This is not a description of the contents of neither the talks nor a depth analysis. Others were much more prompt in their reporting and can provide you with more detail. Unfortunately the webcast was unable to show the speakers slides, and this is something I’ll come back to in a moment.

As a humanities / social science bod, I struggled a bit on day one with some of the maths and scientific discourse, but day two was much more up my alley. I certainly was not the only person who had this experience and I loved the social scientists in the audience who were frequently tweeting “where’s the social science” and asking questions over the roaming mike  about power structures, agents and agency. That said, it was clear that at the same time there were plenty of audience members who did follow and enjoy these day one talks and who have engineering, physics and mathematics backgrounds.

It was a shame that Henrietta Moore the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge was unable to make it as she was due to present on  ‘Smart Users and Social Networks. What’s Happening in Africa and Asia?’. This is because one of the things that troubled me was the general lack of discussion about techno-capital, access and the digital divide. When some of the speakers mentioned social transformations and the benefiting of humanity, there was either an implicit feeling of neutrality or equality  in their analysis and little or no mention of social exclusion.

Moore’s abstract can be found here

In the last two decades we have witnessed the fastest technology adoption in human history.  This talk discusses the processes that are driving changes to the web in Africa and Asia.  The two continents show similarities and differences in processes of adoption and use, but in both cases recent developments challenge the idea that technological developments are necessarily bringing about unprecedented social transformations…(Moore, H 2010)

Anyhow, one of the most energetic and eloquent speakers was Luis von Ahn, who fyi also presented an excellent set of slides, which (ahem) can not be said of everybody. Luis Von Ahn developed the captcha  and he has since built on this in re-captcha and a brilliant project which harness the man power and time spent in filling out captchas in the process of digitizing books. Von Ahn’s presentation was both funny and engaging, which meant that he was able to communicate his ideas to a willing audience .

I have no problem with people not using slides and just talking, but if you do use slides, even if you have a brilliant mind and are a senior academic in your field, it is still important that they capture the bones of what you’re saying and are readable, otherwise they detract from what you’re saying. (I witnessed some dreadful crimes against presentation over the course of the 2 days, dodgey template backgrounds, clip art (!) mixed and crazy colored fonts, and over snazzy screen wipes. These are no-nos I teach undergrads ).

Highlights for me were the inclusion of a slide from Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in the 1st 20mins, which showed all the different disciplines he sees in the development of web science and how and where they overlap. Castells’ optimistic talk on individuation, sociability and autonomy, Noshir Contractor‘s very brief mention in his talk of computational social-science  (the study of social life on computer networks) and his raising the problem of  technology  producers and the curated experience of the user , and the power structures implicit in this.

All in all, an edifying, inspiring 2 days that has given me lots to think about.

Follow and Tweet MPs and Parliamentary Candidates, and use the power of Twitter to track UK politics, make your voice heard and conversations more open. You can take a back seat… or you can tweet.

I must say I really like the concept, despite it being a little utopian. A couple of weeks ago I facilitated a 2 hour seminar with 1styear students on Habermas and the concept of the public sphere, and the media. It was very interesting to hear students views on where they feel social media sits with political engagement. The message from the students was “I don’t understand politics”. Whereas I think tweetminster is a hopeful and positive idea, I wonder who it’s audience is at the moment? I fear it may be engaging the already engaged and wonder how it will tackle the disconnect between those it should be targeting and technological adoption rates. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about digital divides, technology and social inclusion.

I also came across?politics and the city?a website that aims to make politics stylish, founded by C4 presenter June Sarpong.

The site places political issues along side more light entertainment news, fashion, lifestyle, and celebrity gossip in order to try and capture it’s audience, young women. The site looks lovely, swish and sleek – but I struggled to find spaces of actual engagement.