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 available. In a next posting I will go into my story in some more detail.
Tag: reboot10
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./p>