Archive for December, 2004
wanna go to beijing?
Dec 15th
Just got back from the CSAA conference in Perth, and am now both knackered and leading a week-long Digital Storytelling workshop – I have about 20,000 words of blogging to do about both of those. But for now, one of my lame “announcement” posts.
I had the _best_ time at the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme this year, and next year they’re going to hold it in Beijing. So if you’re a social science (very broadly defined) PhD student working on the Internet, then this is for you:
The Oxford Internet Institute is pleased to announce that the application process for our next Summer Doctoral Programme is now open. The 2005 programme will take place in the city of Beijing, China between the 7th and 21st July 2005. The programme will focus on the increasingly multilingual, multicultural character of the Internet and Web, particularly with the rapidly growing prominence of Asia, and China, in this global network of information, communication, services and technologies.Further information regarding the programme and details on how to apply, are now available on our website. Please see:
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/teaching/?rq=sdp.
If you have any further queries please email sdp[at]oii[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk.
Fields of Uncool Panel
Dec 15th
What with all the nerves on the day, I didn’t notice this photo being taken and can’t recall whether it shows us gearing up for the panel or gearing up for the pub afterwards…in any case, this is us at the csaa conference – for us, the culmination of nine months of emails and some of the best discussion I’ve ever been involved with. Jane Simon, Melissa Gregg, Kris Cohen (in blue shirt, obscured by me).
Thanks Glen, I stole the image from your blog.
The ProAm Revolution
Dec 6th
I’ve been waiting for this for a while: “The ProAm Revolution: How enthusiasts are changing our economy and society”, Charlie Leadbeater’s full-length report for Demos (with Paul Miller), is now available for purchase or free download.
From astronomy to activism, from surfing to saving lives, Pro-Ams – people pursuing amateur activities to professional standards – are an increasingly important part of our society and economy.For Pro-Ams, leisure is not passive consumerism but active and participatory, it involves the deployment of publicly accredited knowledge and skills, often built up over a long career, which has involved sacrifices and frustrations.
The 20th century witnessed the rise of professionals in medicine, science, education, and politics. In one field after another, amateurs and their ramshackle organisations were driven out by people who knew what they were doing and had certificates to prove it.
The Pro-Am Revolution argues this historic shift is reversing. We’re witnessing the flowering of Pro-Am, bottom-up self-organisation and the crude, all or nothing, categories of professional or amateur will need to be rethought.
Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse range of Pro-Ams and containing new data about the extent of Pro-Am activity in the UK, this report proposes new policies to support and encourage valuable Pro-Am activity.
Link now, discuss properly later. But in short – this goes in the “context” category for me – it’s next door to vernacular creativity, but it isn’t the same thing, primarily because while it asks us to question the zero-sum game that is the professional-amateur divide, it is mainly concerned with the phenomenon of the “serious amateur” who may (and in some cases already does) actually usurp the stranglehold of the professions over a range of relatively stable and visible cultural fields. While this is part of the cultural shift that gives my work a sense of timeliness, I’m also interested in the value of less visible, more ephemeral and “everyday” fields of creativity than, say, amateur photography or astronomy.
I Know, I Know
Dec 6th
I’ve been quiet here. But as Ben says, silence in a blog means that there is a whole lot of shakin’ going on elsewhere. In my case, finally facing up to writing the actual words and (hopefully) sentences I’m going to be speaking at the CSAA conference on Thursday, making sure the digital storytelling workshop I’m coordinating when I get back is organised, and lots of admin crap that you don’t want to know about.
Oh, and if you’re in Brisbane tonight, come to this:
From Pioneers to Profit – the four pillars that underpin the InternetPublic Lecture by Kim Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, Southern Star Entertainment
Place: Kathleen Room, Staff Club, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus
Time: 6-7.30pm
This free public lecture forms part of the Internet Class 04 3 day program convened by CCCS 6-8 December. Following the lecture, Ms Anderson will launch Gerard Goggin’s new book, Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia, after which refreshments will be served.
Along with this of course has come a whole range of “virtuous displacement” activity, including working out how to: capture video footage on my mobile, transfer it without bluetooth to my PC (email), convert it to .avi format and edit it together in Adobe premiere. Why? Well, this is going to come in v. handy at the conference, where I’ll be making my very first mobumentary.
Stay tuned…