The North’s Digital Spring – ‘ThinkingFuturesonicbTWEENLSxDigital’

The five great cities of the North are buzzing with conferences and festivals as we close out the Spring and head into Summer…

  • 11 – 12th June: Liverpool plays host to this year's bTWEEN, previously held in Manchester and Bradford.
  • 19 – 21st June: Sheffield's third BarCamp rounds out the Digital Spring.

Lsx09 There's been a little controversy at the overlapping schedules and content – but personally, I think it's cool. Every city's conference or festival has something unique to offer…Manchester's music, Newcastle's ingest of global speakers, Leeds' student show and grassrootsy content, bTWEEN's media focus and Sheffield's newly minted Digital Campus. But the overlaps might actually be helpful as speakers like Stowe Boyd can commit to a few weeks touring across the North and various events, the same way ETech and SxSW's proximity make for a productive conference season in the US.

Ian Forrester is encouraging LSx, Futuresonic, TD and bTWEEN to coordinate more closely next year, so there's great potential to cross-promote and synchronise where we can.

Katie Lips, in her own unique fashion, is attempting to bring some harmony, between TD and Futuresonic in particular, by running a Tech Bus Tour between both conferences (via Leeds!)

2010 already looks like a promising year as FutureEverything spools up and LSx seeks to merge with Live At Leeds…now where will bTWEEN end up in '010?

Comments

  1. Great write up on the Northern web/media conferences Imran, thanks for the heads up on LSx.
    The FOWA Tour and Physical Computing 101 events sound really good, unfortunately I’ve only just heard of them! Maybe next year…

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.