Had a very pleasant couple of days in Newcastle, making some progress with my interactive installation for Seven Stories and the University. And a fun time on the fringes of Thinking Digital 2010, which has risen to occupy, by general consensus, the position of the UK’s premier tech conference. I attended a couple of years ago, back in another lifetime, when I was a Chief Exec of a creative industries investment agency. I have pleasant memories of it; the talks were short, I enjoyed listening to Carl Honore and The Fake Steve Jobs. But being on the inside can sometimes distract you. You’ve too much to see, too much to enjoy, too many tweets to read.
I say this as an outside this year, someone who attended vicariously, crashed the opening party, enjoyed the hospitality of a very fine individual with a vacant room, and met up with a friend from a recent other piece of activity in London. None of this would have been possible without trust. I would not have been able to walk in and meet old friends and new without it. I would not have slept the night without it. I would not have been able to run a very empowering interaction design workshop without it. And this is the quality of Thinking Digital that abounds this year. Sitting in the cafe at the base level of the Sage with Brian while we had coffee, I felt I could have strolled into the auditorium, shaken the hands of old friends, and made myself at home.
I think this is a big part of the shift in Being Digital these days, with funding scarcity and uncertain political and environmental conditions. I think digital networks are clearly thinking about it (having heard of the nervous user interface changes for clearer security made by Facebook, on the radio earlier). I have had to give up some of my own anxieties from being a ‘good’ project manager, when managing my workload and getting results. In my shift from project management to interaction design, and the shift in strategic thinking, I don’t think I have fully thought it through, in terms of how much trust can grow and provide the glue that holds so much digital work together. Hats off to Thinking Digital and all who attended, tweeted, blogged and networked, from the fringe!
