imran*

Category: Conference

  • Exporting the FUTR to fix the present…

    Last September, at a meeting of the National Media Museum's Internet Gallery advisory board, Drew Hemment asked me to develop the 2011 conference programme for FutureEverything.

    I played hard to get, but in honesty, I was flattered that Drew appreciated my work. Just last week we finalised this year's programme, a programme that without Greg Povey's immense intellect and Kevin Moore's tireless tenacity, just could not have come together.

    Futr11
    Kevin asked me to reflect on my experience with FutureEverything for the festival catalogue, so I thought I'd have a little fun with my introduction… 

    He keeps sending us into the past.

    2122? 2047?

    I don’t even know when it is anymore…

    All we know are the rules; we can’t go further back then the day we’re born, or forwards, past the day we’re destined to die.

    He found that the very fabric of space-time itself appeared to store information about every event that had ever occurred in the past.

    We use this knowledge to find the prophets – the ones whose ideas upon which the world turns.

    He sends others back to shadow them and understand the impact of their works right up to the end of their lives. My job is to travel further back, intervene early and influence them to share what they know at the point they can have the greatest impact.

    He tells me to gather together the strongest, but only during the temporal shifts of Springtime and only near the place he calls Mamucium.

    We can’t tell them why. Once an individual space-time pathway has been used, we can’t use it again.

    So, that springtime synod of prophecy has to change their present, steering it away from the terrible future from which we come, saving humanity from fates unimagined.

    Thing is, travelling back through time can unhinge a guy, even if it is to save the world.

    We don’t last long in this job – most end their days in the temporal asylums, skipping and skittering through time, hooked to an outboard hippocampus.

    But while we can export the future to fix the present, we’ll serve Him and You.

     Imran Ali (Conference Director, 2011)

    My experience over the last six months has stretched me to breaking point – temporally, physically and intellectually – but I've been sustained by knowing that the FUTR team is one of the most idealistic, ambitious and fun bunch of people I've had the privilege to work with.

    I hope you'll join us in Mamucium next month 🙂

    #FUTR

  • Startup Fictions & The Link Age {1995-2010}

    After producing four editions of BarCamp Leeds between 2007 and 2010, I figured I should finally speak at one of my own events!

    I'd originally planned to host a screening of August as part of the LSx2010 fringe. A little known 2008 movie starring Josh Hartnett, that chronicles the ambitions of a pair of dotcom entrepreneurs. I couldn't clear the rights in time, so this evolved into a BarCamp screening of The Startup, a short documentary about a young startup trying to make it in NYC, produced by the creators of the NYC 3.0 blog, as an experiment in hyperlocal journalism.

    Rather than just play some video, I figured bookending the screening with some opening remarks and a round table discussion would give some useful context and open up a discussion.

    Curiously, wandering through several media representations of startup and dotcom culture, ranging from novels and movies to documentaries and TV series, I found that a discussion of the media representation of dotcoms, seemed to be more interesting than actually showing them! 

    So here are my slides, covering a period stretching from Douglas Coupland's 1995 novel Microserfs to Aaron Sorkin's upcoming movie, The Social Network…

    So yeah…

    • Friends' Matthew Perry narrated the audiobook edition of Microserfs…
    • ER's Noah Wyle played Steve Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley and an actual Stevenote!
    • 2001 was the peak of dotcom media – with Tim Robbins as a murdering monopolist, David Walliams as an anal web designer in BBC's Attachments and the superb documentary Startup.com.
    • David Bowie has played a cane-wielding venture capitalist in a movie also starring Jason Calacanis…!
    • The Social Network will be produced by Kevin Spacey, directed by David Fincher (of Fight Club) and star Justin Timberlake!

    Invariably, most media on dotcoms is populated with an unlikeable panoply of awkward nerds, highly strung creatives, greedy monopolists or megalomaniacal “desktop despots”. Did old media look upon new media with a sense of envy, foreshadowing its own fading relevance? With little observable idealism and drama, is all that's visible simply a radiant greed, vanity and self-importance to the observer? 

    Since 1998, I’ve worked in a half dozen startups, variously as a founder, board director or early-stage employee. Every culture has been unique, but generally staffed by an intoxicating mix of idealists, iconoclasts & visionaries.

    And that's where I believe the truth lies – this industry has an abundance of idealism and vision, where the # displaces the $ and a gift economy gives us Wikipedia, Firefox and Linux; for every Facebook, there's an Ushahidi.

    It's unsurprising that mainstream media has found an awkwardness in portraying how this generation created a new mind for an old species;  we need some distance and perspective to really assess this epoch through fiction – although the BBC's Virtual Revolution was a great attempt.

    My 1995-2010 snapshot will one day stretch to 2060. At the end of my life, as I'm prepared for my post-human future in the Amazon ∞ cloud, somewhere there'll be a great movie launching…of this pivotal period in civilisation - The Link Age.

  • The TED Gift Bag

    Gift Bag TED conferences are famous for the complimentary gift bag distributed to each delegate upon registration.

    Not
    only are the bags replete with politically/ecologically-correct goodies,
    but the bags themselves aren't your usual cheap-ass branded schwag, but
    sourced from the likes of Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bagworks…this year, TEDsters got very cool (and very large) Zero Messenger. 

    So what's in the bag?

    Books…

    DVDs…

    Other Stuff…

    Every night, returning to my hotel room, I'd find a schedule for the next day, along with a little gift – a copy of The Dodo Guide To Oxford, sometimes a box of Vosges Peanut Butter Bonbons or Hazlenut Bombalinas, Mari's brownies, and most impressively/embarrassingly an N97 couriered to me for live-blogging, by my sponsors Nokia; embarrassing because I can't use it without an iPhone SIM removal tool to flip out my SIM into the N97…

    Over at Keble College, Toms Shoes
    were giving away complimentary pairs of their (very weird looking)
    footwear to all TEDsters; for every pair collected by a delegate,
    another would be donated to a child in need. So, Gordon Gekko was kinda right? Speakers get to pickup a Livescribe and (um) a pair of UGG slippers and Knome are offering a selected few TEDsters the possibility of sequencing their personal genomic data – neat!

    So the TED gift bag is very 'right-on', speaking to ecological, creative and innovative motivations. I can't help but wonder if – assuming David Deutch's parallel universes theory hold – that there's an evil twin for the TED gift bag, containing DVDs of hardcore porn, Jeffrey Archer novels, a filament lightbulb, a bottle of Evian, pack of cigarettes, a hand grenade, a copy of Windows Vista and keys to a Hummer.

    I'm hoping when I check-in to the pearly gates sometime around 2069 there'll be a gift bag with a Qu'ran, some holy water, a prayer mat and seventy-two virgins…oh and some Five Fingers 🙂

    (woah, this post reads like a product placement singularity)

  • TED and me

    Tedxleedsglobal2009

    I don't really remember where I first came across the TED conference but in recent years, I've quickly become hooked on the eponymous talks and, in recent months, TED seems to be serendipitously intersecting with my career in many wonderful ways…

    • Most surprisingly, next week I've been invited to attend TED Global 2009 in Oxford. Earlier this month, Nokia, one of the conference sponsors, contacted me to offer a sponsored place at the conference. Upon enquiring why they approached me, they explained that I was 'one of the UK's top bloggers'. Um, that's slightly embarrassing, but I'm not going to argue with Wikio's rankings, however inaccurate 😉

      The speakers list looks awesome, with Stephen Fry, Rory Bremner, Karen Armstrong, Stefana Broadbent, John Lloyd, Daniel Pink & Aza Raskin amongst others. Oddly, for a tech conference, delegates are discouraged from using laptops or phones during sessions; Nokia have suggested even a pen and paper might be frowned upon. It'll certainly be a novelty maintaining focus and attention for hours at a time. I couldn't even do that at university…like a laptop, I tend to fall asleep after extended periods of inactivity.

    Regardless it's a real privilege to be invited to TED Global, and along with a pair of Foo Camps, I'm just a Web2Summit away from my exclusive tech conference treble.

    Like Foo Camp, TED is subject to accusations of elitism and exclusivity. Ironically, those are the qualities that make each gathering special. There's a kind of meritocracy at work, generally driven by achievement, but 'by-invitation-only' conferences do make me slightly uncomfortable. On the other hand, Foo's philosophy of asking invitees to select next year's group does ensure there's a constant churn of people and ideas each year. Today's Times, has a useful analysis of the culture of TED at TED conference offers ideas to change the planet – in 18 minutes.

    Now will the official TED bag be a Timbuk2 or from Rickshaw Bagworks…

  • eComm 2009: Emerging Communications Conference

    eComm 2009
    Next week sees the opening of the second edition of eComm, taking place in Burlingame, just outside San Francisco.

    Like the 2008 edition – and its two predecessor conferences of the O'Reilly ETel franchise – I've been part of the advisory board, roping in interesting speakers and contributors working at the intersection of telecoms and social media – in design, human factors, hardware hacking and mobile.

    This year, I'm very pleased to have brought in Smule's Ge Wang on Creating New Expressive Social Mediums on the iPhone and Distance Lab's Stefan Agamanolis on Slow Communication. Unfortunately, some speakers I'd really like to have provide a platform for, simply weren't available – Georgia Popplewell, MD of Global Voices, Cisco's Clive Grinyer, Cliff Kushler, co-creator of T9 and the guys behind Ushahidi, tinker.it and 12seconds…

    Sadly, this year I won't be attending (I'll be on vacation in New York), but I've gifted my own pass to PhoneFromHere's Tim Panton and gave away complimentary pass to local geek Jonathan Powell, to raise money at the recent Leeds Twestival.

    There'll certainly be a 2010 edition – and I'm hoping next year I'll be able to add to the platform again 🙂

  • O’Reilly Ignite North

    I've had a great, warm relationship with O'Reilly Media over the last half decade or so, hanging out at various ETech and Foo Camp events, striking up friendships with their people, helping plan both ETel conferences and contributing to Web2Expo Europe. Tim O'Reilly and I recently spoke about his background and it turns out his mother is from my hometown of Bradford, a place of which he has a lotta fond childhood memories. Indeed, Tim recorded a special message for us back in November…

    With that in mind, it's a total pleasure to bring my favourite tech/media luminaries to my adopted hometown of Leeds for their first Ignite evening in the UK, a rapid-fire succession of lightning talks, pioneered by Brady Forrest in Seattle. Ignite organiser Craig Smith, of O'Reilly UK, was keen to hold the first O'Reilly-sponsored Ignite in the North of England, bringing together people from around the M62 corridor and the North East. Craig's originally from Huddersfield and along with Tim's heritage, has helped to locate the event in the heritage of O'Reilly's own people as well as celebrating the region's emerging grassroots tech scene.

    We're expecting around a hundred attendees – from London, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle – and have scheduled eighteen talks in two blocks throughout the evening. We're really proud of the quality of speakers and their submissions – it really wouldn't be possible without their efforts. We have speakers from local startups, international charities, venture capital firms, national broadcasters, academia and healthcare. Wow…and wow!

    As well as a great mix of cultural, creative and technological sessions, there'll be opportunities to hang out, socialise and also appreciate the work of some local artists (just before we open up)…here's the schedule for the evening:

    17:00    Outofoffice: Art Installation
    18:00    Doors Open: Drinks, Snacks & Networking

    19:00    Katie Lips: Bringing Social to Coffee on iPhone
    19:05    Jeff Allen : IT in Africa
    19:10    Tim Panton: Don't forget voice! Telephony hacks for web 2.0 hackers
    19:15    Michael Sparks: Embracing concurrency for fun, utility & simpler code
    19:20    Dean Vipond: Perfection in design
    19:25    Alexandra Dechamps-Sonsino: Could hardware hacking save us?
    19:30    Ian Pringle: No News Is Good News
    19:35    Dominic Hodgson: The Future of search
    19:40    Ed French: Funding for technology startups

    19:45    Break & refreshments

    20:05    Tom Scott: My Life In Twenty Graphs
    20:10    Stuart Childs, Richard Garside, Dave Lynch:
                 FriiSpray Digital Grafitti with IR tracking
    20:15    Katie Brown: Recovery 2.0 – Digital Inclusion & developing social models of recovery in practice
    20:20    Arturo Servin: Practical Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    20:25    Glen Smith: Mass customisation and the one-to-one future
    20:30    Guy Dickinson: The Future Of Reading
    20:35    Philip Hemsted: Psycho teams and theory of mind
    20:40    James Boardwell: James Boardwell: From patterns to patterns!
    20:45    Ian Forrester: Tweethookup

    20:50    Wrap Up
    21:00    Close

    Outofficehotdesk

    Ignite will also be a great example of where Leeds' coworking community is flourishing, particularly the residents of our venue at Old Broadcasting House. Kensei Media will be providing a live HD webcast of the event with True Media filming each presentation for later publication online. So if you can't make it on Thursday, we'll have everything available online within a few days 🙂

    We'd also like to thank local brand an interaction designer Dean Vipond for help with print design, Sun Microsystems's Startup Essentials programme for kindly sponsoring the evening's drinks and nti Leeds for the use of Old Broadcasting House.

    See you all next Thursday evening – in the meantime, Leeds will also be playing host to another GeekUp event as well as Katie Lips' workshops on The Amazing iPhone and Going Social.

  • Bruce Sterling @ Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign

    …from March 2007; thanks Semiot!

    I first saw ‘Chairman Bruce‘ speak in San Diego at ETech 2006, though I’d followed his writing since I was a teenager. I’m always kinda confused when I hear his talks; Sterling can alternately poke fun at his own ideas, embarrass the audience that they’re buying into his ‘mental loops and excursions‘  and yet still leave you filled with a sense of wonder and a desire to explore notions such as spimes and blogjects more fully.

    I couldn’t even tell you what this talk was about – only that I now feel compelled to re-read Shaping Things and start, um, Shaping Things 🙂

  • Exposing the APIs of invisible things


    Kati London     was one of my favourite speakers at the ETel Fair in February 2007. Along with other ITP students, Kati saved our asses when a bunch of speakers fell ill and they were able to put together a replacement session showcasing projects such as Kati’s Botanicalls to those who’d missed the Fair.

    I was super-excited when I learned that Kati was part of O’Reilly’s programme committee for ETech 2008 as well as a keynote speaker and exhibitor at the Emerging Arts Fest.

    Kati’s talk – delivered along with Regine Debatty – was oriented around the interesections between art and technology, highlighting a number of ecological, spatial, social, political, networked and even inter-species pieces; there are some great notes from Regine at We Make Money Not Art, to ride along with the slides below…

    Incidentally, Kati and I swapped stories her friend and my Uncle’s respective experiences with the Libyan secret police…no happy outcomes 🙁

  • ETech Day Two… (*very* rough notes)

    Nat strolled though some of the rationale for this year’s ETech before handing off to Stanford’s John McCarthy – the inventor of lisp!

    Steve cousins, an open source platform for personal robotics…willow garage is an R&D lab for non-miltary robotics
    . impact before capital. components include navigation, object recognition, object map, manipulation. domesticon bot poses an existential threat to my mum!

    kathy sierra asked the audience to tell the person next to them what they really really wanted to be good at! how can we surpass dabbling and get a high-res of experience in a new field. neurogenesis and neuroplasticity implies it’s not about natural talent but ability to put in the time to practice, focus and concentrate. real experitiuse is less about what they know but what they do; chess masters can recall the patterns on a board. 9 expertise hacks… mirror neurons allow us to visualise or run simulations of another person’s brain (direct observation) reduce the interference or mental chatter. time between interruptions is too short…we can;t lose the ability for intense concentration and putting in the hours.

    Tom Coates’ talk on ‘Ride the Fire Eagle: Open Location for All’ driven by the need for a back end for ubiquitous computing, decoupling the creation and usage of location data. Fire Eagle enables location to be broadcast to a platform which brokers this data to other applications for permission control. dopplr is one of the first partners, supplying data that can broker location to other apps via fire eagle. spimes and sensors indicate some of the vectors that location can be drawn from.

    peter semmelhack of buglabs (also an eComm speaker) speaking about the long taol of gadgets, what they refer to as ‘community electronics’. LEGO mindstorms represents an OS for innovation in hardware…LEGO factory is one of the models for BUG. Most interestingly Peter demonstrated the BUG development environment. Pluggin in the base baord shows visually which modules are available as well as their scriptable properties. Each module produces a web service, abstracting a lot of the functionality, making for example the camera addressable by a URL (to retreieve the image)

    talked to mehrshad and peter about european activities

    bumped into gina, talked about oscon’s mobile track and how well ecomm’s doing – gnat manhugged me and i said hi to evan from brickhouse while picking his brain on eComm and  microhoo! 🙂

    project sunspot – basic three layer device with a battert, processor board with radio and a sensor board that’s application specific (accelerometer, light, temperature, push buttons, LEDs, analig inputs, speakers etc) demos include autonomous light air vehicles. automated helicopter piloted by sunspot drops another sunspot at a programmed location! also using sunspots to track ccondiions of sun’s blackbox in transit!

    came across scott varland of ITP and socialbomb.net between sessions 🙂

    visualisation, beyond the RSS lava lamp (J.C.Herz) moving beyond beauty of visualisation to looking at utility of visualisation – what’s the purpose? some principles…don’t show everything right now – what’s actionable and what matters – tracicalt precision and strategic sloppiness. what’s a useful question? how do yo ask new questions? avoid being decor!

    narrative vs hypothesis generation and testing – surfacing consequnces of the data (legislators and relationships to various parties). what’re the impictions of scale and resolution, situating urself in data, broad/deep, trend analysis, statis or dynamic alerts, speed of data pipette/firehose, highly dimensional data demands choices

    demo of tripledex ‘necklace’ no more than 100 dots on screen, visualising relationships between rael and other entities – number of connections and affinity (number between 2 entities). high affinity, low connectivity reveals clustering (e.g. pattern of coinvesments between silicon alley VCs)

  • Westward…

    Spring08
    Wow – flying from Manchester to JFK and onto San Diego with no delays or interrogations? I almost don’t believe it…maybe America’s loosening up in anticipation of a new President, maybe it’s no longer realistic to put Husseins on the Do Not Fly list or perhaps I just got lucky 🙂

    During the next few days I’ll be hopping around California and Washington for…

    • O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology 2008 conference. I’ve been to three prior ETechs between 2004 and 2008 – the first two did nothing less than change my world-view on technology and the third helped me to find the confidence to strike out on my own. 2007 was a bif of an O’Reilly bust for me with the cancellation of ETel, being unable to travel and deliver my talk for Web 2.0 Expo and having to cancel plans for Foo Camp. San Diego holds a lotta good memories for me, so it’s lovely to be back in the City and also a programme that returning ETech to its roots, away from the noise of Web 2.0 and back to the cutting edge of knowledge – this time including personal genomics, hacking UAVs, emerging tech in emerging markets, policy development and data visualisation. Holy crap I think I’m going to pass out from the anticipation!
    • Next up, I’ll be spending the coming weekend with my great friends Aaron and Chrissey in Seattle. hanging out, discussing world changing ideas, shopping for a Time Capsule and maybe – just maybe – a trip to the Evil Campus. If I had more time, I’d love to return to Vancouver or visit Surj and Rael over in Portland.
    • Finally I’ll be back in the Bay Area for Emerging Communications 2008. I’ve been part of the advisory board since late last year and throughly looking forward to meeting many of the people we’ve got scheduled…I’m pretty sure we can keep the ETel movement alive through eComm.

    My usual group isn’t around – but I’m hoping to see some familiar faces this evening… 🙂