May 25th, 2010
This Thursday (27/5) at 7:45pm at the wondrously refurbished Midlands Arts Centre, I’m taking part in a debate on — breath — social media and globalisation.
It’s billed as:
“Expert Jon Hickman (Birmingham City University) chairs a lively debate with guests including Pete Ashton… assessing lifestyle changes implied by new technological tools in the new wave of social media.”
an interesting, if potentially unwieldy, topic. Chair (and ‘expert’, he’ll hate that) was worried that Pete, him and I would ‘agree violently’ on most aspects. I’ve not written by talk, or really fully considered my position, yet but I think I may be able to get away without agreeing with either of them.
Current thoughts is that I might deny globalisation exists at all.
Come along and see.
January 26th, 2010
I’m speaking at this next Wednesday, although how much freelancers have to learn from the way I work I’m not sure (maybe it’ll be what not to do).
Know Your Place (which sounds a bit Frost Report to me)
“Find out first-hand how freelancers in the world of illustration, photography, writing, design, PR, Publishing and web make a living. We’ll share some practical hints and tips about how to market and promote yourself to gain attention, generate new leads and stand out from the crowd. “
by Jon Bounds | Posted in
Conferences & Talks |
November 4th, 2009
I’ve recently worked on the social media coverage, on the day but also a few “wrap up” pieces, of the Hello Digital Festival in Birmingham. There were interesting talks, I found those outside my areas of expertise and interest (the Innovation in Gaming panel especially). Sion Simon’s address, which I didn’t have time to concentrate on live, but have just listened to again) mentioned that it was my “destiny” (using me as a name to represent talent in the local social media scene, I think) to have a statue much like the ‘carpet salesmen‘ (Brum’s industrial fathers) have in the city centre.

The Carpet Salesmen by M R Fletcher
I’m not sure what it means, The Lunar Society is an oft used reference whenever it comes to thinking coming out of Birmingham — but those thinkers thought of science and industry and “made things”. I’m wondering if I need to “make things” too, or is “helping others make things” (a way to think about consultancy work) enough?
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– Sion Simon MP at Hello Digital
October 29th, 2009
I spent a fascinating couple of days down in that London at an gathering of those interested in the future of local news — organised by Sion Simon (Minister for Creative Industries) at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, who are hoping to have got some useful ideas for future legislation (the Digital Economy Bill) It was brilliant to have a range of people from different backgrounds and interest groups to talk to and learn from — too many events are focused around one industry or interest group and end up being (to be clichéd) an echo chamber — with it being particularly good to hear about how things are shaping up in the States. Hannah over at Podnosh gives a good overview of the whats and the whos.
But first the “bad news”, see the decline in regional newspaper circulation from 1993 (as shown in a very impressive set of slides from Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis)

What strikes me is that, while the decline starts to happen consistently with widespread internet adoption, there are huge drops in years before that, including 1993; before the world wide web. Something was up with what the regional press was offering long before people started getting news online — and local news online provision lagged behind that of national (certainly in Birmingham where it’s only been about a year since the local papers started to publish properly on the web).
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September 7th, 2009
For your downloading pleasure:
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Birmingham
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11-11-11
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Memes
by Jon Bounds | Posted in
Conferences & Talks | Tags:
audio, greenbelt, talks
September 1st, 2009
This is my third talk, it’s an amalgam of this talk on memes from WxWM and this one on internet culture.
I can’t get the videos to embed, but think you can probably guess what’s happening anyway:
The festival may have better quality mp3s available (recorded from the mixing desk) I’ll post links when/if they become available.
by Jon Bounds | Posted in
Conferences & Talks | Tags:
goatse, greenbelt, memes
September 1st, 2009
I was asked to talk about Birmingham, and so I did:
Here are the slides and my recording of the audio for the I gave on Friday at Greenbelt.
The festival may have better quality mp3s available (recorded from the mixing desk) I’ll post links when/if they become available.
by Jon Bounds | Posted in
Conferences & Talks | Tags:
birminghamuk
September 1st, 2009
Does a festival want to hear about my theories of conversational pyschogeography and how I coerced people into spending eleven hours on a bus that stops where it starts? Quite a few people did, and even stopped to ask questions at the end.
Here are the slides and my recording of the audio for the I gave on Saturday at Greenbelt.
The festival may have better quality mp3s available (recorded from the mixing desk) I’ll post links when/if they become available.