(un)book about books and unbooks
Jeremy's finished The Little Book Of Bookcamp and you can get one from blurb. (Above is just a screengrab, you can't click on that and buy anything, but wouldn't it be handy if you could?)
It's not just a good record of the day, it seems like the sort of thing that any worthwhile gathering should/will be making from now on. Far more useful than brochure and blurb for a future conference. Just show people the book of the last one.
soon
Only a couple of days until Interesting Portland, if you're going to be around, you should go. Some tickets still left.
sunlight on the stairs
This, plus Kool And The Gang, right cheered me up this morning.
slow writing
Most of the writing I've done in my life has been on blogs. I'm used to typing live to the web. Not much reflection. No editing. No worries about timeliness or, frankly, factual accuracy. Starting to write for Campaign was a real shock, I have to deliver copy on a Monday morning, it doesn't appear until Thursday. It used to terrify me. What if whatever I'd written about was somehow overtaken by events in those three days? So you learn to hedge your bets a little. Not to rely on high speed blog linkage and all that.
And now I'm writing a column for Wired UK and all the anxiety's returned. Monthly magazine deadlines are really long. And once it's gone, it's gone. The first piece I've done is a mostly flippant thing about cults of productivity and the power of distraction. (It's not online anywhere but I'll ask them if they mind me sticking it up here.) And as soon as I sent if off (which was back in December) I started seeing things which undermined, altered or disproved my case. Or, even worse, said the same thing but better.
So, for each piece, I thought I'd try and offer a list of the links that inspired it, the ones that I wish I'd read before I'd sent it, and the ones that subsequently proved me an idiot.
The starting point was this fantastic piece from The Guardian - talking about how email is as addictive as a fruit machine. The rather slender conceit I came up with was that this could maybe be seen as a good thing, that if someone had announced a productivity tool with the fun and appeal of gaming or gambling that'd be seen as a triumph.
I also talked a about the internet's peculiar obsession with Focus, Productivity and the whole Life Hacking thing. And how I thought this was silly and rather narrow and that interruptions were a Good Thing, only to subsequently discover that I'd not read the definitive piece on Life Hacking. (And it was by Clive Thompson - about the only advice the Wired folk gave me was to try and be as good as him.) And that's it full of much more insightful thoughts about interruption. Ah well.
I also wish I'd been able to cite Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains and pick apart some of it's assumptions. But I probably wouldn't have done it as expertly as Paul and Vaughn have done.
And I'd probably have tried to co-opt this report on how Spending Time Online Is Essential For Young People and this one about how Facebook and Youtube Boost Productivity.
Er. I think that's it for that one. I was sure their were more. Oh well.
Anyway. I hope you enjoy Wired UK. They seem really committed to doing something genuinely good and different and the whole experience has been a pleasure (except for the picture of me on top of the column). I'll try and get the piece up soon and then maybe the links above will make more sense.
talking of the layering of time on geography...
...this is a picture I took in 1985, not a good one, obviously. I just found it the other day. It's the electricity substation on the jitty between Carsington Crescent and Kedleston Road in Derby ('jitty' being East Midlands slang for alley or ginnel). I used to walk past this a lot as a kid, on my way into town or down to the bus stop. And the words 'Mackworth Tich Boot Boys' have stuck in my head over the years, while not making any sense to me. And I've only just figured out that they're actually two separate bits of graffiti stuck, accidentally, together. It must be quite old graffiti too, it was written there for as long as I remember it. And I think of Boot Boys as a 60s or 70s phenomenon, not of the 80s. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, the other day, I was walking past there again and took this with my iPhone. It's the same substation, with fresh, not much more competent graffiti. Though of course now the picture is geotagged, uploaded and out in the wild. So this picture anchors the history of the other one on the map.
possible dates for your diary
Various people have been asking about whether we're going to be Interesting again this summer. So here's the news.
Interesting Sounds is happening on April 26th at the Arnolfini in Bristol. Unfortunately (and I feel a bit of a heel about this) I can't be there, because of work stuff. But it's still happening, all sorts of interesting people have got in touch about it and I think it's going to be rather special. I'll have some more news on that shortly.
I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to do Interesting in the summer again. It's been good for two years, it seemed unlikely we'd get lucky three times in a row. And by the time I'd worked out what to do instead the Conway Hall was already booked for all of June and July. Oops.
So, instead, for the summer I thought maybe we could just have a picnic instead. June 20th. Regent's Park. No talks. No agenda. No programme. Nothing provided. Just turn about at about noon, have a picnic, other people you might know might be there. That's the thought anyway, I'll think more about it and let you know.
BUT - something more like a more proper event will definitely be happening at the Conway Hall on September 12th.
And since I didn't just want to do Interesting again, this time it's going to be called Useful.
Same format, same costs, same almost everything. Except this time I'm going to try and find speakers who can say something we'll all find Useful. (As well as interesting.) In my head I'm thinking of a set of 'how-tos for the next ten years'. Something like that.
(Please note: this is absolutely not any kind of reaction to a new mood of austerity and utility sweeping the nation in these straightened times or any such nonsense. I just fancied a change.)
Tickets will go on sale at some point. Speakers will be announced similarly. I just wanted you to be able to pop dates in your diary should you need to. And if you fancy talking please drop me a line: useful at russelldavies.com
stuff, changing, not changing
Here's an ad from the eighties. It struck me how most of the stuff in our houses hasn't changed much in twenty / thirty years. And how the technology stuff has changed massively. Not an original thought, but this made it visible for me.
lyddle without end
Brilliant Lyddle End things continue to be done. These are particularly splendid. But some people still need a bit of extra time, so I'm extending the deadline to the middle of April. Though actually that's when the Easter holidays are. Let's say after Easter. Let's say the 20th. Get them done by then, and get them to me or get them on flickr and on the blog. Then we'll work out how to collide them all together.