Amplify08 – social media done right…

Amplified08 was the most interesting social media conference I’ve attended in ages.  Heck it was the most interesting damn conference I’ve attended!  So what was so amazing about it?

It was put together in just 6 weeks and advertised entirely on Twitter.  I started to notice Twitter hash tags for #Amp08 and followed the conversation to the Wiki.

There was hardly any drop out in attendance – over 200 people were there – and boy it was HOT in some of the rooms.  Not bad for a free event on a freezing cold and drizzly day in London.

It was Tweeted live throughout the event.  Each session had a different hash tag e.g. #Amp08 #21 so you could easily follow the conversation online.  The hashtag was in the top 5 searches at one point during the evening – beating Thanksgiving!

4 of the meeting rooms were streamed out live onto the internet using BlogTV – here’s a recording from one of the (emptier) rooms…

Most people were twittering how things were going from their mobile devices – a ratio of 2.1 I’d say.  Hardly anyone was using their laptops – some used tiny ultra mobile PC’s the rest was 50:50 Mac: PC usage.

The event was really low cost – NESTA provided the venue, coffee and wine. no marketing, no costly websites – just a blog and a Wiki

There were some really influential people there.  BBC, Channel 4, Guardian, Reuters news, Google, lots of news and media people, networkers and independent marketers.  All part of the conversation asking for advice and contributing freely.

Live Twitter feed gave questions and some food for thought as the sessions ran.

Sessions all ran to time – Amazingly well managed!

 

We really could learn a heck of a lot from this type of event on how to connect effectively with our audience and key influencers, run successful events and reach out to new markets.  Marketing team take note…

So well done to the team for such an amazing event.  I’m really looking forwards to Amplified09

 

Technorati Tags: Amplified08,Social media,Social networking

Amplifying your message with social media

 

I’m escaping out of the office to go to Amplified 08 in London today, partly because I’m really interested in social media and the topics that will be covered, but mainly because this whole event is a classic example of how well social media, and social networking works at bringing the correct people together.

I started to notice #Amp08 tags appearing on my Twitter feed a few weeks ago so I followed some of the links through to the wiki registration page.  Liked who else was attending, read the blog and followed a few more twitterers to get a bit more information.  I registered and watched the event grow.

I’ll be interested to watch the round the world participation – quite an achievement from a low budget approach and I’m also there to meet up with a few pals from different social networks that I’m involved with – like Sue, Toby and Shani .

 

More later… blogging from the event perhaps?

 

Technorati Tags: Amplified08

Removing worms and trojans from your PC

In case you didn’t notice the news the other day, the last security update patch we did removed malicious software from over 1 million PC’s this week. 

How was it done?  The Malicious Software removal tool.  This is what it removes.

So if you spend time on any of your friends machines removing worms, virii and trojans and nagging them about administrator permissions when logged in, then it may be worth downloading this onto a memory stick and carrying it around with you. 

Cos you never know when you’ll need it…

 

Technorati Tags: Malicious Software Removal Tool

Blogging, microblogging – where’s it all going?

This made me smile especially in the light of Andrews comments about microblogging the other day. David’s post titled A brief history of micro-media has a great cartoon on the demise of micromedia.

There’s a lot of discussion at the moment on whether Twitter has had it’s day, whether blogging is past it’s best, or whether this and other forms of social media are still gaining general acceptance across the wider audiences… 

Perhaps David has got a point though and one day we’re all going to say absolutely nothing to each other electronically and start to talk to each other face to face instead..  Now there’s an interesting thought…  

Thanks to Microblogger for the image.

Technorati Tags: blogging,microblogging

Mary Jo Foley: Just like her blog?

The quick answer is no.  I had the opportunity to interview Mary Jo last month in the UK when she talked about her book.  I recorded the session and I was really pleased with the results.  So after John’s team edited the rough recording to get the repeats out of the session, I asked the wonderful Mike if he would host the final podcast on his SharePoint site for me.  So you can listen to the podcast here (it’s 10mb and runs for 44 minutes).

So what do you think?  I think she comes across different in person to in print, much less serious, much more light hearted.

But then it might be my friendly interview technique

 

Technorati Tags: Mary Jo Foley,podcast,Mike Gannotti,John Oxley

Sleeveface – fooling around with your vinyl records

Heck I like Sleeveface.  It’s clever, it’s fun and you don’t need to use photoshop.  All you need are vinyl record sleeves, and a camera. 

I love this image -  very clever use of perspective too…

so here’s how you do it.

so if you’ve got nothing planned for the weekend and want to mess around with your record collection – here’s your chance!

Now where’s that Madonna album?…

Technorati Tags: sleeveface

Twollowing people on Twitter…

Mashable points to a little app that allows you to follow anyone who follows you on twitter.  It’s called twollow

 

will save you a bit of time with twitter admin – which you’ll lose in all the noise that following all of these extra people will generate.  Neat idea though…

Technorati Tags: twitter,twollow

Paying it forward in Technology

I’ve always believed in the pay it forward way of life – making someone’s life a little bit better so that they pass it on.  There’s a nice list about Random acts of kindness here that I thought I’d share with you.  It’s also something that you can do technically too.

Show someone how to do something differently.  It may be just sharing the keyboard shortcuts for cut and paste if you’ve watched them use the icons on the toolbar, or show them how they can put their computer into sleep mode if you watch them shut their PC down the traditional way. Little things like that can make a huge difference to productivity and to the way they work.

Show them something new – that they may not know about – like Photosynth, like Bluehoo, like, Brightkite.  They might love it.

Tell them about something that captures their imagination – like Surface, like the worldwide telescope

Help them out with their PC issues – after all – you know more than you think you do and it’s amazing just how much you can improve peoples mood and outlook on life by showing them how things work.

 

After all isn’t that what we all do?  Telling people about the great stuff we do with technology, enthusing about hardware, software, gadgets, toys.  Well you can spread the word too and pay it forward too…

 

Technorati Tags: pay it forward

Windows Azure: dynamic provisioning

I was going to write a series of blog posts talking about Windows Azure from an IT professional’s perspective and how it works from an infrastructure person point of view.  I have a couple of posts partially completed in draft which I’ll post next week.

 

But to start things off, at Microsoft, we normally give you a really high level view of how things work.  So I’ll start with a video.

This shows the evangelists and architects from the UK team explaining in really simple terms how Azure scales.

Thanks to George for pointing this out and Alex for posting the video.

Back to writing the serious stuff now.  More later…

 

Technorati Tags: Red dog,Azure,cloud services

Nigerian Scammers on the phone

Even though I have my phone number on my blog, I don’t get too many calls – usually valid calls from customers who need help, or from people who want genuine advice.  But on Saturday I had my very first Nigerian scam call.

Me: Hello

Him: Hello, am I speaking to Ms Eileen Brown

Me: Yes, how can I help?

Him: I’m from Nigeria and I found your number on the web

Me: Yerssss…….

Him: and I wondered if you could tell me your email address

Me: Why do you want my email address?

Him: So I can do business with you.

Me: You can’t do business with me, you’ll have to do business with my company

Him: I want to do business with you

Me: Who do I work for then?

Him: I don’t know

Me: Well I suggest that if you don’t know who I work for then you’re going to find it quite hard to do business with me

Him: but I want your email address to do business with you

etc. etc.

 

This back and forth went on for quite some time, him trying to get my email address from me, and me telling him that if he knew who I worked for it would be really easy to do business with the company.  On and on it went back and forwards until I got bored with his lack of knowledge about who I was and how easy it would be to do business with me.  heck if you search on the web, my email address is on the Technet UK website!

And he didn’t have the sense to hide his number from me either.  Thank you caller ID.

So if you’re bored with the thought of scammers or have ever received a call from Ghana at +233 2402 14572 too, please have some fun too.  After all – he’s paying for the call

Technorati Tags: Nigerian 419 scam