Making Links
I’ve just spent two days at the 2008 Making Links Conference - the annual community sector ICT and web workers’ conference. It’s been a simultaneously intellectually energising and physically exhausting experience (for my sins I’ve been up at 5:30 am each day to get the train into Melbourne, rather than doing the sensible thing and staying in town). Here, in no particular order, are some brief observations and a few choice quotes.
- The first post-Twitter Making Links. While there were only a handful of twitterers, the tweets were flying thick and fast using the hashtag #ML08. Lots of discussion in presentations about Twitter too, although some delegates admitted to not getting what all the fuss is about. Said one: “this is just a geekier way of passing notes in class.” And another: “last year everyone was talking about Facebook, now everyone’s talking about Twitter - and I don’t even have a Facebook account yet!”
- Email is dead. “Young people don’t use email any more - email is for communicating with your parents” (Penny Hagen)
- Social tech is the new black. Yes, I know this is old news on the bleeding edge, but for the community sector I think it is significant. Lots of ideas about ways of leveraging social networking platforms to build social capital.
- The people are the network.
- Ambient informatics, QR codes and the “read/write city” — Where 2.0/neogeography
- Access for people with disabilities (a major conference theme). Progress is being made, orgs are getting it, people with disabilities are making tech mork for them in unpredictable ways. The digital divide/disability divide is real but the future is wide open. “We’ve never lived in an age where people with disabilities have such a great opportunity to get involved [in cultural activity]” (Scott Hollier)
The strength and challenge of this conference is the range of different organisations and workplaces the delegates come from. Naturally not every presentation can be engaging or relevant for everyone, and I did sit through some dross, but overall I think the event was a success and the organisers should be congratulated for making this important event happen.
