How? Why? DIY!

Social Media Cafe – is rising once more

Defnetmedia — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:39:20 +0000

After a year off – Social Media Week in 2011 must have been very arduous - Social media Cafe Liverpool is set to return on 16th February. It’s fun and informing events came just as the majority of people where struggling to come to terms with the change that twitter was making upon the online scene and as the iphone had reached past the early adopter market.

Well it’s back and returning to it’s roots at Static Gallery on Roscoe Street and it wants to hear from you – the evening format is normally a series of presenters talk about a specific topics for 20-30mins from 6-9pm, drinks are normally available form the Bar.

SMC are taking a poll to find out the issues that you think are important to find out about (take that poll here) but as a starter they are hoping to look at a variety of issues and have a panel discussion at the end of the presentations.

You can book for Social Media Cafe Liverpool on their made over website – wordpress of course.

Videos from Barcamp Liverpool

Defnetmedia — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:32:56 +0000

For those of you that couldn’t make it along to the first day of Barcamp Liverpool on Friday the 18th November then luckily we were there to video some of the talks. Not all of them but some so here they are the ones that we have processed so far.

Adrian McEwen – What is the point of Liverpool

Ross Dalziel – Open Source City

John McKerrell – Welcome and introduction (60MB MP4)

Dr Peter Hagerty – Virtual Spaces (100MB plus Mov file)

Garry Haywood – Can we Crowd Source Growth (100MB MP4)

Tim W – Can we Crowd sourcing Historical maps (100MB MP4)

Chris Hough – WordPress Plugins

Sorry we didn’t make it down to Day 2 as I had a bad cold.

Sound Lab – From Open Labs and Sound City

Defnetmedia — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Sound Lab is an event taking place next Friday 25th November and is a great opportunity to have a go at creating your own new ways of hacking, sharing and using sound so don’t sit in your bedrooms come out and collaborate with some of Liverpool’s finest coders and hackmiesters.

The team will be gathering at the Contemporary Urban Centre and your invited. Teams of participants from a variety of disciplines will develop new tools for enhancing our engagement with sound using digital technologies. We’ll put you into teams with the day culminating in said teams presenting their projects to a panel of judges. It’s free so come along and have a go.

Brought to you by Open Labs who support Jelly Liverpool, Does Liverpool and Ignite Liverpool – clearly they really love this kind of activity.

Book up for Soundlab http://soundlab.eventbrite.com/

Barcamp Liverpool this weekend

Defnetmedia — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:53:32 +0000

If you’re not familiar with the Bar Camp concept they are participant led unconferences where the talks and discussions that take place are set by the people attending – anyone can and is encouraged to run a session on any topic they want so the whole event is driven by the conversations and interactions of the people attending.

I have to say I am so converted to the idea of participant led unconferences (just take out the un) that I create my own and really encourage others to do so to. Most conferences consist of stale cofee and boredom listening to a speaker who does not know their salt. At a barcamp you still get the stale coffee but if the speaker bores you, you simply walk away – Yeah to that. And then you hold your own session on a subject that grips you.

This won’t be Liverpool first Barcamp and it certainly won’t be the last but they need to happen more often and with new faces and new subjects being covered. The last one i attended was the first Liverpool one and I went to a talk about WordPress from Dave Coveney, another on telephone numbers being the next big thing, one about the capital of culture and a big plenary session with prizes – I won nothing. I am sure there were others but i wasn’t allowed to stay to long as the powers that be needed my presence.

Barcamps do tend to be Technology related but they don’t have to be and you could come along and talk about a subject that is of interest to you. There is only one previso on that and it is that it is a popularity contest so if no one turns up for your talk then that is it. So you need to make it interesting. I am saying all this and i need to come up with some talks for the Barcamp myself. er……..

BARCAMP LIVERPOOL is this weekend 17-18th November

Anyway the first round of tickets are available now at http://barcampliv2011-does.eventbrite.com

If you’d like more information about Bar Camps in general you can read the wiki at http://barcamp.org

Come along and say Hi to me.

Late addendum

If you are travelling for some distance away, Does Liverpool have managed to secure a guaranteed rate on the Ibis hotel which is just around the corner from where Barcamp is taking place.

Rooms are available for just £60 for a single room or £70 for a twin, both include a continental breakfast. The rate is guaranteed up until 17th October so you’ll need to book quick!

To get this rate please call Ibis on +44 (0)151 706 9800 and ask for Rosy, Lisa or Paul. You’ll need to mention Barcamp Liverpool and give the reference number 147100.

GO to it my friends.

DOES does it

Defnetmedia — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:12:45 +0000

New workspace opens for the digital meddler

DoesLiverpool a brand new community Interest Company has opened a new space for circuit benders and physical computing enthusiasts. The space based within the Gostins building is still being set up but is a welcome addition to the Liverpool tech scene.

A spokesman for DOES said

“The facilities that we can offer in our space will grow as the community grows, and will be directed by the community, but from the beginning we will be offering three main services: co-working desks available on a monthly basis, access to a workshop and flexible hot desks. For our monthly desks we’ll be offering a desk plus drawers and should be offering some privacy by having the option of taking the desk in a smaller lockable office. In our workshop we will have work surfaces, electricity and internet. We’ll also have a variety of tools and equipment provided by us, the organisers, which will hopefully grow as more people join the community.

We’re also intending to allow community groups to use the workshop space for meetings. We’re still figuring out how that will work but if you need a space then get in touch and we’ll work things out, and we do aim to have free options available for that.”

Here are the prices that they’re going to be charging:

Co-working desk: £150/month (includes full workshop access)
Workshop access: £30/month
Hot-desk: £8/dayEvents space: ASK

You can find out more about the space here and more about Makernights.

Graffiti Research Lab

Defnetmedia — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:55:32 +0000

This is a great video from FAT LAB – Here they demonstrate how to use a laser pen to”write” on the side of a building. I saw the video at thee Making Future Work conference – you can read my blog post here: http://www.defnetmedia.com/blog/2011/07/making-future-work/

I would love to see this as a project within Open Source City especially as all the code is available to download and reproduce . Links on my blog post.

Rathole Roadshow 2011

Dan Lynch — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:24:28 +0000

You may have seen this already but I’m running a Creative Commons music event in Liverpool at The Zanzibar on Sunday April 24th. It’s called the Rathole Roadshow and it’s a celebration of independent music, Creative Commons and geekiness. You can find out more here – http://ratholeradio.org/gig

There’s also a free EP download with all the bands who’ll be playing, so you can try before you buy.

This event will be run in association with the Music Unconference Neil is doing on April 23rd at Parr St and both events are part of the Working Class Music & Life Festival 2011.

Tickets are £5 from the website or you can always email me via show@ratholeradio.org if you don’t like Google Checkout.

It’ll be the best thing happening in Liverpool that night I promise, musically anyway. Check out the EP if you don’t believe me. Plus Monday is a Bank Holiday so we can all sleep in ?

Dan

Pecha Kucha style presentations required for Ignite Liverpool

Defnetmedia — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:15:54 +0000

The next Ignite Liverpool is taking place on 2nd June upstairs at Leaf Cafe on Bold Street and Ignite Liverpool are seeking individuals who are interested in presenting at this event.

If your unfamiliar with the format then it kind of goes like this.

Presenters contact Ignite Liverpool and suggest a topic for their presentation. After everyone has submitted their ideas we choose the best suggestions for that Ignite session and give you the go ahead to start preparing your power point presentation. Yep we said power point presentation. You get 20 slides that are 15 seconds each – That’s 4 slides a minute so 4 x 5 = 20slides and that’s all you get – 5 minutes.

It is their mission is to encourage as many people as possible to come forward and present on a subject that they are passionate about.

If you would like further information please contact them using this link http://igniteliverpool.defnetmedia.com/contact-us/

More information and video’s of previous speakers is at http://igniteliverpool.defnetmedia.com/

Deadline for submissions is the 15th May.

Open Letter – Liverpool’s digital communnity

Defnetmedia — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:53:52 +0000

An Open letter to Liverpool’s Digital Community reposted here with permission. Original post

Open Letter – Liverpool’s digital communnity

I write this letter to you, if you have ever attended, participated, contributed, organised or re-tweeted about any of the events that make up Liverpool’s digital ‘scene’.

I have thoroughly enjoyed being an active participant in our community and have taken on several roles during the last two years, leading, assisting and just plain turning up to a wide range of events. Those I haven’t made it to physically I’ve championed and watched as they have grown and developed.
(Twestivals, tweet ups, ignite, social media cafe, TedX, mashed libraries, dev days, hacks and hackers, cathedral valley, oggcamps, how-why-diy, fabcamp, maker nights/hackspace, howduino, barcamp, geekup, Liverpool WordPress Interest Group, Linux user group, have I missed any?)

Lately I’ve been thinking about where it’s all going. Yeah, it’s great that we get together often, drink coffee/beer and have amazing social events on where we also learn stuff but I’ve begin to wonder about the future and I find I’m asking myself a few questions;

What are we trying to do?
Have we got a goal?
How can we sustain this activity going forward?
Do we want to?

Given that I don’t have all the answers I felt it would be timely to write my thoughts down and ask what you think.

I feel that as a community we have huge potential, that we can (and are already) doing great things – but with an agreed vision that gives clarity to us, and to our audiences we can achieve much more.

So – what can you do to help?

We (the collective organisers of said events) would like you to tell us what you think. We don’t make you fill out evaluation forms every time we meet, and therefore we’re working on a premise that you like what we’re doing, but that may be a huge assumption. Huge.

If you could reply to this blog post (or any others that are saying the same thing) or tweet @livdigcom with answers to the following, we’d be very grateful:

1. What are we doing well that you’d like to see us continue with?

2. What should we stop doing, and why?

3. What should we start to do, and why?

4. How do you want to be involved? (Are you happy to turn up, speak, volunteer, lead?)

If you’re responding about the general list of activities, great – if you’re being a bit more specific about certain events, please let us know which ones.

This information will help us to consider the BIG questions up above, and think about where we go from here.

Thanks for listening,
Mandy Phillips @m8nd1 | Neil Morrin @defnetmedia | Adrian McEwen @amcewen | Dan Lynch @methoddan

Ella Wredenfors @runpaintrunrun | Andy Goodwin @franticuk | Andy Freeney @technofreen

Stu Robarts @sturobarts | John McKerrell @mcknut

Open Source City

Defnetmedia — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:05:59 +0000

Yep – it looks like the truly inspiring Open Source City is due to return later this year after a long rest of 3 years. You might remember that it last took place in Liverpool in 2008 at various venues including Static Gallery and Mello Mello.

You can find out more about open source City from 2008 by visiting the sound network site http://soundnetwork.org.uk/?q=node/48

Or catch Ross Dalziel’s video – Open Source City Live from Ross Dalziel on Vimeo.

Open Source City Live from Ross Dalziel on Vimeo.

And you can listen to Neil Morrin’s interview with James Wallbank from Access Space in Sheffield. http://www.defnetmedia.com/component/k2/item/439-extra-pod-james-wallbank-from-access-space.html

There will be more of that but bigger and so much better