If you’re young and into tech then DFEY-NW could be the group for you.
Digital Freedom in Education & Youth – North West is a group focusing on young people and issues of freedom in the digital world, based in this region and has being building up an active community since last year.
One of the founders, Tim Dobson explained the thinking behind the group on his blog: “About a year ago, I found myself in a unique position – I was a 17 year old active in a local group of people interested in these kinds of aspects, but everyone else was at least five years older than me. Initially that didn’t bother me at all, I was treated as an adult and was happy “acting” like one. The anonymity of just being “a name” on the internet, paid off for me that time.
“Soon however, I saw that the adult members in another group were – in my opinion – talking down to two young group members. It was clear to me, that without supportive or interested people of their own age, they would soon become demoralised and leave.
“Ben Webb and I had considered our experiences in our different schools and came to the conclusion that schools were very restrictive of how young people could use computers. That instead of letting the computers be open platforms for learning, they locked down and their use strictly regulated This, we believe – and speaking from experience – is detrimental to our education.
“In June, Ben and I set up DFEY, to provide a social space, and a supportive, stimulating atmosphere for those interested in the same things – issues of computer freedom.
The group now has about 35 people on its mailing list, an active IRC channel and a slowly increasing number of microbloggers using the hashtag:#dfey as well as organising regular events.
If you’re young (undergraduate age or younger) and want to find out more about the group’s activities, contact Tim team@nw.dfey.org.
A masterclass from Grammy-nominated American digital artist Aaron Koblin is one of the highlights of the summer programme just announced by Creative Industries Trafford. Aaron, who worked on the video for House of Cards by Radiohead, is an an artist specializing in data visualization. He says his work “takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to examine cultural trends and emergent patterns”. There’s examples of his work here and he will be discussing his work and career to date during the session in Sale next month. Creative Industries Trafford is also building on the work it carried out with TV scriptwriters in the last 12 months by bringing back Writing For TV workshops. These are delivered by freelance producer Ric Michael (formerly of Baby Cow TV) alongside Jayne Brierley a producer who has developed many shows for BBC, Granada, Channel 4 and Sky. There’s also events for visual artists, photographers, anyone who wants to learn about Web 2.0 and video podcasting and a talk from Joe Simpson, whose exhibition Almost There is currently running at Waterside Arts Centre in Sale. The scheme run by Trafford Council is now in its fourth year of delivering events and training for artists and creative workers. Full details of the programme can be found online at www.creativeindustriestrafford.org. The site also features downloadable MP3s and PDFs featuring information from key events and interviews with Trafford-based artists such as the musician & DJ Mike Joyce and the comedian John Warburton. Events are held at Waterside Arts Centre in Sale and Let’s Go Global in Old Trafford. To book, ring 0161 912 5616. Summer 2009 Programme
May 12th – Aaron Koblin Masterclass
May 13th – Do You Really Want To Do This? #1 (photographers’ event)
May 18th – Writing & Pitching For TV
May 20th – Trafford Artists Network Meeting with talk by Joe Simpson
June 3rd – Do You Really Want To Do This? #2 (photographers’ event)
June 10th – How To Approach Galleries
June 17th – Introduction To Video Podcasting
July 7th – Writing & Pitching For TV (re-run)
July 9th – Introduction To Social Media Software
A Manchester man has become half of the sofa surfing, problem solving duo for WKDs new interactive feature Kev ‘n’ Dave.
25-year-old ‘Kev’, Chris Wright , from Carrbrook is online to answer all those burning questions you might have of two blokes at home.
A spokeswoman for the company said: “We know that 118 is no help when it comes to those crucial conundrums that mates debate in pubs all over the country. Like, who is the fittest page 3 girl? Or, how do you do the running man and manage to retain an ounce of credibility?
“The lads will respond to your every whim, but be warned, if you want to know what Kev’s thoughts are on economic recovery he might recommend you go for a fry up, turn your phone off and go back to bed. “
WKD is hoping this feature will set a new benchmark for interactive content. Having played around with it for five minutes, I’d say four would be sufficient to see all it has to offer but let me know what you think, after all I’m unlikely to be its target audience.
Made me think back to the old subservientchicken.
Have a good weekend!
By Paul Robinson
A confession/disclosure: I know this blogger personally. That said, so does virtually any regular of The Cornerhouse and the entire Arts Faculty at MMU. Even Sarah mentioned him on her food blog. However, as I haven’t posted anything recently to join the musings of my colleagues, I figured I would nominate another infrequent blogger for your attention.
A couple of years ago, Robert Hamilton explained his idea to me over a lager (in aforementioned Cornerhouse): “a journal and food diary for reluctant tourists and lazy foodies like me. The idea developed out of a chance remark I made to a friend last year. Friend: Where did you go on your holidays? Me: Lunch.”
Sounds like the story of my life. Us Mancunians are an over-worked and lazy population, aren’t we? And yet we have one of the highest immigrant populations in Europe. There has got to be some good eating out there beyond the curry mile and Chinatown, right?
And so it was that Around the World in 80 Dinners was conceived. He admits that this project – to have a meal from 80 different countries within Manchester – is actually physically impossible. In fact, at the time I think I suggested I would be amazed if he got cuisine from 30 different countries out of the Chinese and Asian dominated local culinary scene.
But that hasn’t stopped him trying. He has on occasion strayed beyond the city limits, and I would (and did at the time!), argue his trip to a “Canadian Steak House” doesn’t count, but he has so far clocked up 45 dinners and enough calories across all those meals to keep a pack of horses going for a week.
However, pace has slowed. He hit 40 dinners in August of last year, and just 5 more that “count” since then. His blog has moved tone to occasional write-ups of restaurants he has enjoyed here and abroad (see, he does travel occasionally really), and I fear his goal of 80 restaurants is now unobtainable. I mentioned to him I was thinking about blogging about this, and he mentioned he thinks there are 10 left that can count, and then he’s out of ideas.
And that you see, is why I suggest his blog as blog of the week. Let us haunt his blog with comments suggesting places he doesn’t yet know. Let’s egg him on until he is successful. And fat. Very, very fat.
Then we lazy pigs can take comfort knowing that if we wish to explore cultures from all over the World we too can be complacent with public transport and the knowledge the cardiac team at MRI is on standby, 24×7.
A blogger has been appointed to help raise charity cash for the future of the city from residents and ex-pat Mancunians alike.
The Forever Manchester blog launched today with Chris Norwood at the helm.
Adoptive Mancunian and history graduate Chris has worked and lived in the city for nearly 20 years in economic development, inward investment and innovation.
He also runs his own consultancy business advising Manchester: Knowledge Capital and Marketing Manchester amongst others and has just qualified as a Green Badge Tourist Guide for the city.
He said: “Although I’m not a native Mancunian, I’m fiercely proud of the city I live in and have spent most of my career working to make it an even better place to live.
“Forever Manchester is a fantastic concept and I hope that the blog will keep people up to date with a wide range of issues affecting the city and be a great forum for others to share their own opinions and ideas.”
The Community Foundation for Greater Manchester is encouraging Mancunians across the world to unite in discussion and debate via the blog. 4evrmanchester.wordpress.com will cover a range of issues from local issues and history to festivals and the infamous Mancunian weather with the idea being to form a global online community of Mancs.
Forever Manchester is a four-year, £4.4 million fundraising campaign launched by The Community Foundation that aims to build an everlasting fund to be invested in communities across Greater Manchester.
Nick Massey, Chief Executive of The Community Foundation for Greater Manchester adds, “The Forever Manchester campaign is about celebrating everything which the region is deservedly famous for, which is why we wanted create a blog which would bring together an online community of passionate Mancunians both here and abroad.”
“With his knowledge of Manchester’s past, present and future, Chris is the perfect person to stimulate debate and excitement about the city we all love.”
For a short time this afternoon, visitors to the Telegraph’s dedicated online Budget coverage were treated to a stream of expletives and plenty of less offensive general silliness of the “widdle and poo” variety.
No its publishing system hadn’t been hacked, it was all part of an initiative to enable users of the micro-blogging platform twitter to post their own thoughts on this year’s Budget using the online tool Twitterfall.
By posting short messages known as tweets with the tags #Budget09 or including words such as Alistair Darling, messages appeared uncensored in the right hand side of this page.
Journalists at the newspaper watched as streams of inappropriate messages poured into the site before the decision was taken to pull the plug on the experiment.
One of the main protagonists was the Manchester blogger known as JoeThe Dough. He captured his first naughty tweet for posterity here on his Flickr account.
He’s since been rather apologetic about it saying: ” hmmm. Sorry Daily Telegraph. I think if you’d ridden that our for another hour, it would actually have been useful.”
And maybe it would – those who complain that newspapers are aloof and non-inclusive should welcome an opportunity to participate in such a nationally important debate as the Budget.
A Telegraph insider tells me the paper may re-instate the service later as previous use of Twitterfall during the G20 debate resulted in no such problems.
In the meantime, you can read more about today’s events here at The Guardian’s tech pages.
Last week’s pick of the posts is one of those annoying anonymous blogs.
I say annoying, because it’s one of the those blogs where the need for mystery is just not necessary and where the person behind it should really be prepared to come forward to take credit for what appears there – because it is an achievement.
Created by “a single unemployed person” I’m guessing the author (who is revealed occassionally to be female) may have some connection with the Manchester indie band of the same name, but this is a blog more about the arts scene in general than music in particular although there are plenty of band reviews and other janglings among the postings.
It’s been running for a year and has taken a look at everything from Picadilly’s Japanese Pavillion to Victoria Baths via allotment art and festival write ups.
The most recent entry about an exhibition of photography currently showing at CUBE is typical of its style with a carefully explained critique of the show, opinion and a selective use of images.
It’s a blog worthy of a wider airing and I do hope that its creator takes confidence from more than 12 months of experience and this positive reaction to come out into the open and declare herself to be less of a shrinking, and much more of a shrieking, violet very soon. Take a quiet stroll through the city’s arts scene at: http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com. We will be hunting around for blogs or websites to feature here, on the e-view page and add to the blogroll so, if you’ve got one to nominate, submit a link below. The only criteria is that they have some connection with Manchester.
The twittersphere was buzzing yesterday as entrants to this year’s Big Chip Awards found out they’d been nominated. The excitement was at times palpable, and it’s great how these channels now offer a real time buzz around what’s going on in the city’s digital community. For those of a more patient bent the full shortlist is online here, a mix of names both familiar and new to me – which is always one of the great things about Big Chip, newcomers can come from nowhere and be showcased to the whole sector.
The shortlists in many categories look longer than in previous years, which must reflect a high quality to this years entrants. Its worth having a look over at the Big Chip blog, to see what people are talking about this year, as well as to check out the map of entries. (Wonder whether the “blues” will change colour now that the shortlist has been announced?) The award dinner is still some way off, 18th June, but its at the shortlisting stage where Manchester’s digital community really makes a mark in the diary. Although I’ll offer my good luck to everyone on the shortlist, its worth adding that getting this far is a sign of success in itself, whoever wins.
A roomful of north west entrepreneurs packed in to hear about the latest in cutting edge technology last night at an event organised to help de-mystify Cloud computing.
The evening, hosted by Northern Startup 20, was aimed at those working in or setting up digital companies in Manchester and further afield.
Organiser Manoj Ranaweera explained the thinking behind the session: “It’s easy to get lost in all the talk about cloud computing. Everybody seems to have a cloud, connects to the cloud, is cloud-enabled, or at the least, is cloud-ready. There’s a lot of jargon, but it’s not all fluff and buzz. Behind that jargon are some very real business and technology benefits.”
Speakers included Bindi Karia, Head of the Microsoft BizSpark programme which aims to connect technology start-ups to an online ecosystem and Simone Brunozzi from Amazon Web Services who introduced his company’s services.
Venture capitalist Ivan Farneti told the gathered audience at the eOffice in Portland Street, that Cloud computing provided big opportunities for tech companies.
“People ask where’s the money? Well I would say there’s two area 1. enhance the Cloud, develop software, build development tools and 2. exploit the Cloud – it’s a big wave and there’s money to be made.”
The expert speakers, who also included Tim Barker, Senior Director EMEA , also took part in a panel question and answer session, which looked at issues of responsibility in a supply chain and the need for fast broadband connections to make Cloud a reality to UK home and business users.
See extracts from the panel debate in the video clip below.
Organisers of this year’s Best of Manchester Awards have been in touch to say – they’re open, but not for much longer.
Entries are being accepted until 1 May for the artists, musicians and designers whose boundary-breaking work deserves the city crown.
Organised by Urbis, the annual awards celebrate innovation in art, music and fashion. Anyone working within the fields of music, art and fashion, and who lives or works in Greater Manchester, can enter.
Looking for original and imaginative work throughout the field of music, from up-and-coming guitar-based bands and live acts to electronic music and sound art, (including performers, producers and promoters) are: Luke Bainbridge (Observer Music Monthly), Justin Crawford (DJ, producer and Director of Electriks Ltd.), Caroline Elleray (Head of A&R at Universal Music Publishing), Yvette Livesey (In The City), Dan Parrott (Channel M), Miranda Sawyer, DJ Semtex (BBC Radio 1Xtra), and Tim Thomas (Blueprint Studios).
A spokeswoman said: “The Best of Manchester Awards are more than a pat on the back from the industry. They’re about more than the winners’ £2,000 cheque and a major exhibition at Urbis. The awards are a chance for the winners to kick-start their career with the kind of contacts and professional development that money can’t buy.” Entry is online here, www.urbis.org.uk/thebestofmanchester.
