations. Starting with an early morning coffee with Peter Rukavina, talking about all kinds of Reboot-related themes, on change, on community, on networked attitudes, and life in general. Lunch I had with Jon Froda, of Hoist at Bang og Jensen, plotting our little piece of world domination and the path towards it. Then it was time to pick up Howard Rheingold at his hotel, who had just flew in minutes before that, and have a drink and some food at PH Caféen in the city's old, now gentrified, slaughterhouses. We discussed teaching methods, learning paths, community of practice how-to's, and the process of writing. In the early evening it was then time to go to Nyhavn harbour for the Reboat cruise. Enjoying champagne and beers, getting acquainted with other Reboot participants, and reconnecting to friends. And that was just a relaxed day before the conference!

Mark hitching a ride to CPH, Afternoon sun with Howard

Share your shit!

This call to arms by Tor Nørretranders, a Danish popular science writer, must be the tag-line for Reboot 10. It was picked up in a lot of the sessions. From a knowledge management point of view an important point to make: Explicit permission to share anything and everything, even if you're not sure about its worth. One organisms shit, is another's food. I spend my day walking in and out of different sessions, preparing my own presentation on day 2 in small chunks of time in between. It was good to see that a lot of presenters were making their presentation right on the spot. Creating new stories to share, trying out new ideas they had. It is precisely that vibe that makes Reboot work for me. Needless to say my own story was a new one as well. I finished my slides a full 20 minutes before I was planned to take the stage in the main hall. More on that in a second posting. Interesting things in the programme were around design issues, taking things out of the laptop screen, urban environments merging with the data-sphere, and recreating the world of fabrication in the same way digitalization recreated the world of publishing and sharing. More on that in other postings as well.

Me, presenting, photo by Elmine

Postboot
After two days of conferencing it was party time. A nice Italian dinner was had in the city center, with even better table conversation with Paolo, David, Toby, Thomas, Siert, Elmine and Ernst. Between beers it was the birth place of my One Laptop Per Senior (OLPS) initiative, as complement to OLPC. At Vega, as tradition dictates, the party went on. After we already had returned to the hotel, the party at Vega carried outside to the sidewalks of Vesterbro, with 5 police cars joining in for good measure.

Saturday morning saw a collective breakfast at Pussy Galore's (David, it really exists!), initiated by Nicole Simon. After which some shopping ensued with Elmine. Having shared a very nice dinner with Elmine and my brother in law Siert, whom we sort of pressured into coming to Reboot, and luckily really enjoyed it, Saturday evening then was spend at the house of Thomas and Rikke, playing host to Reboot-participants till the very last moment. It was nice and mellow, and much appreciated.

The drive back, with Siert now taking the seat Mark had on the way up, always allows enough time to let all the events of the past days sink in. So that today I could let fatigue take over :) Tomorrow my routines will be back to normal, and the slow process of digesting Reboot will take its course in the coming weeks.

All my Reboot 10 photos at Flickr, naturally.

Tags: reboot10, copenhagen, conference

GovCamp NL: Impressions and Take Aways

Last weekend saw a BarCamp in Amsterdam around government and the impact of web2.0. GovCamp NL was inspired by the GovCamp in London last year. Thanks to James Burke and Peter Robinett about 25 people, with about a third government workers, found themselves in the former offices of de Volkskrant.

Chris and Peter working the paper wiki

I arrived a bit late, so I had to miss out on the first session where Arjen Kamphuis talked about his past work to get government committed to open standards, open source, and open data. Shame I missed that, but good to see him again. Sessions I did attend talked about current or past projects on how to use the internet as a new/additional public sphere (like denhaag.org), how to increase participation (like with buurtlink.nl, or having a more direct say in how your taxes are spend), and how to use internet as additional channel for public hearings on policies.

James kicking of discussion with his 'hacked' tax forms

GovCamp vs PolitCamp
In comparison PolitCamp in Graz the week before was more about building awareness, amongst politicians and by extension government, that something had changed at all. GovCamp Amsterdam was more about doing tangible projects. Differences in penetration of ADSL between the highly urbanized Netherlands and relatively sparsely populated Austria probably help to explain this. A common thing however was the seemingly widespread notion that 'those politicians' and 'the government' were somehow doing it all 'wrong' and are 'not getting it', without acknowledging the fact that 'the government' does not exist, and all those structures are filled with people who are trying to make sense of the world just as much as I am and you are. First, if you know better, you are also the one to teach better. Second, no system or structure will make itself irrelevant over night. We will have to be there to help make the transition. Either by building alternate structures, or by helping the existing ones change. I think I'm doing the former in my personal life, and the latter with my clients. An activist stance is needed here more than a lamenting/knowing-it-better pose. That is why I was pleased to see politicians in Graz making an effort to attend, and was as pleased to see civil servants in Amsterdam actively experimenting and exploring how to change their work, while keeping focussed on the goals of their work.

Lunch conversations on the roofterrace

The Format
For a lot of participants the BarCamp format was new. It was generally received as creative and informal, but also with some apprehension as to the lack of 'steering'. If however at a BarCamp you think the discussion is not addressing the real issues, start your own discussion and session right then and there, instead of asking for more steering. The fact that this BarCamp took place, that it brought web-developers and civil servants together the way it did, is already proof that it is not the lack of steering that makes things impossible. No steering was involved after all to bring the event about. It is important to remember the basic 'rules' of open space engagement here: whoever is there are the right people, whatever is addressed is the right topic, it starts and ends when it does, and if you feel you can't contribute to or learn from a conversation you're in, start or join a different conversation immediately.
I think James and Peter made sure a pleasant event took place. The catering was fine, thanks to the funding by XS4All, and the sunny roof terrace was a pleasant element in the mix. The wifi was dependable too. So thanks!

Open Data Revisited
Opening up government data was a topic at GovCamp as it was in Graz last week. It came up in some of the sessions, it was a talking point during lunch. My major take-away for GovCamp therefore was that a small group found itself around the task of making inventory of what datasets are actually held within Dutch government agencies. With that inventory list in hand a concerted effort can be made to open them up one by one with technologies like RDF, SPRQL and OWL. I think this is an important thing to do, and am curious how it will develop and what I can contribute.

Tag your stuff!

Tags: bcnlgov, govcamp, barcamp, amsterdam, JamesBurke

Free public data

Last week at the PolitCamp Graz I had the pleasure to meet Keith Andrews, who's a professor there, and attend his session on how to unlock and use general data that has been gathered and paid for with tax payers money. Our public data.

Hans Rosling has some pretty compelling examples of what you can do IF (and it really is a big if) you can get access to the data that is all there (and it really is all there), and if you succeed in presenting it in a way that is more enticing than tables with numbers.

Social software thrives on heaps of data and information, and here's this mountain of data that hardly anybody has access too. This is the public parallel of what I see in corporations as well when it concerns business intelligence (BI). With huge amounts of money systems are put in place that collect insane amounts of data, and then only a handful of specialists create half a dozen management reports from that, leaving most of the data untouched. I remember an information manager who was surprised at the clever questions professionals in his corporation were able to ask the dataset, when he gave them access to it, which his own BI-people or higher management would never think of to ask. Having access to the data we collectively have made possible to gather therefore to me is not just a question of pursuing the ideal of 'openness' and transparancy in general, but a way to create so much more opportunties for people to act upon, based on the additional information available.

Making that access possible brings the need for a better presentation layer. Visualization aspects, and constructing queries etc. But it starts with convincing those who now manage the public databases to open up their data in RDF format so it can be used for web based mash-ups. This means a shift in attitude for these institutes/people, as usually their respons now to requests for data is one of suspicion: "What will you be using it for?". Examples of this were abundant in the discussion at the PolitCamp session. I think this is one more type of gatekeeper we can do without.

In this light I am also looking forward to Reboot, where a session on Free Public Data is proposed.

politcampgraz, barcamp, reboot, statistics, hansrosling, publicdata

Needless To Say

I will be there.