Open Everything Conference is Open

Mark Surman is proposing a very open series of discussions and events, so open that it’s etirely about the idea of openness itself. Very cool. Registration and propositions are now open. Are you for it or against it? How-to’s and success stories of “open” strategies in the fields of business/enterprise, tech, policy, education, health, arts, social change etc. Presumably, from open-source to open heart surgery, it’s all on the table.

Here are some of the discussions proposed so far.

Slightly related: Here are the bones of the discussion I led last year at the open cities conference on Open and the ‘Flavour’ of Cities. A sort of McLuhan inspired rambling on the possible techno-determinism of the semi-accidental flavours and shapes of the world around us and what new changes “open” and unconstrained design for emergence might bring us for better or worse. An idea I’d like to get back to at some point. [link to Dead Media and the flavour of cities at Slideshare.net]

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“The internet is always great, until the marketers come in and ruin everything”

Sometime in November 2007, facebook hit a wall. We know that traffic to the site took a dip in dec/jan as students delved into exams and headed home for Christmas break. But why aren’t they coming back? Searches for facebook have flatlined (note that many users use the google box like an address box).

Could facebook have done a better job of introducing apps and social adds with without flatlining what had been a lovely and long-running exponential growth curve? If so/not Did they pick the right point to cash in on their established audience?

Look at the last quarter of growth rather than the previous 3 years. That audience is worth something. But is that growth curve still worth 15 billion?

A warning signal for social network builders and would-be “lets get an audience first and worry about the revenue model later”. Does your grand monetization strategy fundamentally change the value proposition, feeling and experience that you built your audience on in the first place?

File under I Can’t Has Cake and Monetize it Too

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Reboot 10 is on the way

Little green PCWonderful slides
It was at least this bigCommuting to Reboot by bikeThe original toothless tiger

Official Page (will be) here. By good fortune of being nearby in London at the time last year (close enough right?) I managed to catch the first for me, but amazingly ninth annual, Reboot conference in Copenhagen. Reboot is the grand-mum of open/un/bar-like conferences. A lot of smart people, 3 days and the conference is pretty much everything you make of it as an attendee.

You’ll know your in Copenhagen by the downtown bicycle traffic jams, preponderance of impossibly good-looking womenfolk (with babies everywhere, which seems hardly a coincidence), and blinding sunshine at nearly all hours of the day/night etc.

Thomas Mygdal says:

“it’s time to reboot our minds again. the 10th edition of reboot will take place in copenhagen, denmark the 26-27 of june.

reboot10 is an exploration of “free” – in every incarnation of the word. free information, free individuals, free culture, free societies, free markets, free products and services, free ideas, free culture, free knowledge, free tools, free platforms, free minds – you continue the list…

a real invitation to participate and a new version of the website including videos from last year (finally!) will be online and out in some days, but use this opportunity to book you calendar, book your flights and hotels cheaply, etc.

in terms of your planning reboot will start at 10am on the 26th (registration from 8am) and will run into the evening on the 27th with lounge/afterparty. ticket price is 250 euro for early bird and 350 euro for late birds.”

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