Tag: Social Media Surgeries

(Making a) Living on the Edge

So, been quite a while since posting here, that’s what moving to a new city/country will do to you…

Right now I’m doing a gig for Edgeryders which is a joint project of the Council of Europe and the European Commission, led by the Social Cohesion Research and Early Warning Division at the Council of Europe. I’m investigating how people make a living on the edge, or if they do at all – very pertinent (and personal). Here’s what I’m working on:

How can people make a living on the edge as technologies change quicker than regulations and new business models disrupt old standards? While young (and not so young) people are defining a new society through their networked interactions and processes, often the obstacles to their ability to make a living are bureaucratic or outdated ways of doing.

I started off by interviewing Pete Ashton, somebody who who has been creating his own way of making a living for some time now, making it up as he goes along, and along the way coming up with Created in Birmingham and Social Media Surgeries among many other things.

Here’s the first video – head over to Edgeryders for the rest and to read an exhaustive write-up of our conversation. Pete blogged about the experience here.

In other news, I’m moving lots of our other sites to different servers, so you may not find some stuff where it should be here for a while…

PodCamp Gives Back

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(image taken from the presentation "Citilab Model?" by Ramon Sangúesa at I+C+i at CCCB, Barcelona)

So it's pretty late and I'm thinking and watching the world go by on twitter and for some reason PodCamp Barcelona comes to mind. And I've got this idea that all of these incredibly talented, smart, creative, knowledgeable people coming together and sharing is great and that we are creating knowledge and social value with our peers, but it occurs to me that we should take it further. We still have to take an "official" decision about PodCamp Barcelona 2010, but as Cataspanglish we know we want to hold it in El Masnou. So what I'm thinking is that we should give back to the citizens of Masnou who have supported the PodCamp for two years. If all the people who participate in PodCamp are willing I would like to do some concrete things leading up the event itself, Birmingham style Social Media Surgeries, Podcasting workshops, mashup sessions, whatever. Let's share the knowledge and skills we have with the people who are giving us the opportunity to get together – what do you think? Are you in for giving back?