Amplified were invited to join Tuttle in Barcelona on the 18 September 09 and Podcamp on the 19 September. Steve Lawson and Lucy Windmill went on a little SoMeWe adventure…

I arrived in Barcelona on Thursday and spent the day walking around the city, down la Ramblas, to the port, across to the beach… It was a little too breezy for the beach but a number of determined Brits were there, spread-eagled across their towels (“I will get a tan”). Next I walked to ‘Gotica’ (the old Gothic area) which is gorgeous, all winding cobbled streets and little art shops and boutiques, coffee shops and bars set up in hidden court yards. In the evening I had a beer and a little BCN tweetathon as @solobasssteve Lawson had missed his flight and was due to be speaking at Barcelona Tuttle on Friday morning (I’m not much of a public speaker myself!). He managed to get an early flight out on Friday with easyjet (via Twitter – impressed) and I met up with 2 other Barcelona SoMeWe weekenders from out of town – @StefaanLesage from Belgium and @moof for tapas e vino and lots of talking…

Friday it was off to @citilab in the West of the city (Cornella) for Barcelona Tuttle organised by @cataspanglish (Chris Pinchen, who invited us to Barcelona when he came to the Amp09 Midlands event). We met a bunch of amazing people from all different sectors with the common interest of pioneering social media – in education, government, the health service – quite a few PhDs in there! We also met the couple behind @catavino – their mission is to get the vineyard world online (and they organise Twitter wine tasting – very cool). We have a few videos and pics to post up soon.

Tuttle was held at the Citilab – what a fantastic place! I was in venue heaven imaging what we could do with the space. It’s huge!! It’s modern, it’s spacious, it’s flexible and it’s got wi-fi… we need this in London! It’s also doing some great projects of course; Citilab-Cornellà is a workspace dedicated to training and research on new technologies and social innovation, an entrepreneurial hub. And we like it.

Later in the afternoon we did some sightseeing with @moof and @stefaanlesage. We saw the Sagrada Família, a massive, privately-funded Catholic church that has been under construction since 1882 and will not be finished until at least 2026 – but you can walk around inside with the construction going on. (We had a little giggle about the Doozers). It really is spectacular… a Gaudi piece – so intricate and inspired, almost too much to take in from the ground.

We then headed off to the centre to meet @cataspanglish and @anafmora for an evening of more food, wine and laughter (language based! Not sure I will reveal that here – Steve can!).

Up early for Podcamp BCN on Saturday 19th; meeting place confusion and bus driver mistaking 9am with 9pm aside, we arrived in el Masnou. The simultaneous translation was excellent (and necessary!).

Steve did a 45 min slot on Amplified – our boy did good! (more invitations please!). It seemed to go down really well – and he certainly kept the translator on her toes (in fact did they have to change over at half time?!).

I wrote a few blogs on what I saw at Podcamp – some written after the port tasting before lunch and the wine tasting courtesy of @catavino – what a treat. Coming to an Amplified event near you soon – we hope!

by @joannejacobs
Welcome to the third newsletter for Amplified08, with our event only two weeks away!  The finer details of sessions and resources at the venue are now becoming clearer.  We have a very active team of people all doing different things to help make this event something to remember, and with an ever-growing waiting list of participants, there’s a responsibility to ensure that every opportunity to participate is realised.

This edition of the Amplified08 newsletter focuses on what we need for the day, and on the kinds of things that YOU can do help make Amplified08 a success.  We have a couple of sessions for the day given a bit more detail, as well as a list of groups represented at Amplifed08.

What’s happening and what’s needed
by @loudmouthman

We’re in the process of collating resources so we can stream as many sessions as possible online during the event.  Phil Campbell has agreed to provide us with his ‘Ammo Boxes‘ which he assembled for use at PodcampUK, and we’re now trying to work out how to courier these across.  But we could always do with a few more microphones and webcams, so if anyone else is willing to provide these at the event, we may be able to hook these up to the backbone at NESTA, leaving the wireless bandwidth free for much tweeting, blogging and idea sharing at the event.  Please let @loudmouthman know if you have any tech you can provide for us at the event.

The public wifi access available at NESTA can support Flash sites and Second life, so we’re planning to have the event accessible through SL.  However, we are aware that the bandwidth may fill up fairly quickly so we’re talking to some possible providers of additional public bandwidth at the event.  Again, if you or your business contexts are prepared to support Amplified08 in providing more bandwidth, please let us know.

Finally, we are keen to reward people for their fast action in registering and participating in this event.  If you have technology products or services, gizmos, gadgets and other marketing goodies that you’re prepared to donate to Amplified08 either as part of the ’showbag’ participants get on arrival, or as a door prize at the event, please could you get in touch?  We promise to be very grateful indeed!

The important stuff: Food and drinks
by @joannejacobs and @rohan_london

Rohan from NESTA has confirmed that NESTA will be providing tea and coffee and bickies on arrival at NESTA at 3:30pm, and that there will indeed be beer, wine, juice and nibblies from 6-8pm.  After the event concludes, there’s also been a general suggestion of retiring to a pub somewhere for further drinks and perhaps even the odd spot of dinner.  We haven’t settled on a venue for the after-party yet, but stay tuned for more on that…

Session Focus: Cockroach Economics – Credit-crunch strategy, open chat suggestion
by James Cherkoff

Paul Graham, super-hacker and founder of the Silicon Valley VC Y-Combinator recently wrote about recession. “Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.  For years I’ve been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world.  The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill.”

Is the cockroach-approach the right way ahead?

James’s blog on this issue.

Session Focus: Bretton Woods 2.0 – how social media and open source collaboration can assist the governance and regulation of financial markets and society
by Paul Massey

This weekend, the G20, World Bank, UN and IMF are meeting to discuss ways out of the current financial crisis.   The meeting is billed as the start of a process of institutional reform; a Bretton Woods .   Amongst the possible roadmaps, Robert Zoellick, the World Bank President, has suggested “a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy“.   The statement demonstrates how fundamental social media has become to our lives.   However, is Robert Zoellick right and is the world ready for Bretton Woods 2.0?  This session will discuss the potential of converging technologies, collaborative social media and open source to tackle the converging social, economic and environmental challenges of C21.

Could Facebook be a useful model or is the Holy Grail an open source kernel, lying hidden in Cyberspace, waiting to render multilateral reform?   Hopefully after the session we can connect with Mr. Zoellick and provide perspectives from social media practitioners in the UK.

Bretton Woods – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
Zoellick: Break Up the Group of Seven – Business Week article

* Editor’s note: I’m still looking for more sessions to be elaborated in these newsletters.  3 more chances, folks, so get your descriptions in now!


Some of the groups participating in Amplified08
by @joannejacobs
Some people have been asking who is participating in Amplified08 and what groups they come from.  You can now view the names of the people who will be attending at the EventBrite page.  As for the gorups, this is by no means a full list but it’s a start.  We’re happy to profile more groups in these newsletters if you’re prepared to submit your details!

Creative Coffee Club: http://creativecoffeeclub.com/
Tuttle Club (Social Media Cafe): http://tuttleclub.wordpress.com/
Social Media Camp: http://www.socialmediacamp.co.uk/
Social Media Mafia: http://socialmediamafia.com/
Minibar: http://www.meetup.com/minibar/calendar/8229093/?eventId=8229093&action=detail
Facebook developer Garage: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5282952746
2Gether08: http://2gether08.com/
Mobile Geeks of London: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2821560179
London Wiki Wednesday: http://www.socialtext.net/wikiwed/index.cgi?london
chinwag: http://www.chinwag.com/
One Media: http://www.one-media.org/
Fresh Networks: http://www.freshnetworks.com/
Social Innovation Camp: http://www.sicamp.org/
Likemind: http://likemind.us

And that concludes Newsletter 3. Please keep submitting your session focus details to us, and we’ll be happy to add these to the content for the next edition.

Please note that even if you have registered your interest on the wiki this does NOT guarantee you a place at Amplified08.  ONLY an EventBrite registration will enable you to participate.

We have 36 tickets left and still haven’t promoted ticket sales via this blog so if you want to be part of things please register now.

Luckily Christian Payne was on hand to catch the attendees so we can put some faces (and voices) to our friends in the Midlands:

I’m hoping to see some of these faces on the 27th. Be interesting to find out what cool stuff I’m missing out on by being reluctant to leave Zone 1…

Steve is certainly what I’d call an amplified individual (doubly so when his bass is plugged in). You can hear some of his personal story right here. Also check out the other N96 World Tour videos here and read about it on the Nokia conversations site and Steve’s blog.