Tuttle Evolution

Lloyd has slapped the official post up on the Tuttle blog so now I can talk a little more about moving the Social Media Cafe (aka The Tuttle* Club) from it’s current home at the Coach and Horses on Greek Street to that other London institution, the ICA.

This is a big deal.

First though a reminder that we’re not leaving the Coach & Horses behind entirely. I found it via Hugh and Lee and then almost a year ago with Dean threw the first London Seesmic party there with Loic, Vinvin and co. I have every intention to continue my patronage and am happy to see other geeks use it on a semi-regular basis outside of the Tuttle for mini meet-ups. Alastair and his staff offer a very unique atmosphere and it’s quite simply one of my favourite venues in London. We’re not finished with it yet.

But the Tuttle club has also grown in that time. I put the success down not only to Lloyd’s hard work and the brilliant people who make up the regulars, but also the fact that we never imposed any rules on the beast. In a very similar way that Twitter has succeeded by asking one simple question that invites a multitude of different replies, the Tuttle succeeds through simplicity: come along and talk about whatever you like.

I think this is why far more than any other event that I attend it’s the Tuttle that has the widest cross-section of attendees. Just last Friday I started the day talking to an artist about the possibility of embedding RFID tags into clay, moved over to a TV presenter who wanted the creative freedom offered by new media and finished as usual watching Whatley perform mobile-surgery on someone’s N95. Each and every Friday morning I never know who I’m going to meet or what I’m going to end up talking about, but I always come away with a sense that I learned something and helped other people out.

So in less than a year we’ve garnered a great reputation and Tuttle has become an accidental brand and a verb. There are Tuttles now in Birmimngham and Brighton with others planned and Social Media Cafes running in the States. People come to us from far and wide and we have yet to have the exact same group turn up twice. There’s always someone new.

Which brings us to the ICA. We’re honoured that it was the Institute of Contemporary Arts that reached out to us. As Lloyd points out, this was all down to Tuttle regular Whatley and Spinvox’s James Scroggs who was kind enough to do the introductions for us after running a great bolt-on at the Tuttle earlier in the year. We had a meeting last week just prior to the Twestival and confirmed the move with Nicole Elias, the Biz Dev Director at the Institute.

That meeting went better than we could have possibly hoped for. Because the ICA only opens its doors to the public at 11am, we’re being allowed earlier access than normal. The cafe will be up and running with coffee, tea and breakfast nibbles. The knock on from all this hospitality is that we can now start talking about working in conjunction with the ICA to utilise not only their facilities, but also to mix with their members and the intensely creative people passing through their doors each day. We’ve already begun to talk about possible projects, but I feel the best way to proceed is get settled in with business as usual and then hold a bolt-on where Tuttlers and the ICA can swap ideas and discuss how we move things forward.

When I first came to London the ICA was one of the places that I was instinctively drawn to. Aside from my own interest in film and the wider arts, they’ve always been keen to host technological events and it’s a dream come true to be a part of the ICA’s future as they continue to celebrate 60 years of activity.

Of course, this will be a change for the Tuttle, but now that we can begin taking the stuff we talk about each week and give it a stage (quite literally in some cases) the scope for the next year is pretty incredible. I’m hoping the transition will be as painless as possible, but if there are any fears that need addressing or questions to raise then please have-to in the comments or come along to our final Tuttle at the C&H on the morning of the 3rd of October and bend my ear accordingly.

And most important of all, please come along to the launch proper of Phase II on Friday October 10th at 10am.

We’re gonna have some fun…

*Note on the image: Tuttle/Turtle/Whatever