Baby / family blogs

In about 1997 we started working on Global Friends Websites. Way before it’s time. Will post more about that as an anecdote soon. For now, just know that one of the markets for the £10 websites was new parents wanting to share baby photos etc. In so many ways we were anticipating what has since happening. But it’s so often about timing isn’t it. Anyway, here we have the latest addition in our family. Kirby James Gargett… growing up live, in Perth and online. We can share his adventures here. Very interesting to see where things have gone. There are a zillion different examples of baby blogs out there, so we’ll just keep it close to home for now…

drinks at office Friday 28th 5pm

We’re having our first OpenBeer drinks at the office, 50 Providence Place on this Friday 28th Sept at 5pm.

Come over and share a beer and chat or network or just look out the window.

See the event on upcoming.

Age no barrier to blogging

A quick note about this very special lady (95 years old and going strong) and the grandson that empowered her. What a team!  We would love to see older people blogging, capturing and sharing their wisdom for the ages, for the world, combating isolation, making new connections, feeling valued.

The same things apply at any age don’t they?

Bob Dylan & Social Media Get Hitched - blogging just got sexier

Bob Dylan’s releasing a new album. His marketing people have seen the benefit of social media and launched a facebook application to help him. It’s available for anyone on facebook to play with and have Bob promote their own message.

So if we are already friends on Facebook, just check out my profile to see how sexy Bob can make blogging look, or make a friend request - and if you show me your private life, I’ll show you mine.

If you have not yet been seduced by the Fascist Dystopia that is Facebook (according to Ivan Pope via Tom Nixon), then go play. It really is worth experiencing. But read the health warning first, and a shout out for the next big (and braver new world) social media thing…

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Our blogs

Wow, just sent a list of our blogs to Brighton Bloggers for inclusion. It’s getting a bit long. Hadn’t realised just how much blogging Gra and I (mainly Gra) have been doing over the last few years. So here it is…

www.authenticblogging.com - the place for a deep, authentic and truly happening approach to blogging in all it’s potential and ripeness. Blogging courses and an emerging new community - here we are!

www.barkingowl.com/learning - began with documentation of our early learning project and moved on from there into person-centred education, blogging and beyond… still sometimes active and ranks well with Google, loads of good stuff to check out and comment on, but have largely moved across to authenticblogging now

www.gravyland.net - our personal, family blog (including some contributions from Bea age 6, eg. this lovely picture she drew. Still not entirely sure how open I should be online, but this, like everything, is a work in progress.

http://blog.scouta.com - Scouta is our online media recommendations venture. Regularly featured on Techcrunch, actually.

http://presencelabs.com - Business blog for our main consulting vehicle, Presence Labs Ltd.

http://aplacecalledprovidence.com - A group blog for the co-working
office space at 50 Providence Place in the New England Quarter (where Gra is based, while I am at home hanging out the washing in between brain flashes and mad typing). Includes contributions from such neo-reno’s as Snipperoo’s Ivan Pope and the lovely Dom Stockdale.

University of Sussex Blogs

Thanks to UoS’s social media savvy Tom Roper for leading me to the following blogs maintained by other UoS staffers.

I’ll try and compile a full list of UoS Blogs for general reference. Please let me know of any others and I will attempt to keep this page up-to-date rather than adding multiple posts.

There most be loads of relevant Sussex University blogs out there. The other thing is to join the Uni of Sussex network on facebook. It’s all going on there…

SPLASH - Student Personal Learning & Social Homepages (added)

Rob Read, Amy Walker, Beth Granter, Tony Hudson, Alison Field and their team at Sussex are doing very cool things with Splash. It’s a blog, it’s a social media strategy, it’s starting to happen! They are really putting some resources into embracing the potential of online student (and staff) power. We’ll be watching this space closely and supporting them where we can. Not sure how it will compete with the seemingly unstoppable Facebook for attention (how much time can we possibly spend updating our profiles etc!), but I guess like they say it will have more of a focus on learning, which is right where we are at.

Be very interesting to see how they go with mashups (live bus and train times, gig guides, personalised calendars including deadlines etc wow). All sounds really open and cool. Bet the futurelab people would be able to offer loads of good input. Bet we are not going to see ratemyprofessor apps coming in. More on this one later! It’s got me going…

Seeing as I blogged the first part of my MA in Education Studies (Person-Centred Learning) and started looking at how learning communities come together, amongst other things, I guess I was always going to get hooked by a project like this… I’m also a bit of a tragic facebooker, so you get the general picture.

Separated By A Common Language

“Observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK”. Lynn’s blog is a good example of an authentic voice. She writes well. She is “herself” and bridges the potential gap between personal and professional selves very well. It’s also a fascinating read and a great title!

• Dr Lynne Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics & English Language

Medical Humanities

“This blog is to support the development of medical humanities teaching in the Brighton & Sussex Medical School curriculum.”

• Maintained by Tom Roper.

Language Learning Resources

“Current awareness for language teachers and students from the University of Sussex Language Learning Centre.”

• Also maintained by the prolific… Tom Roper.

The Crossing

“The Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre blog.“

• Maintained by Julia Day, STEPS Communications Officer.

Thanks for your input Tom, and for blogging about our pilot course in blogging for academics at Sussex.

Time to turn this into a blogroll…

A Place Called Providence

We’ve started a group blog for our co-working office space in Providence Place.

It ought to be a laugh and give a bit of a sense of the round-the-table conversation we enjoy. Check out aplacecalledprovidence.com.

Links for Monday

Time for a few links to neat things. I haven’t done a post like this for ages:

* I’ve only just noticed the Chaser Crew’s lovely social engineering of the ridiculous security at the APEC summit in Sydney. The chaser boys drove a totally fake Canadian motorcade right up to the hotel Bush was staying in, and then an actor in an Osama Bin Laden costume got out of the Limo. Brilliant. Security were clueless. “It’s a motorcde, just wave it through…”
* [Commentary by Bruce Schneier](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/apec_conference.html)
* [Video footage from The Chaser's War on Everything (scouta/youtube)](http://scouta.com/faves/5T3qWroUH90/)

* A really nice [timelapse video of Burning Man 2007 (scouta/youtube)](http://scouta.com/faves/hEbTYkubwNe/)

* Make custom short urls with dave and josh’s £5 app, [icanhaz.com](http://icanhaz.com/). More kittys and less obscure than tinyurl. Made in Brighton.

* [Why Do You Stay Up So Late?](http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/whystayup/project.html) – an interactive multimedia poem.

EcoTeams

I’m doing some work for [Global Action Plan](http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/) for their [EcoTeams project](http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/index.cfm?TERTIARY_ID=0&PRIMARY_ID=31&SECONDARY_ID=38).

The EcoTeams project is all about helping households reduce their environmental impact from energy, water-use and waste by working together and measuring and reporting on consumption and waste.

I’m so pleased to be associated with such a positive, practical project and working with a great group of people at GAP. I’m working on the EcoTeams website, which includes measurement capture, reporting and management of teams, plus a lot of database work.

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