Yesterday was Blogwalk IV – a very enjoyable and mind-stretching day talking with other bloggers on the theme of “How will the world of work change as a result of social software use inside the firewall”.
Thanks to the excellent “light touch” facilitation from Lilia Efimova and Johnnie Moore we covered a range of topics technical, cultural, managerial, commercial and more… (there will be more posts over the next few days as I and others get on with our agreed actions!)
Some of the other people there: (apologies if I’ve left you off)
Lee Bryant dropped in for lunch
and Matt Mower joined for dinner…
Disappointed that George Por couldn’t make it but I’m sure we will catch up again soon George!
…is not a phrase you would normally associate with a gathering of bloggers but as anyone who has sampled “Garlic and Shots”:http://www.fluidfoundation.com/venueDetails.asp?BarRef=372′ penchant for putting the allium into every item of food and a good sampling of the drinks will know it is not a venue in which the undead would remain comfortable for long.
So, another one of “those blogger meetup things” graced by (amongst others) “Doc”:http://doc.weblogs.com/, “Cory”:http://www.craphound.com/, “Danah”:http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/, “Suw”:http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog, “Matt”:http://matt.blogs.it/, “James”:http://www.imajes.info/, “Tom”:http://www.plasticbag.org/, “Gary”:http://weblog.garyturner.net/index.html, “Tom”:http://www.sparklefluff.com/blatantoptimism/, “Paul”:http://www.paranoidfish.org/ and of course “Euan”:http://www.theobviousblog.net/blog/
We did the usual untramelled conversation thing, – isn’t it amazing how that is now becoming somewhat expected in these meetups rather than the great surprise it was to everyone a while ago!
Gary (of course) was the first to moblog the event , Doc had the best camera, Danah the wildest hat and Suw the best idea (but that’s for her to tell…)
Had the hugely enjoyable experience of lunch with Dina Mehta, Flemming Funch and Julie Solheim-Roe. I can report another positive example of the transfer of blog-affinity into energy-filled real-life conversations – we ploughed straight in to a whole range of topics, including:
* Do the bloggers we gravitate to have similar values?
* The importance of “abundance” thinking in stimulating the open sharing of ideas
* The way in which young Indians are completely immersed in SMS and IM, email isn’t relevant
* Online journals and the growing emotional openness of young men
* Different approaches to blog writing
* Blog writing as meditation
* Paradigm shifts in the way people inter-relate, including the growth of EBay based businesses
* How do we get senior generalist managers to engage with online /community software in large organisations?
In summary – a hugely enjoyable and stimulating couple of hours!
