Twitter & Ethics...& Oxford Geek Night 10

Last evening I spent not only sharing my recent studies of Twitter ethics but mainly meeting extremely interesting people, very often sharing my interests. OK, I am still a bit sceptical about calling myself a geek, nonetheless I am one, and there is no way back;)

So, here is what happened last night and I really hope to see at least the same faces at our Oxford Twestival on the 12th of February and on the next Oxford Geek Night 11, on the 25 of March.

First of the longer slots, 15 min long, was about fonts - history and technologies behind those. Actually I completely agree with Elliot Jay Stocks (working for .net, one of my favourite UK magazines - simply because it fills out the gap on the UK market when it comes to printed press about social media), who is worried about stadardizing the currently developped fonts.

I consider my slot successful, simply because I made a few people smile and think - which is exactly what I aimed at (there's more reactions here). And within perfect 15 min!

The shorter slots were just as much interesting, as Elliot's one though.

'The new British Standard for Accessibility' presented by Bruce Lawson is very close to what I deal with at work, so it made me think a bit and I am sure I will read his blog.

The issues of web and younger generation is something I am interested for two reasons: my work in social media ethics and blogger interviews I did with Monik and Etiole - 13 year old bloggers. (I see Monik is organizing Twestival in Mumbai, btw!) I am convinced Tim Davies looked at the issues he is dealing with from global point of view as well, so I think he can see the challenges of a country where web access at school is restricted and common culture not as IT orientated as in Asian countries for instance. I strongly support Tim's initiative, so do check his Ning community!

I missed part of 'Microserfs' (my bad, apologies) so I cannot express opinion about it. I do however love the design Peet Morris' blog!

David Sheldon's 'Tomcat: scaling past one machine' was a test of my basic IT knowledge, but I got it at the end! Not bad for a blondie:)

Tom Dyson's ideas around 'Dynamic demand' are thrilling, and I am sure plenty of eco bloggers would be extremely excited to see the results of his thinking!

And finally - just when I thought I cannot fit anymore cool ideas in my head - 'Working with RGBA Colour', by Drew McLellan - a feast for a photographer:D

I had a beer with guys from Torchbox, I met few other interesting personalities, and I met the author of Twitter Song - Ben Walker!

It was a pleasure to meet you all!:)

Below my slides again...

[slideshare id=937757&doc=twitterethics20090121-1232549735350920-1&w=425]

Illegal content - Wikipedia site down in the UK

Brand Republic published an interesting article this morning about Wikipedia website banned by Internet Watch Foundation. The site was linking to a cover of Scorpions' album released in 1976 picturing a naked girl with her genital area covered by a glass effect. The image is not available on Wikipedia, nor on Ebay any more, but as you can see it's already been re-purposed, and you can find it in the article I am referring to.

It's good to see Brand Republic approaching the topic from different point of views and I genuinely agree with most of those. I just wonder how surprising it is (after all the information we gain from Global Voices, for instance) to see ethical concern in relation to UK market. I understand that from PR perspective this ban is quite surprising, and will probably have opposite effect of users image searching for this specific cover, yes.

Nevertheless I am glad to see an organisation responsible for dealing with illegal content and taking care of child protection on-line. In this case I would be very interested to see/know/read what is the decision making process for taking the site down. What are the guidelines and are those available on-line?

I understand some viewers might find it offensive, it might be considered as child pornography, but is it?

All I could find on their site was 'Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet'.  The ICRA standards they link to, mention 'presence or absence of nudity' as one of the criteria of on-line content. But in this case it's quite tricky...so from this point of view I do agree with Gordon MacMillan - how far can this type of censorship go? It's good to have it, but how can we all see how the censorship works?

Update: IWF has reversed their decision.

World AIDS Day 2008

1st of December is the World AIDS Day. It's a great occasion to raise awarness of AIDS and support different programs.

Bloggers Unite once again reacts to the world events organising bloggers around this topic. Global Voices is providing a platform for discussion here and on the 3rd of December life blogging (more info here).

And me, I just hope all those active people will keep on talking, sharing experiences and knowledge to fight the virus and provide support to 33 million people around the world and 80,000 peole in the UK living with HIV.

If you - like me - do not have experience with HIV or AIDS you can read few real stories here. 'Young people are still thinking that it won't happen to me, which is what I used to think. That is why it is important that I tell them that it can.' said Clint, and I think it sounds familiar to me. I used to think the same about domestic abuse, and I was so wrong. It's foolish to say that others have a 'problem' and we do not. It's ignorant to turn our backs and walk away - it's brave and very, very dificult to cope, to live and to fight it. It is and should be normal, acceptable, almost socially expected to study, to educate and support each other - in this case in fight against HIV, in way of living with it.

So go on, click through my links, starting with facts.

Green Awards night tonight

Tonight is the night of the Green Awards Ceremony in London. If you haven't heard about it, let me just quickly introduce the main goals: raising the awareness of CSR, sustainability and best ethical practice in any sector, any industry. Judging from tonight's speakers list and the about site I think the Awards are focussing on marketing too - 'As an innovative and progressive practice, marketing has the potential to inspire hope. In fact, we believe it has the power to change the face of business for good.' The wide range of categories proves those points too. I personally cheer for Ethical Superstore simply because I like the fact one can buy based on ethical believes (brands, producers, production method, country etc). Good luck!:)

blogger interview - Andy, Look In Wonderment

Tt's been a while since I posted an interview, but I have been actually working on one - just this time I gave Andrew, the author of this blog, time to answer each question separately - so this one is a result of two weeks's worth e-mail correspondence. Enjoy!

Syl: Hi Andy, thank you for agreeing to take part in the interview! Here's the first one? When did you start blogging and why?
Andy: I started blogging in September, which marks a year from when I stopped doing science for a living. Now a I can take myself back and enjoy the best bits. I wanted to think about how how world-changing discoveries are presented and what people think when re-hashing them on the internet. Maybe later I will look at what the people who design and organise the internet can learn from the way scientists use information.

As for self-promotion, for now I will try my best not to keep my blog light-hearted, avoid inflicting it on the uninterested and talk about other things when not blogging. Maybe one day I will change the world, or at least ruffle the feathers of some of those black hole makers and frankenstein farmers.

Syl: That sounds very ambitious and I believe you can change the world! Tell me, did blogging change your life or affect it in any way so far?

Andy: I think blogging has helped me be a bit more expressive and articulate. When I'm writing a blog post I feel a real pressure to get the point across simply and in as few words as possible. The biggest plus is having something constructive to do when on the computer at home. Now I see that there are plenty of hours in the day, I just have to fight laziness. This has helped me tidy my life up and keep up with my sporting and voluntary activities.

Apart from that, no big changes, blogging's  quite one-dimensional for me at the moment. I will spawn further presences and meet people online at some point but I want to hit the sites with a bang rather than a sporadic whimper. For me this requires real-life motivating factors, until these occur I wont try to be something I'm not.

Syl: Hey, join me on Twitter then;) Seriously, do you think you will move to a different level with blogging, do you consider doing it more seriously, learning new tools or blogging for business in the future?

Andy: My attitude to tools is sometimes a bit like Michelle Greer's, that is, I want to see them applied to real-world situations before discussing them at length. I think some of the meet-ups you and Lolly have been talking about recently sound really interesting as opportunities to do just that.
see here.

I have thought about business blogging as it could be a great way to collate consultancy ideas and gain contacts. So the next question is what would my personal brand be about? My best guess at the moment is:

Managing knowledge better in business, science, and the voluntary sector.

But then how I would present that in a lively, colourful, engaging and concise form whilst "getting my butt off my computer" as Michelle puts it? I guess I could use some of the great community-built graphics programmes available on my Ubuntu desktop. As far as blogging on the move goes, I am still quite attached to my landline (I enjoy people thinking that it's their mum when I phone them) and not prepared to spend more than about £10 a month on my mobile, but maybe I could stretch to a linux tablet now wifi is getting more widespread.

As for Twitter, @strets123 signed up a few weeks back but needs to think of something suitably profound, inane or insightful for a first tweet. I'm also host a few bits on Flickr, play on last.fm and would like to try Linkedin.

Syl: Do you think about those presences as additional  to your blog? Or you just like trying them out?
Andy: Part of me joined twitter because it would be a good way to get to know other people interested in blogs. I also like the low effort involved and hickledy pickledy mixture of posts you get to read. Additionally, I think wiki tools like the cool thing you added to your blog recently could prove very useful.
Time will tell whether I will commit myself fully to other sites. It's certain that some are more equal than others, I guess I'm hoping for the market to become more mature and the way of using each site to involve fewer steps. Just like my favourite gadget, my DAB radio.

Syl: Did blogging change your life so far?

Andy: Yes! - it's been great having a window on the lives of my colleagues and fun interacting with you and others on different subjects. On the other hand, I want to stay in touch with my grumpy old man side, having reviewed "Blind Faith" I will have to take a look at Will Self's "Book of Dave" next.

Syl: :) I will need to shift the questions to cooking now (due to the fact I usually publish a part of the interview on Bar Mleczny) Do you know anything about Polish cuisine?

Andy: Not a lot, I think I've eaten quite a lot of great pickled gherkins from Poland over the years.  As for barmleczny I love milk and the idea of a milk bar intrigues me... The milk marketing people here in Britain are often trying to rebrand it and sell it as a soft drink. Take a trip to an ageing ice rink or swimming baths and you might see nice simple milkshakes available without thickner. The AMT milk steamers at stations are good too. There could definately be a niche in the market to exploit.

Syl: Great, Andy, thanks for that feedback!:) So, if I say 'Polish' what are the first three things that come to your mind?

Andy: My Polish bridge friends and their 'Polish Club' bridge convention
The once growing, now possibly diminishing Polish community in Britain and the various opinions about it.
Word with lots of zs in them

Syl: Zs, and sh, and csh:) And how about you, are you cooking at home?

Andy: Zs, and sh, and csh:) And how about you, are you cooking at home? Cooking has been a big part of my life for most of it. My late, great mum had me in the kitchen as soon as I could walk. We would make jam tarts, scones and nig-nogs (a name for brown oatmeal biscuits from our 1950s cookbook, unrestrained by the era of political correctness). I guess my mum taught me to just get on with it and not fear failure. This means I can often salvage an edible meal when others have given up hope.Either my girlfriend or I cook almost always, tonight it was a casserole with pork and home-produced cider.

Syl: Ah, you just made me hungry:) If we were to do a small Polish food party would you like to join us?:)

Andy: Sound's fun, I'm in!

Syl: Thank you, Andy!:)