I was invited on to the BBC World Service this morning to chat about why I ditched Facebook. Not sure when it’ll air, but if they send me a link I’ll throw it up on the blog.

Everyone I’ve ever met who works in BBC radio is lovely by the way.

About two months ago Christian and I were invited into Thomson Reuters to help cover a Newsmaker event with Gordon Brown – it turned out to be a pretty big deal. Tomorrow we’re back at Canary Wharf for a similar event:

So yeah, this time out it’ll be David Cameron taking the podium. Christian has already mentioned that the Conservatives have taken the lead here when it comes to social media, which is fascinating when you consider how the Obama campaign recently spread itself equally across old and new media to get its message of change across. Politically I’m way too far over to the left to consider Cameron a good choice for PM (not that I’m a fan of Blair and Brown either – such a shame we lost John Smith) but I am interested in how huge institutions, used to playing on their own terms, adapt and evolve when confronted with the new.

I’d love to find out how stuff like this goes down with them too:

There was an interesting mess recently when it was revealed that the Twitter user ‘Tony Benn‘ wasn’t in fact Tony Benn at all. Jemima over at the Guardian covered the hoo-ha here. Significantly the account was given over to the real Tony Benn’s office after the intervention of Twitter users as well. A brilliant example of self policing I think – as opposed to the fuck up that is the FaceBook (spit) policy of insisting that everyone use their ‘real’ name in the first place.

So what can we expect tomorrow? I have no idea. We went into the Gordon Brown event hoping for some one-on-one time, but everything was pushed back an hour and that put an end to that idea. We’re assured that David Cameron will be taking questions following his speech not only from the journalists in the room, but also from Twitter. We’ll see if we can push that particular envelope and this time out we have both Phil Campbell and Nik Butler on board to help. I won’t get into the pissing contest over Le Web that others are involved in, but I can certainly say that watching the event remotely via Phil’s Rezpondr vastly improved the experience over simply watching the often dull talks on stage. Nik has also been busy creating a new Twitter application (Tweetarator) and we should be using both of these tomorrow.

Lots of Twittering then, some photos and video too. Can’t guarantee how much of everything that goes in will be seen by the politicians. but I do know that as last time Reuters will be watching the response very carefully. Do try and join if you get the chance.

Politics aside then the important thing to recognise here is what an incredibly interesting choice Reuters have made in setting these opportunities up.

As I said last time – I’m not a journalist. That hasn’t changed so why do Reuters think it’s a good idea to let us into these things? There’s a reputation stake here – most of the big news agencies now have a toe in the social media water (or are chugging down the kool-aid if you think this is all rather insignificant). Reuters pride themselves on being cutting edge and I know @ilicco is full of stories that point this out (my own favourite being how a Reuters reporter got a story back home via an N95 after his equipment had been destroyed by armed rebels out in Africa). That sounds like the kind of thing that Christian himself used to get up to and his online reputation as a social media expert is secure. I prefer to think of him as an adventurer – it’s good that he now gets the chance to speak directly to organisations about what he does, but it’s a lot more fun watching him out in the field.

Last time out I got branded as a social media guru by Reuters and that’s the only false step they made. It’s not a bad thing for my profile of course, but the reality here is that I’m trying to pull down badges like that for the same reason I despise the term ‘rock star’ on Twitter. That’s not to say we’re not all redefining our roles via these applications.

I attended an event at De Montfort University a few months ago in which Andrea Savieri from The Institute for the Future gave a presentation on the way work was evolving and she had a bash at predicting some of of the roles that would come into being (I videoed the talk and should ask her if it’s OK to post it online). The point is that we’re all pioneers right now. It’s as difficult for me to pigeonhole what I do as it is for others to name it. That’s why I tend to go with the classic catch-all of writer (it’s when I get asked what I write that I get a headache).

If we’re not actively trying to change things ourselves then we’re still having them change around us. If adaptation is the name of the game then Reuters are very good at it. Not everyone we spoke to internally understood why we’d been asked in, but everyone seemed excited at doing something in a new way. In turn we got to see first hand how an international news institution gets into gear for such an event. Hopefully with less of a security aspect tomorrow (which is why we’re able to talk about it in advance) we can show more of what goes on away from the podium.

Adding social media to the mix then adds a certain value to what was already an interesting event. It doesn’t have to be news based of course. If you think about the fun I’ve had with film promotion it always boils down to an attempt to remove some barriers. More of this sort of thing to come (perhaps as soon as Thursday) and perhaps a chance to get an even closer look at one of the big news agencies in 2009. I’ll keep you posted.

Last Wednesday was what felt like the beginning of a new season of Creative Coffee Club. While the Leicester branch closed over the summer, our regular London meet-up has kept ticking over, but with a skeleton crew. I didn’t make them all myself and on a couple of occasions we were down to just two or three attendees, but that hardly mattered as the quality of conversation was always top notch. Everything from artificial intelligence to insider’s views on the film and music industry, more often than not with a social media application or solution.

Two weeks ago we tried something a little different by offering up a theme in advance. Normally a couple of topics naturally surface and we chew them over, but having a little more direction helped to get us under steam a little earlier. I really enjoyed that discussion (despite arriving late) as The Future of Television is something I’m particularly interested in right now. The nice thing about the people who are drawn to both the CCC and SMC are that they are not merely commentators – more than once a laptop is pulled out and we get to see how people are doing their bit to shape the future of something.

This week the numbers swelled back to their pre summer heights (no pun intended) and the proposed topic went out the window as the large group splintered off. I maybe got to speak to half the people present which is a good sign. At the Tuttle on Fridays I speak to a lot less than that – the busier the better in my book. Both the Social Media Cafe and the Creative Coffee Club are the healthiest regular events that I attend. By  healthy I don’t mean that they’re just well attended, notably they also attract new blood so are never in danger of getting stale. Fresh views and opinions also help prevent an echo chamber from forming, while constantly explaining to new faces why it is we gather and what we do there helps to keep these events in focus.

New to the group last week was Mario Cacciottolo from Someone Once Told Me. Make with the clicky on that link today and you’ll see my ugly mug. Don’t panic though, there’s a new photo every day so I’ll soon get shuffled backwards. Mario also snapped off a few more Creative Coffee types including Lloyd and Steve and as Mario is very keen to see the project thrive independently of him, I’m hoping to rope in a few more Tuttlers to take part too. All you need is a camera and a sentence…

Tomorrow sees CCC Leicester waking up so I’m getting an early train to take part in that too. With new Social Media Cafes popping up in the UK and the US it looks like the next few months are going to be a lot of fun. It’d be nice to keep an eye on all these seperate events because despite the division geographically I’m pretty confident that some of the topics, and perhaps members, will overlap.

I’m thinking a lot right now about how we can move the conversations to another level. I love the coffee and the chat, but it’d be nice to see if we can make a few things happen. Be a shame to waste the ideas that flow across the venues as the people that gather in them are way smarter than me. I think we are making small steps in that direction already and I have just one more meeting with Lloyd to confirm that the Tuttle will enter stage 2 on October 10th. Not a massive transition, but something akin to having the stabilisers removed from the social media bicycle.

This is a great time to dip your toes into this particular pool if you haven’t already. Come along to a Creative Coffee or Tuttle meeting – if we’re too far afield from you or the weekday early mornings or a stretch then start your own. On Thursday evening I’ll be at the Twestival (great idea, horrible name) so feel free to bend my ear on some of this or if the music is too loud we can just make frantic hand gestures at each other across the room…

Had no idea what to call this post and then iTunes coughed up Turn The Page by Bob Seger. Great song – Metallica covered it on Garage, Inc but with a lot less saxamaphone.

Or How YouTube got its groove back (for me anyway).

These days I jump from one video platform to another and because it was Seesmic that first wooed me to the possibility of online video I’ve tended to ignore YouTube. I’ve just become convinced that this was a mistake. I did have a little alarm bell go off a while ago when I found out about this project to use a community to make a zombie movie. YouTube having a community was news to me. All I ever saw were a handful of good videos, a lot of mess and a truly anti-community inspired comment fueled torrent of badly spelled abuse. And yet here was Bryony tapping into her community on YouTube. I had to wait for Seesmic to come along and get in there early to find something similar.

One of several videos that I did first appreciate through YouTube was The Machine is Us/ing Us. I’ve been following Mike Wesch’s work since, as it taps into the reading I’ve been doing around Ken Robinson (I never bother linking directly to Ken Robinson’s website because ironically it’s hideous and a pain to use), the Network of Networks I’m involved with, the Cool Curve and a small large stack of notes I’ve been making. Today I saw a new video go up on the Digital Ethnography website and it’s a keeper.

It’s not short though. In fact it’s almost an hour long, but trust me. If you only watch one thing today watch An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. Don’t be put off by the length or title. It’s important, funny and heart warming.

It covers the impact of YouTube and the importance of how we connect, the importance of Creative Commons and self generated organisation as the new model for a distribution network that we’ve created.

It also points out how all that money ($3.6 million) spent on Super Bowl ads was beaten by a guy in his basement in Kansas collaborating with another guy on the Ivory Coast for no money at all. This I think is key to what everyone involved in Web 2.0/New Media/Social Media is attempting to do. It’s not rocket science, it’s simply bringing the right people together at the right time regardless of geogrpahy and timezones, ignoring the traditional routes which usually hemorrhage money.

Mike defines media as the mediating of human relationships and that line alone made me happy to be working in this field. That he went on to talk about networked individualism and the importance of the invisible audience leading to context collapse was just gravy. This is really important observational work into a medium that is largely ignored, treated like traditional TV or just ripped off my marketeers.

Mike understands and more importantly manages to reveal the paradox that with online video everybody is watching at the same time that nobody is there, that the most private becomes the most public and how wonderful that can be. He also offers a very concise explanation of the ‘go die in a fire’ comment storms that put so many people off YouTube.

And despite the length and that this could have been a very traditional style TED conference video, Mike roped in his students and broke the talk up into endearing but important work culled from YouTube itself (and he even finds a way to allow his students some fun, extra credit and thanks).

I decided to forgo the PowerPoint and instead worked with students to prepare over 40 minutes of video for the 55 minute presentation. This is the result:

Crossposted on Network of Networks

More Black Swannage:

Sir Francis Bacon commented that the most important advances are the least predictable ones, those “lying out of the path of the imagination”. Bacon was not the last intellectual to point this out. The idea keeps popping up, yet then rapidly dying out. Almost half a century ago the best selling novelist Arthur Koestler wrote an entire book about it, aptly called The Sleepwalkers. It describes discoverers as sleepwalkers stumbling upon results and not realising what they have in their hands.

I don’t like the idea of being a sleepwalker. I don’t really like the idea of sleeping full stop. But this accidental discoverer concept is very interesting right about now (and always has been – even when out of vogue).

I’ve been doing a lot of talking with Toby Moores of late which has lead to us working together on a number of ideas. Tomorrow we’re meeting at the Creative Coffee Club with more like-minded folk to talk about creating a Network of Networks. Come along if you’re free and in London – the details are here.

What interests me about Toby and relates indirectly to what Taleb is saying about inadvertent discoveries is the space we work in. Toby likes to think of traditional media as self contained silos – I prefer to call them islands. We have a slightly different vocabulary but we both end up at the same conclusion. Being secluded is not healthy.

This buildings of walls, these self imposed sanctions are ridiculously short sighted, but they do provide a fun space between these islands and silos for some of us to work in. Toby’s company for example, found a way for the music industry silo and the gaming industry fortress to overlap slightly. And everyone benefits. I’m doing my damnedest to bring the film industry kicking and screaming into the social media space. We both operate in the limbo between companies that is often seen as just that. A no mans land.

Here be monsters/flat earth etc… you can see why I prefer the islands analogy. There are even pirates and sharks out here, but the most interesting place to be is on the speedy little boats that operate out in the blue. And like Black Swans every now and again a couple of Black Ships drop anchor offshore and things change forever.

The important thing is to remember what Taleb warns about. There’s a lot of cool stuff out here. It’s difficult to instantly see the benefits of some of this stuff especially when great new apps, platforms and indeed people are added to the mix every day. The trick is not to get sleepy eyed.

Staying awake is a skill.