imran*

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  • BarCamp Leeds {2007}

    Leeds_colours
    It’s ON! After month’s of speculation, logo contests, false starts and calendar battleship across Upcoming and the official wiki – BarCamp Leeds is set for Saturday 17th November!

    With only 24 days before the event we decided to go for a single day BarCamp this time around…if things go well, we’re planning a full weekend BarCamp in Spring 2008.

    Already, we have 56 confirmed attendees and a couple sponsors, including Leeds Met and nti Leeds, who’ll be providing the fantastic, newly refurbished Old Broadcasting House as our venue; OBH is an incredible facility, bridging it’s BBC past with it’s current role as a hub for innovation in the region. Very soon, they’ll be launching the UK’s largest coworking facility.

    Public_space
    Some of the proposed sessions include a workshop on 3D printing (yes, we’ll have one there), augmented reality UIs, mobile technology trends, Drupal, games design, co-creation, PR in the digital age, an SEO clinic, entrepreneurial talks from  the founders of BT Bizbox, Plusnet and eDocr.

    Barcamp_ottawa_homepage
    We’re also planning to run podcasts, a prize draw and link up live with BarCamp Ottowa for some shared sessions and will likely have pair of sign language interpreters thanks to a pair of hard-of-hearing attendees efforts 🙂

    We’ll shortly be launching a sponsors pack to help cover the costs of lunch, snacks, schwag and prizes, so if you’d like to help out financially and gain some publicity for your startup, blog or other organisation, please drop me an email.

    To find out more…

    Please feel free to contact my fellow organisers – Tom Scott, Dom Hodgson, GeekUp’s Deb Bassett and myself – with any ideas, queries and sponsor inquiries you have.

    Spread the word and see you on 17th!

  • Best Two Minutes Of TV This Week…

    Wow, just when it looked like BSG’s Razor minisodes were gonna be as dull as last year’s Resistance ‘webisodes’, we get a cracking dogfight…

    Best part? The chilling radio-borne screams of the Columbia‘s dying crew…

    { The soundtrack for season three was released today – Violence & Variations  is my standout piece }

  • Web 2.0 Expo Berlin

    Web2expo_2
    Ian Hay and I have been invited by  O’Reilly’s Brady Forrest to run a session on mobile trends at Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin next month. Strangely, neither one of us can remember writing this abstract…

    —

    From a Mobile Telephone to a Computer – a Reality Dysfunction

    The
    mobile phone is becoming more advanced, but should it? This talk is
    going to take a look at the reality of carrying a personal computer in
    your pocket. Some of the trends that will be examined:

    • Smart vs
      simple       – the buzz of iPhone/N95 vs. huge sales of low end handsets,
      perhaps it has to with cameras hitting 10MP with flash, auto focus,
      etc., storage hitting 8GB, GPS, UMTS/GPRS/HSUPA/Wifi and a net result
      of no battery life
    • HMI (human mobile interaction) – as these
      devices become mobile personal computers the UI is (still) hugely
      flawed. Sure it can do anything, but only if you have time to click
      thirteen dialog boxes
    • Development Platforms – there is a lot of
      work going on to provide abstraction layers from the device hardware
      (DirectX for phones) to allow easier development, at the same time
      operators are looking to bundle up apps into containers to simplify
      certification process.

    Still, sounds pretty good dontchya think? Maybe we’ll jsut stick with it! Problem is my passport has vanished and I’m not sure I can get a replacement in time to book a cheap flight and rooms for 7th Nov…that and I don’t wanna get my brown ass renditioned to Guantanamo ‘cos I’m ‘traveling freely in the EU‘.

    So tomorrow we’re gonna figure out if it’ll be possible for me to iChat/Skype into the session; unfortunately, iChat always makes me look like I just woke up!

    UPDATE: Turns out I dropped my passport somewhere on the campus at Sheffield Hallam an someone kindly mailed it back this morning….unfortunately, as I reported the loss already, I still have to apply for a new passport 🙁

  • About Me…

    { this is a test page ONLY! }

    Like a neurotic superhero, I have many identities…

    • One of the founding partners of Carbon Imagineering, the emerging technologies think tank and product hothouse behind Fingertip, mee:view, Believr and Personomii…we’re building the next generation of consumer internet applications…
    • (Formerly, Deputy Director of Technology Research at Orange UK and part of the team that established Freeserve’s R&D unit and Wanadoo’s Research & Innovation division – each providing intelligence on emerging technologies, consumer trends and innovation strategy)…
    • One of the founders of Rich Gibson’s Internet of Values initiative…
    • A board director for bmedi@, helping grow West Yorkshire’s new media ecosphere…
    • About to join enterprise news startup Ensembli as a non-executive director…
    • A programme consultant and blogger for O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony brand and an occasional contributor to O’ReillyGMT…
    • (A former writer and commentator for TechCrunch UK)…
    • A contributing writer for Corante’s Mobile Messaging 2.0…
    • Bootstrapped OpenCoffee Leeds and BarCamp Leeds…
    • A sometime graphic designer and software developer…

    …but really, I’m a dreamer – fascinated by the transformative potential of world-changing ideas, people and technologies 🙂

  • Northern Snippets…

    Simonrobertshaw
    This week saw a bumper crop of tech events across the North…

    The MELD launch parties in Leeds and Manchester kick started this intersection of social media and journalism. I went along to the Leeds event and bumped into the former CEO of Leeds Media, Terry Morden and Simon Robertshaw, formerly part of Liverpool’s ICDC and now heading up the Sandbox incubator at the University of Central Lancashire.

    The launch itself included talks from Paul Egglestone and David Gmiyah (presenting some strange concepts on the future of web news); many people were confused by the apparently convoluted application process but were generally enthused to get their ideas in front of media organisations.

    —

    Unfortunately, I missed two events across the Pennines in Manchester…

    • Celebrating their millionth UK user, LinkedIn held one of it’s three UK events in Manchester, with a chance to meet the company’s UK team as well as other members from the region.
    • The inaugural mashup* conference also took place in the city, run by local maven Manoj Ranaweera and regulars Simon Grice and Tony Fish. Coincidentally, Manoj’s new startup, eDocr, got some coverage with TechCrunch this week, joining fellow Mancs YuuGuu in flying the flag internationally for Northern startups. Competition for eDocr is already hotting up with Adobe’s entry into this emerging market, with Share…another ‘YouTube for documents’.

    —

    Adobecampustour
    Next week, Leeds Met and Sheffield Hallam will play host Adobe’s ten-city Campus Tour, promoting Creative Suite 3 with tutorials and workshops. The Leeds-leg, this Monday, already has 300 attendees registered!

    I’ll be along for midday and afternoon sessions on cross-media design, ‘extraordinary’ web-design and Photoshop CS3.

    Last, and most certainly not least, we’ll be formally announcing the first BarCamp Leeds – registration is open, but the formalities will happen tommorow 🙂

  • I’m Jaman’

    Jamantv Last Sunday I had the pleasure of a visit at home from Jaman‘s European VP, Faisal Galaria along with his lovely Mum 🙂 Faisal was over from SF, visiting his family for Eid-ul-Fitr, so we figured it was a great chance to finally meet.

    Faisal grew up just a few miles from me, we’re from similar backgrounds and even though we only became aware of each other recently, it seems we’ve had criss-crossing careers with involvement in regulatory work, VoIP and now emerging technologies; kinda like a geek Persuaders.

    Macnano
    I’m a big fan of Jaman’s indie content…yes, even the Bollywood stuff, so when Faisal intriguingly mentioned in passing that Jaman was now available as a native application on Apple TV I had to investigate further. It turns out the Apple TV is basically running full OS X, so a little hackery with USB drives and SSH means that Jaman can be installed and run as an addition to Apple TV’s existing user interface…neat! This is quite a precedent and should signal to Apple that there’s a great platform waiting to be borne from one of their most overlooked products.

    I’m now wondering how much of OS X can be run from an Apple TV…enough to hack together a Mac nano?

  • Steroid Maximus: Ectopia

    EctopiaSteroid Maximus‘ Ectopia is a soundtrack for a movie that doesn’t exist; maybe a kick-ass Tarantino-directed reimagining of The Man from UNCLE with its sounds planted firmly in the 60s, or a 21st century In Like Flint.

    Steroid Maximus is actually J.G.Thirlwell, the composer of one of my favourite TV series, The Venture Brothers –  an animated show that’s very much in the vein of 60s spy thrillers and adventures shows and, thanks to Thirlwell, is accompanied by an overheated, over-the-top soundtrack!

    Check out some of the previews on iTunes and lemme know what you think 🙂

  • Oooh Look! Pretty Computer!

    Olpcmac Nicolas Negroponte‘s One Laptop Per Child project draws as much criticism as it does admiration.

    Much of it is valid, such as Lee Felsenstein‘s studied critiques of OLPC’s pedagogical philosophy; but sniping at the $120 hundred dollar laptop and its lo-fi technology based is missing the point. OLPC is an educational initiative not a laptop project. Guys like Lee are the ones who should be heard; his first-hand experience in bringing computing to third world communities is invaluable and insightful.

    Educational and altruistic merits aside – OLPC’s XO laptop is ostensibly an impressive piece of industrial design, conceived by Yves Béhar. However, perhaps more striking is Sugar, the XO’s operating system, a variant of Fedora Linux. Sugar seeks to move away from traditional interface metaphors and explore more naturalistic concepts…

    • Activities rather than applications.
    • Groups and Neighborhoods to express other users in physical and logical proximity.
    • A View Source key to encourage users to tinker.
    • Replacing files and folders with a ‘journal’ oriented around recency and temporal granularity.
    • Tagging, clipping, sharing and searching as system-wide features.

    In reorienting the user experience around learning, children, openness and collaboration, Sugar promises to be the singular technological innovation of the XO…though it remains to be seen if Sugar or traditional UIs are better suited for learning.

    With XOs restricted to the XO Giving programme in North American and to OLPC client nations, the only way to experience Sugar directly is through virtualisation and emulation. Along with, Windows Vista and OS X, my MacBook Pro is now also host to a Sugar installation running on Parallels…here’s how it’s done.

    Though I’ve bene unable to access the web under emulation, playing with the journaling feature has been illuminating and points the way to new design patterns for web and desktop applications…Ian and I might pinch some of these patterns for Ensembli 🙂

    In the meantime, it’s worth checking out Sugar’s Human Interface Guidelines and the guide to emulation.

  • OpenCoffee {Cinque}

    Opencoffeecinque_2
    OK, OK, I’ve been real lazy (hey, it’s Ramadan and I’ve been busy repenting) and haven’t gotten around to blogging last week’s fifth edition of OpenCoffee Leeds {Cinque}; y’know the Italian-coffee themed numbers sounded really hip four months ago, but as someone pointed out, it’s maybe smarter to go with months. So from December, I’ll do just that!

    Every month I wonder…will they come?…did they read the emails? will Justin have enough pastries? Well, they saw the pastries, ate the emails and yes, they came! Though not quite the stellar turnout of the last two editions, this month’s   still captured an attendance of around 25 people. I should learn not to trust Upcoming’s numbers as definitive…

    So this month highlights…

    • I’ve been trying to prise Elias Moubayed into OpenCoffee for a few months and this time around, we were fortunate to have him come hang with everyone. Elias is a veteran of several tech startups, including (now defunct) Israeli advertising tech innovators iWeb; one of Freeserve’s first partners. We spent a couple years tinkering and playing with ad formats a the birth of the web, but more significantly, Elias is one of the smartest, humble, laid-back commercial guy I’ve worked with. He’s keen to get stuck into the region’s grassroots community and I think he and Sally Broom and he, shared some thoughts about online travel opportunities…
    • Local designer/developer Richard Garside announced that he’d resigned his current position and was choosing to go freelance. Interestingly, he’ll be one of the first residents at Leeds Met’s coworking facilities at Old Broadcasting House. Coincindentally, Carbon signed a deal with Leeds Met to help define OBH’s services, help build a community, advisory board, some social applications and a programme of events. Richard and I got talking about what he’ll be needing as an indie, so I’m hoping we can work democratically with the residents to define how coworking will work in Leeds…we’ll be putting out a call-for-assistance soon, so anyone that’s interested in helping, give us a shout!
    • For the second month in a row, I was unable to make time for Maz Hardey! Grrrr!! Though Maz made it all the way from York, neither one of us found more than a few minutes to talk. Fortunately, we’ve been chatting a lot online about advancing plans for a one-off Geek Girl Dinner in Leeds…the discussion has extended to Sarah Blow and Inventya’s Valerie de Leonibus with a view to perhaps doing parallel events in Leeds and Manchester. I’m really fascinated by Maz’ work on the sociology of social media, maybe one day we’ll get to talk about it in person and not just Facebook messaging at 4am!
    • Tom Scott embarrassed me into explaining why there were no firm plans for Barcamp Leeds yet; we talked a little about the scheduling problems, sponsorship issues and venue, before deciding to give ourselves a week to investigate the feasibility of a ‘snap’ one-day BarCamp sometime in November (yes, yes Gordon Brown etc. etc.), followed by a fuller edition in the Spring…then Tom went and raised £500 in sponsorship the next day! We’ll make a call within the next couple days on whether we can go ahead 🙂
    • Mexuar‘s Tim Panton and Georgia Brown popped across the Pennines from their Manchester base; Mexuar was one of the companies that came out to this year’s ETel conference in San Francisco and are continuing to do some interesting web-based voice and social networking mashups.
    • TierLinear‘s Sarah Laycock and I spoke a little about founder Dean Sadler‘s vision for SME webapps and appliances as well as the general health of the Sheffield tech scene.

    Eliasmarco
    Though this month’s turnout was a little lower than August and September, I was really pleased to see more women coming out to play, with Maz, Sally, Sarah, Georgia and Simple Usability‘s Helen Harrop in attendance. Disappointingly, I only got to meet one or two new people…I’m wondering how we can get our regulars to bring fresh faces; for this to be a vibrant, growing community event, we’re gonna need diversity…otherwise we’ll end up as a member’s club…

    Well, here’s to next month – I may be in Berlin, speaking at O’Reilly’s Web2Expo, but that shouldn’t stop you guys geeking out! In the meantime, we also have an evening OpenCoffee warming up thanks to Sheffield’s Matt Grest and Marco Potesta (yes, Matt lifted my silky blurb to promote their event, but he promised to buy me a, um coffee).

    You can catch Paul Stanton’s post here and my photos of the day here…

    Looking forward to OpenCoffee {Sei} next month already 🙂

  • I’m MELDing!

    Meld
    God bless Katz Kiely 🙂

    As well as spinning up planning on the 2008 edition of b.TWEEN, Katz’ Just-B Productions are also behind the upcoming MELD, a forthcoming event bringing together the North’s foremost interaction designers and journalists for a week of ideation, blending the talents of old and new media.

    I’m not sure ‘interaction designer’ is the best characterisation of the kind of people MELD’s looking to recruit – but I guess bloggers, social media mavens and anyone with a flair for the distribution patterns of the 2.0 era would be appropriate…perhaps even some ARG designers, mobile and locative experts?

    MELD is running launch events in Leeds (15th October) and Manchester (10th October) with the ‘lab event running from 10-14th December

    —

    I’m uncertain that polarities exist between journalists knowing how to tell a story and social media experts knowing how to distribute. Blogs like TechCrunch and Blognation are as professional as Cnet and Wired – and actually displacing the authority and reputation of their old media predecessors as well as mastering the new tools of distribution.

    Perhaps, what’s more significant than an amateur/professional divide is the broadcast/conversational juxtaposition. New media can teach old media how to co-create, discover, collaboratively filter, crowdsource, syndicate and mashup – but new media’s just as strong at content creation. Most importantly, social media is providing ad-hoc accountability and oversight of a mainstream media that’s drifting towards incurious laziness and still looks down its nose at its new rivals.

    So MELD is perhaps an opportunity to do more than create and pitch, but a chance to understand what’s really changed; it’s important to understand the cultural and technological shifts that have driven social media and captured the cultural imagination and the reasons why mainstream media is increasingly distrusted.