Digital Believer 2.0

Jimmy Wales got me thinking

2011-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia was in Bristol last week and I popped along to see him at the Victoria Rooms at Bristol University.

I’ve been ‘playing’ with the Internet now for 15+ years and remember when Wikipedia arrived so I feel like I have some kind of affinity with the living web rock legend given the timing of Wikipedia’s launch.

Back then the internet wasn’t mainstream and I felt it was treated with mild contempt in traditional marketing and media circles.

Jimmy came along and pioneered the idea of collaborative working online - much in the same way this group plans to share ideas I guess.

A standout moment for me in Jimmy’s talk had to be that he was really “proud” that Google had pulled out of China, just as a proud father would be. This really emphasised that the 600-strong physical audience and 3000+ internet audience really was in the presence of one of the great internet forefathers.

I go to quite a few conferences throughout the year. I see presenters who have made millions, sometimes billions out of the internet yet stood before us was a dreamer, a blue sky-er who had an idea and ran with it. He didn’t have the Google billions/private 737s but he did have an amazing idea that became a reality.

As with so many things that become ubiquitous it is easy to forget someone had to come up with an idea and then run with it. Jimmy did this and has created something only possible in the Internet age.

This talk was part of a huge #wp10 international roadshow Jimmy had been undertaking so the presentation was fairly straightforward but the passion and real love of the Wikipedia community he clearly has really came across.

There were also plenty of subtle undertones to how he spoke. Asked at the Q&A stage what he thought to net neutrality, Jimmy actually identified the advent of closed operating environments such as Apps as being an even bigger threat to the original Utopian dream of open access internet for all.

He cited Apple in particular as being a key ‘pinch’ point within the current app ecosystem. He mentioned how he worried that his children may never experience the thrill of the traditional coding process.

I’d heard similar musings made by Tim Berners-Lee on his talk at the We-Do lectures. It then got me thinking that it could be relevant to this group.

I grew up playing with BC-108 transistor circuit boards, coding in Commodore 64 basic and then BBC Basic – trying to get games published in the geeky computer magazine press (I got one horse racing game that used the randomiser function of the C64 chip published - that was it!). This then evolved into early HTML and so on.

So that begs the question: are the young of today set to miss out on an entire period of creativity because systems have become so highly evolved/dumbed down?

Personally I don’t think they will. As bandwidth (including mobile) and local processing power continue to increase it simply means that what was previously impossible becomes possible.

Much in the same way Brunel’s broad gauge railway, which some have cited as being an early version of electrification (an engine being propelled by a remote energy source), was restricted by medium of steam itself.

Now with Moore’s law onside, bandwidth a plenty (Nielsen’s law!) and mass market adoption of all things digital, the role of a creative technologist really does seem rather exciting. Applications of technology in creative ways after all is nothing new.

What do you think?

Awsome signage in an Italian near Waterloo

2009-12-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

LOVED this sign, classic!

My Twitter cloud

2009-11-29T06:49:00.001-08:00

Rather cool little site using the Twitter API that generates a cloud from said tweets.

Have to say I'm rather amused to see the dominance of 'dude' and of course 'beer' in mine. Distinct dominance of surfing mentions though, hmm 2010 shall be the year of surf.

Check the site out here.

My new wheels

2009-11-17T14:10:00.001-08:00

Picked her up today. So pleased!

Dear Google Latitude

2009-11-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not currently in the middle of Bristols floating harbour....

Triangulation sure has it's limitations eh, still clever stuff and to think none of this R&D would be happening if they didn't have the cash cow that is Google Adwords.

Google suggest classics

2009-10-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Following on from this excellent Telegraph article on the alternative searches and volume numbers Google offers when searching (also know as Google suggest) the search guys in the office got working on these very amusing variations... I'm now desperate to turn these into T shirts, who's in?

Dartmoor riding

2009-10-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the elevation profile from Saturdays amazing Dartmoor ride, that was some climbing we did! (higher than Snowdon):

Few pics from the ride as well... mine and Toms.

Woo!

Twitter on Questiontime

2009-10-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching 'the' BBC Questiontime with a certain obscure European Parliament member with far right views an an acronym starting with B.

I cant face even typing the acronym as I don't want Googles spider to spot one more mention of the abhorrent acronym.

Anyway tonight's show highlighted my latest use of Twitter and the #bbcqt hashtag. This is now the 4th week I've sat through the show and contributed to the hashtag.

Just really makes a broadcast experience suddenly immersive and interactive. Give it a go - it does go a long way to explaining the whole micro blogging phenomenon.

Official Google Blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

2009-10-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

Official Google Blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

Dodos play Thekla

2009-09-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

Popped along to the Thekla here in Bristol last week to check out the Dodos playing their new material.

Really great set, especially bearing in mind they are in the midst of a mahosive world tour.

Crazy fusion of folk/acoustic/vocal_ness vs thrash metal drummer / Sigor Ros style surreal soundscape from the percussionist.

This is their new album on Spotify and my current favourite track and a golden oldie off their old album.

Play me I'm yours

2009-09-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Took this on Friday night in Stoke Croft, Bristol. Suuuuch a good idea! More on the event in Bristol which has 16 pianos around Bristol at http://www.streetpianos.com/bristol2009/

Swedish House Mafia at Cafe Del Mar

2009-09-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

Delayed publishing of this pic from the recent Ibiza mission. Swedish House Mafia in da house!

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions

2009-09-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

Very cool inscription on this bench we found whilst walking the Bath Skyline walk yesterday...

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions

Welcome to my new blog

2009-08-31T02:28:00.000-07:00

More to come soon - I managed to delete my old blogger account whilst sorting Google login issues!