cruel to be kind

There is something else I really dig about speaking / giving workshops: The smile in peoples eyes when they come to you and tell you that your information helped them and made them understand “this stuff”. (And it is probably not what the organizers like to hear, but I don’t need huge audiences and am much more content to have a smaller audience and interact with them.)

When I submitted my usual session about “Think international” to BlogworldExpo I thought it would be a great idea to point out to the organizers Rick Calvert and Libby Durfee that there where other areas …

People interested in privacy and data protection in Germany seem to be much more likely to be open to english / international than other areas in Germany, so it comes at no surprise that the Identitycamp in Bremen is setup to be a bilingual one from the beginning.

Identitycamp Bremen will be the first Barcamp in Germany that focuses on identity 2.0, single-sign-on, reputation management, relationship management, privacy 2.0 and related issues. It will take place in Bremen in Northern Germany … currently, we aim for a capacity of about 100 participants.

IdentityCampBremen is being prepared by an informal network around Identity and …

While I am going through all kind of information I though I list them for you as well … Some of these you should put directly in your phone book or save them as a document on your mobile phone.

[Now, collecting was the easy part. *sigh* now to bring that all into my systems cause I don't get mobile access *grrrrr*]

Information from the official site:

• Lists of speakers / panel by titles / panels by category, new additions: Book Readings plus Core Conversations (site and podcasts)
• The parties: Evening Events at SXSW Interactive
• SXSW Interactive Festival FAQ Additional information in and around SXSW
• mobile registration directory
• Tools: …

If you heard me rant in the past, I am happy to announce that those German’s are slowly getting there. ;)

Three very different events, but all of them “want” international speakers and attendees.

If you plan to attend the event in Berlin or Hamburg, I suggest you try to add more time to your visit, either to connect with the local (startup) scene and or attend additional socializing events.

As all of these events mean travel for most attendees, there is a tendency to start the evening before the event. (Hanover is a different beast, and if you want to …

As Jennifer Pahlka and Brady Forrest are coming to Europe for some meetings for theWeb 2.0 Expo in November – and they finally booked flights so hopefully there will not be any more changes to the plans! – there are some meetups I would like to make you aware of.

In case you are a fresh startup, you should especially pay attention to the launchpad event during the Expo!

Informal Meetups are happening so far the following:

• 9th in Berlin, details in German
• as described by Tom Raftery: 14th in Cork
• 16th in London, no place set yet

I suggested to Brady to make a geek dinner out …

Probably my farest away recording – directly from Thailand. Michel Bauwens is founder of the foundation of p2p alternatives. His talk is named “The Politics of Web 2.0 and the contradictions of a sharing economy”

Michel and I talk about:

• why he wanted to do something which has meaning for him
• about passion and midlife crisis
• what p2p has to do with respect
• social trends: peer production, peer governance, peer property
• the roman empier did not simply disappear – and how this applies to today
• open design and why innovation could so much faster
• if it works, we have a sustainable world

Download MP3 (28:45 min, 16,9 MB)

Visit his …

A conversational talk with Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, facilitator of reboot.

• the referenced talk with Stowe Boyd
• why human this year – to make again a central theme
• insight was: all what is happening currently is a massive shift from machine / industrial perception to a more social, playful, finding yourself way – the desire to make sense
• more self-organizing, more conversation, no Q&A!
• how the program was / is organized – the wow factor
• more rooms this year and an official babysitter!
• present among your peers and not sucking up to the participants
• about birth, kids and death
• companies can die, too.
• you do not raise people
• what would have happened if …

Stowe Boyd calls himself a cross between a researcher and an impresario with a focus on social tools. His talk is going to be “Flow: A New Consciousness For A Web Of Traffic”

Download MP3 (40:30 min, 23,7 MB)

He and I talk about:

• the agenda is changing – they allow us now to do different things
• how he is the oldest teenager in the world
• how the desire to work more in Europe succeeded – but differently than planned
• his work with the open university project
• how twitter and a cocktail party are superior to social network app – and I forgot to add he is …

Robert Slagter is a researcher at the Telematica Instituut in the Netherlands and is going to present “your ideal Working environment – what does it take to create an environment that stimulates productivity, collaboration and knowledge sharing?”

Download MP3 (24:43 min, 14,5 MB)

He and I talk about:

• his interest in collaboration and sharing
• how do people actually work and how to make something that fits
• what are free thinkers and why it is crucial to keep them happy
• some learnings companies make at the moment
• his ventures in Second Life and which roles virtual worlds can play, including some limitations
• you don’t need every function / opportunity …

Dannie Jost, writer, philosopher and part time poet, is going to present a talk on “Theoretical Man – being human right there with public man”

Dannie and I talk about:

• why “human?” is one of the most fascinating questions
• “theoretical man” was born at lift, but already had a bit of a history
• “the I and the We” – balancing of a certain paradox
• as human we are genderless
• how we use language to communicate the levels of abstraction
• theory is not about truth, it is about being a model
• why the romans already knew a lot about management
• human behaviour in a quantum mechanic way
• the interplay of emotion …