Thursday 4 February 2010

Three Speakers and a Hoe Down


Brrism's second meeting of the 2010 will take place at the Pervasive Media Studio on the 17th February. Read more and signup below.

Not only is this Brrism's second meeting of this new decade, it is also the second meeting with the new YouTube format. Here's the lineup:




Writing the Social Media Future. Writers such as George Orwell, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Neal Stephenson have created fictional futures exploring the impact of future technologies on humanity. Despite only being works of imagination, speculative fiction can stimulate discussion about how humanity could be affected by technology in the future and, as Orwell demonstrated in 1984, these can be frighteningly close to the bone. In a unique blend of social media future gazing and fiction writing, Brrism is collaborating with local author Emma Newman to generate themes relating to the future of social media, leading to the creation of an original short story written by Emma after the meeting for the Brrism community. (Editors Note: Emma is a soon-to-be-published author who writes novels, short stories and flash fiction (stories of 1000 words or less). She got her publishing deal through networking on Twitter, and has been podcasting her novel a chapter at a time for the last six months. If you have a few minutes, I'd recomend a quick peek at her website before the meeting.)


Social Media is rubbish, discuss. Did you know that social media is a cure for cancer and will single handedly reverse all climate change problems within our lifetime? OK, so I may have made that up, but don't you think that all this social media hype is getting out of hand? In order to make sure we don't all get carried away by this shiny new internet stuff, Brrism asked Richard Churchill to put on his best Victor Meldrew voice and ask us if we're not getting just a tiny bit carried away by all this shiny new internet stuff. He takes a common sense tour of social media and points out that it's important to use the right tools for the job and not get sucked in by the hype.


The WikiMedia Foundation. Wikipedia has already changed the world. From its launch in 2001 its become the 6th most popular website in the world and is the boon for enquiring minds the world over. But Wikipedia is just one project borne out of the Wikimedia Foundation and so we've asked Steve Virgin, board director of WikiMediaUK, to talk to use about the foundation's other projects and what local initiatives are being led from the UK.


The Hoedown. Every Brrism has a hoedown and February is no exception. This one's called Arranging the Comic Strip and will get you talking, get you on your feet and get you in the right frame of mind for the Brrism OpenSpace that follows. Take a look at the pictures from previous meetings to get a feel for what happens when a bunch of interesting and intelligent people come together at a Brrism meeting.

Thanks once again to the brilliant Pervasive Media Studio for lending us their premises for the event.

Events
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