This is where the story really begins...

Posted Sat Jul 05 06:26:09 -0700 2008

My thanks to Steve Moore and all the folk at Channel 4 for making this event possible. It was a great opportunity to meet a lot of interesting and talented individuals. Will be following developments with interest, and pitching in if I see something I can help with (especially anything to do with developing virtual communities of practice). Looking forward to the next steps....whatever they are!


Thanks Steve - I would appreciate any thoughts from you and others on how you felt networking went here on the Crowdvine platform, and what might be useful in future. Two issues particularly interest me. First how to help people keep moving with ideas and opportunities, and so avoid the feeling of potential unrealised that Lloyd Davis wrote about. Or will things always be flat after the party?
Second, are videos good "social objects" around which to continue conversations. We have about 20 hours of recordings from sessions, which can be shown (with some effort on editing etc). That's a useful archive ... can it be more?
Maybe the answer is to try things, see what happens, look out for things turning up. I found Crowdvine as a result of a chance recommendation from Gavin Bell at Geekyoto, and only made contact with Richard Jolly the week before 2gether08.

 

I think that Crowdvine has served a purpose in bringing people and conversations together in preparation for the 2gether08 event, and as a record of the event itself, but I don't get sense of community purpose here. Maybe that's not the intention though - i.e. more of a place to dip in and out of fairly transient conversations and to keep in touch. The videos will serve to provide a more compelling, dynamic and accurate record of the event than the published word or spoken anecdotes, so yes, there is some potential to use them to ensure that conversations continue. From a personal perspective, I'm left slightly confused as to what is now expected of the participants, other than to follow up on any personal connections made at the event. Perhaps it's just me, but I don't yet feel that the whole has been greater than the sum of the parts. I guess we all have a duty in that respect though - wisdom of crowds etc.

 

Steve - I'll be chatting to Steve Moore and the rest of the team about "what's next", and I know there will be more than 2gether09 in mind. However, the spirit of 2gether08 has been co-creation, so it is substantially a matter of what we want to make of connections and content so far. Wearing a social reporter hat, I'm interested in the appropriate nature of light-touch animation at this stage. I may say more later ...

 

Steve - all
Steve Moore has posted thoughts on what's next for 2gether08 on the main site, inviting ideas. I've pitched in with "open franchise".