Amplified08 Newsletter 2

Amplified 08 Newsletter 2

by @joannejacobs

Well it’s been a blindingly fast start for Amplified08 with all tickets for the event going in about 5 days. If you have registered and now think you won’t be able to go please let us know as there is now a waiting list for people who want to attend.  If you didn’t get a place or if you can’t be part of proceedings though, please be comforted: we plan to live stream as many sessions from the event that we can, and you will be able to follow the back-channel through twitter.  And on that note, we can now say that the official twitter hashtag for the event is #amp08.  You probably guessed that anyway, but we thought it’d be better if at least one formal space made that clear.

Thanks to all those who provided feedback on the first newsletter, and to all those who have offered to add content in to the next editions.  I’m hoping to get two of these out every week.  Today’s edition focuses on the session that @anniemole has registered as a topic for further explanation, as well as some commentary from David Tebbut on the focus of sessions.  Plus there’s some guidelines for participation on the day as well as a basic structure of sessions and the venue.  So let’s get to it….

Venue and Schedule

by @joannejacobs, @sleepydog, @rohan_london

First of all, you can find details of our venue at NESTA on our wiki.

We have essentially 5 separate rooms and one larger conference room which for break-out sessions we can also use for at least 4 if not 5 separate conversations.  There’s also corridors and reception areas that can be used for sessions where necessary.  And we plan on having 3 sets of breakout sessions, so we have room for about 25-30 sessions throughout the event.  It’s up to you to plan ahead for what you would like to discuss and what you would like to prepare for sessions.  We’re allocating 40 minutes to each breakout session, and we don’t want these to be presentations, but rather, conversations. By all means register your interest in hosting a session, and hosts should be prepared to provoke conversation, but it’s not about one person presenting.  See below for participation guidelines, but the objective is for all participants to have a chance to contribute to discussion.

Our schedule is as follows:
3.30 – Arrive and registration
4.00 – Whole group meets to introduce the event and general announcements
4.30 – 1st Breakout Sessions
5.10 – BREAK
5.20 – 2nd Breakout Sessions
6.00 – BREAK
6.10 – Whole group session to feedback on sessions and to plan for Amplified09
6.40 – BREAK
6.50 – 3rd Breakout Sessions
7.30 – BREAK
7.40 – Whole group session to feedback on sessions and to close
8.00 – CLOSE

For those who want to hang about or go to the pub after the event (or join us there if you didn’t score a ticket or can’t make the timing) we’ll be publishing details of where to meet in coming weeks.

Participation guidelines

by @sleepydog

Once again, Amplified08 is designed to be an opportunity to amplify ideas by bringing together people from different social networks and with differing skill-sets.  This way we can share our projects, theories and products across networks and plan ahead for collaborative projects at Amplified09 and Amplified2010.  But in order to achieve that information sharing and collaboration, we felt it was important to come up with some guidelines for participation. This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor is it going to be policed.  It’s also open to your own suggestions for amendment, clarification and expansion.  But it’s a start.

• Two Ears, One Mouth: we ask that your listening to contributing ratio be to listen at least twice as much as you contribute.  Unless there’s only two people in a session this is always possible
• Good, Bad, Interesting, Next: We would love you to think about what’s good, what’s bad and what’s interesting about your session and see if you can articulate that either collectively or individually.  Then if you can have a plan for what comes next that will give us the building blocks for further action.
• #amp08: If you’re tweeting, can you please tag all posts with #amp08.  This makes it easier for us to track conversations during and after the event.
• 1 tweet: If everyone who attends sessions – digitally or physically – can sum up their understandings or response to each session with 1 tweet, this will capture a live zeitgeist of the event.  There’s a bit of controversy over how we hashtag this (see the Amplified08 blog), so feel free to add your commentary.  We may even have to put it to a vote!
• Step Outside your Comfort Zone: Please don’t just join sessions because they are run by people you know.  Try and break out of your current networks and exchange ideas with new people, and join sessions because you find the topics interesting and feel you would like to contribute.  That doesn’t mean you need expertise in a field; anyone who wants to contribute ideas should feel welcome to do so.

Session Focus: The Future of the Book

by @anniemole

Annie Mole comes from the old skool “I love reading – Physical books are wonderful – Kill all e-books” Luddite approach & Billy Abbott is more of a “e-readers look really interesting I want to see how they can enhance my reading” school of thought.  And Chris Meades as Director of if: book London has the practical experience of talking to & working with publishers and authors on the Future of the Book.

We will lead a session looking at some real examples of what’s been going on in this field from an EU and global perspective which should help to open discussions and we’ll be collecting others examples of these technologies & “future of reading and writing” initiatives.

Some ideas for topics to talk about:

• What is the future for the traditional paper book? How will ebooks effect them? What new technologies are there that can push the old skool book & make it even more valuable or make it obsolete?
• What is the future of the ebook? How will they develop over the coming years? What are the pros and cons of their adoption over paper books?
• What is the future of reading? How will the increase in the usage of mobile devices affect the use of  books (both paper and ‘e’)?
• What can we as consumers and creators of books, stories, expreriences & content do to stay current with the trends in books? What should publishers be doing with their IPs? How can authors leverage new technologies to expandtheir readerships?

At the end of the session we’d like to have a record of a bunch of ideas of how we think things are going, what we could and should be doing to stay on top of the changes in books, and how these ideas could lead to publishing projects & challenges for us all.

Annie Mole – http://london-underground.blogspot.com
Billy Abbott -  http://cowfish.org.uk/blog/
Chris Meade – http://www.futureofthebook.org.uk/ http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/

Context is everything!

by @joannejacobs on a suggestion from David Tebbutt

David Tebbutt contacted me this week, and he made an important point about Amplified08.  Here’s some of what he said:

“The discussion is strongly flavoured with advocacy and what works and what doesn’t, but I think that much depends on context. Perhaps that will fall out naturally from the groups represented. But I have a sneaky feeling it won’t, unless it’s encouraged”.

I couldn’t agree more.  Context in terms of the technology/method of communication, the business or service oriented environment in which communication technologies are being used, and the socio-political and economic environments in whcih communication is taking place, can all impact on any methodologies, products or practices which emerge from Amplified08 sessions.  We need to be wary of coming up with too many hard-and-fast rules for technologies or communities, without clearly articulating the contexts where any rules apply.

David has said he is still evolving his thinking on this and he’s said he would like to put something together for us after the event on this, so I’m hopeful that may happen!

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That’s it for this newsletter folks.  Please keep submitting your session focus details to me, and I’ll be happy to add these to the content for the next edition.