Archive for January 25th, 2009

Serious fun

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

comicposter1

ThoughtFest09 is being held on March 5 and 6 in Mancester in the UK. You can find full details here. And we are beginning to put together a programme. Thoughtfest is being designed as an open event around participation, communication and serious fun.

Jenny Hughes has agreed to run a workshop on comics and cartoons. And instead of getting on with editing a book, as she is supposed to be, she has been creating a series of cartoons for the festival.

More later this week.

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Online again

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

How fast we get used to almost ubiquitous technology.

On Tuesday last week I went to London for a meeting. There was supposed to be a wireless network but I couldn’t get it to work. But, I thought, five hours off-line is not such a bad thing, so I did not try too hard.

In the evening I went to Bonn for a project meeting followed by a two day workshop at the BIBB – the German Federal Institute of Vocational education and Training. There was a network but no chance of a connection. The BIBB is located in a government building with a fearsome firewall around it. The hotel did have some access. However the free online PC was broken and the only available network costing eight Euros an hour was infuriatingly slow. Four days with next to no connectivity left me twitching. I felt cut off and out of touch with my friends. It took me until Friday to work out that I could at least use SMS from my mobile phone (although I am very slow typing on telephone keypads). But that is better than nothing.

It was a remiunder how fast we have got used to and come to rely on being connected. It made me think about how the world used to be before wireless networks. And whilst coming back to 350 unanswered work emails was irritating, it was the social contacts and networks I missed most. I guess it shows how rapidly technology is impacting on all facets of our lives and identities (or is it just me  :) ).

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