#tdc12

[thinkingdigitalconf]

Videos from Thinking Digital 2012

After five years of the Thinking Digital Conference, we have amassed a sizeable library of some fabulous conference videos. This is the first in a series of highlighted talks in our archive and we’ll start by reviewing the most recent Thinking Digital in May 2012. Wednesday Early Morning, 30 May 2012 What was it like to work with Steve Jobs? Ken Segall, the author of Insanely Simple gives some great insights about his time working with Apple and Steve Jobs in this opener to Thinking Digital 2012. Professor Paul Watson has been hugely successful in advancing Newcastle University’s computing research agenda. In his talk here he highlights a small slice of the terrific work being done by the Social Inclusion in the Digital Economy (SIDE) Project. Adrian Hon is a British new media hero. He details here how he successfully used Kickstarter to help finance the creation of Zombies Run - one the most critically and commercially successful iPhone games of its kind. Sweden’s Magnus Lindkvist is a rock-star trendspotter. We have been trying to bring Magnus to Newcastle for years and he didn’t disappoint in his stand-out talk here about how to think about the future.            We hope you like what you see and we will be promoting the next session's talks soon.

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Thinking Digital - Notes from Wednesday

Apologies in advance for the length of this post but it's got some pretty pictures so it's worth sticking with it.

I went along to Thinking Digital in Gateshead yesterday (Wednesday 30th May). It was a great day, I didn't tweet my way through the talks, instead I chose to sit, listen and take notes. I didn't take notes of every talk either so the pages of notes I liked have been recorded in this blog post along with some brief notes of my thoughts and how you find out more about each speaker.

Given that the conference is called Thinking Digital there was more 'Thinking' than 'Digital' but that was definitely a good thing in my book. I really enjoyed the opportunity and time looking at other sectors and see some disruptive ideas.

There are already lots of blogs about Thinking Digital springing up and if you want to find out more the conference then the Thinking Digital twitter stream is a really good place to start

Tom Chatfield

Tom touched on a growing trend I'm seeing to 'unplug'. He didn't prescribe how or when but he did talk about how we should become more discerning in our choice of technology and tools. Tom has a book out right now called How to Thrive in the Digital Age. He posed the question 'Is Email Evil' which everyone found amusing but it got a resounding 'Yes' from the audience.

Sebastian Seung

This was the only talk where the word 'Gamification' was used and you can't knock it when it's used alongside the word Neuroscience! So Sebastian is looking to leverage our love of gaming to help map the wiring in the brain. Check out eyewire.org and get involved.

Mikko Hypponen

Mikko was able to talk about cyber crime and security and make it really understandable and interesting - a talented man! My notes sum up Mikko's talk pretty well but you can find links to Mikko on his site here http://mikko.hypponen.com.

Pam Warhurst

Pam talked about Incredible Edible which started in Todmorden. They've started a revolution and she gave a rousing talk which was all about getting on and doing. 

You can find out about what Incredible Edible is all about in case you can't figure it out from my notes http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk.

Zach Lieberman

I had the privelege of having dinner with Zach and sharing stories and experiences. He has some brilliant and awe-inspiring projects and I urge you check them out. He's currently working on a cultural olympiad project along Hadrian's Wall - it sounds like it's going to be amazing.

You can find out more about Zach's work http://thesystemis.com/.

Sugata Mitra

Sugata talked about learning, an area I'm really interested in because I have children in primary school. He was witty and very very smart. I tested out his 'teaching' method of saying 'I don't know' and walking away today but my 5 year old ran after me with iPad as I walked away.

Sugata blogs at http://www.sugatam.blogspot.co.uk.

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Thinking Analogue? It's TDC12: the magazine

Writers, photographers, illustrators & data interpreters needed for Thinking Digital's first magazine – in print!

Thinking Digital always produces a wealth of digital content – speaker videos, delegate blog posts and exabytes of social media goodness (well, nearly). So how about translating it into the tactile page and immortalising it in print form?

We're assembling a team of delegate volunteers to help us plan, write and produce a magazine. It's an experiment in user-generated content and crowd publishing, and where better than TDC to try it out? Here's something similar we did for the Turner Prize at BALTIC last year, and more info on our 'pop-up publishing' work.

Add your story ideas (and comment on others) on our public Google Doc – then we'll get together at Wednesday's conference dinner and sketch out a page plan. We'll set the copy deadline for the weekend, then design, print and post it out to all TDC delegates by mid-June.

Grab @DanHowarth, @NellyStav or @SocialiteEvents (aka Lindsey) if you'd like to get involved in the project. We'd love to have you on board.

**UPDATE** Despite getting some great submissions, the magazine unfortunately didn't go ahead. It was a combination of funding, manpower and extraneous issues that let the project down in the end. We do still, however, have all the content in our files, and we're hoping to do something interesting with it at some point in the near future. Thanks to everyone who got involved.