Met creative guru Stef today for a blast of geekery, initiated and punctuated by the magic of Twitter. He was seeing off a DOS attack when I dropped in at the somewhat unfamiliar Mailbox. I didn’t take notes but he tweeted a few ideas. Every time I made an striking suggestion my hip seemed to buzz a few seconds later. Could have been a subtle Pavlovian experiment.
Anyway, here are a few highlights, for the record. Not necessarily in order or totally reliable but there you go.
We started by talking about SXSW (nicknamed ‘south by’ though I first misheard it as South Park). Podcasts were used to capture a lot conversations that, I guess, might have been lost otherwise. I’m a big fan of transcribing them as soon as possible, even if it’s just selected fragments, and Stef demonstrated how this could be elegantly done in Viddler.
A big thing brought back to Brum from SXSW was how to make the city better for the creative geeky types, i.e. us. Spaces where laptop-wielding freelancers can perch have been noted for being scarce and deficient. We brainstormed some kind of mashup site where users could add and review hotspots, commenting not just on the wifi quality but the coffee, power availability and general ambiance. Nothing like league tables to prod establishments in the right direction. With more resources, we could set up some kind collective coworking space.
We talked about zombie sub-acquaintancies and crowds. Hashtags and other Twitter hacks. Overloaded life-streaming and the need for life ‘dams’. And a bunch of other stuff that eludes me right now…
Good stuff. Roll on more serendipitous meetings!