I am liking the look of this new book by Michael Bungay Stanier – Do More Great Work.

In true 8fold fashion, Michael makes a clear distinction between being ‘busy’ and doing great work – the kind of work that moves our business forward.

Have a look at this video here which explains the concepts behind the book and do have a look at his website too.

I have been following blogger and fellow yogi Gwen Bell for some time now and her considered writing and mindfullness always makes me think. As a yoga practitioner and meditation newbie, I was drawn to her recent post on 10 Social Media Meditations.

Working on building 8fold as a social enterprise, attending the School for Social Entrepreneurs, co-organising RewireLondon – a non-profit venture, managing StartaTheatreCompany.com, as well as my consulting and teaching work, can mean that some weeks are a little crazy!

When you are logging onto your email at 6am before you go do a day’s work for a client or find yourself constantly Tweeting at midnight on your iPhone, you start to wonder if this is the best way of being effective. Gwen’s meditations (which come as a lovely printable PDF for you to hang above your desk), remind us to stop once in a while and breathe.

The idea of being mindful about what ‘work’ we are doing is something I hold very dear to my heart. Being busy and effective can be two separate things. One of the things I am trying to achieve with 8fold, is to help people use their digital tools to create more time and space for other things in life, like travel and family, or just finishing work at a decent hour!

Have a read of Gwen’s 10 meditations. If you feel they resonate, print them out and post them near your computer.

Then … turn off the computer.

Have a great bank holiday weekend!

Bookings for RewireLondon, the co-created, creative industries event, that 8fold are co-organising with Bracket are now open.

The day is shaping up to be very exciting, and we’ve already got some great supporters on board, including Rich Mix, Whipspin and THECUBE.

Tickets cost £25 (£19 if booked by 7 May, or £33 if booked after 4 June).  For more information and to book tickets visit www.rewirelondon.org.

Look forward to seeing you on 8th June at Rich Mix.

8fold have been working on an exciting new event for the creative sector in partnership with Alison Coward from Bracket. At last, we can reveal the name, date and location of the event!

RewireLondon is a one-day co-created, experimental and energising event for creative freelancers and businesses. The event has been inspired by our experiences of attending unconferences in the web sector and enjoying the energy and interest that these events have.

We see RewireLondon as an antidote to traditional conferences, celebrating creativity, providing inspiration and exploring new ways of working.

The event will be taking over 7 spaces of East London’s up and coming arts venue, RichMix on Tuesday, 8th June 2010. Alison and I are thrilled to have attracted great sponsors for the event including our venue partner, RichMix, branding partner Whipspin, and sponsor, THECUBE.

Booking for the event opens soon, so head over to RewireLondon and sign up for updates. You can also follow RewireLondon on Twitter.

www.rewirelondon.org

Our favourite co-working space, THECUBE, debuts their new collaboration platform on Tuesday, 23rd March in which they will invite the creative community and their members to do collaborative brainstorming in order to generate new ideas, solve problems, and tap into each others resources.

The format of the day is as follows:

Introductions: Each person will have 20 seconds to introduce themselves and then 60sec to write down their problem.

Brainstorming & Problem Solving: 5 Problems will be drawn out of a bowl at random and then as a group we will help solve it. This problem can be anything from discussing a new idea, ,marketing, accounting, anything.

Contact Building: The next portion of the day everyone will share 1 contact with each person, this can be a direct contact or a resource. This means that everyone should walk about with 20 new contacts or resources to help them advance their idea.

RSVP: Araceli info@thecubelondon.com

Collaborative working, digital technology and new business models are developing quickly around us. But as a creative business or freelancer, how do you take advantage of these opportunities while sustaining your business? We are bringing together a small group of individuals from across all creative sectors (art, design, music, theatre, film) to discuss the opportunities and challenges they are currently facing in their sector.

This interactive session, run by Creatively Digital founder, Sinead Mac Manus and creative business advisor Alison Coward from Bracket, will brainstorm solutions for moving forward and help shape a new innovative creative industries event that will take place this summer.

Alison Coward, is the founder of Bracket, an agency/consultancy that helps creative businesses to collaborate effectively, supported by the use of online tools.

Join myself and Alison on Thursday, 18th March 2010 from 6.30-9pm.

Location: THE CUBE, Studio 5, 155 Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ

To reserve your free place, e-mail info@bracketprojects.co.uk with your name, contact details and the creative sector you work in.

Kindly sponsored by THE CUBE.

Yesterday I attended my second Media Camp London – this was MCL4, see earlier post for my thoughts on MCL3 back in December.

An interesting day with some good presentations though again the organisers went for a ‘lecture style’ theatre to host the event which in my opinion does not facilitate the easy flow of conversation and interaction.

Presentations of note were CJ Lyon’s ‘Your Doh Ray Me of Social Media’, Alison Coward from Bracket with her presentation ‘Herding Cats with Social Media’ and Dean Whitbread with his entertaining, if a little flashy, presentation on making money from social media. A practical session on video and interviewing from Heather Taylor also had me scribbling notes. You can see Alison’s insightful presentation here:

Some random thoughts/takeaways from the day:

• How podcasting should be used to enhance the student learning experience and not used as an add on
• For live conferences/webinars, use a wired cable not wifi for stability
• When creating podcasts, use tags and chapters to allow for easy search
• It is possible to work networking sessions into online events using breakout ‘rooms’, Instant Messaging, Twitter
• Great selection of apps (mobile, web and desktop) from Jamie Riddell and the crowd. Check them out on Jamie’s blog here.
• Social media is a journey and everyone’s entry point is different. We need to find the entry point, make it personal and take others on a journey
• How to move from the Doh! to the Ray of light  – the aha! moment
• How we can be smarter about digital – do it because its fun and you enjoy it!
• Why Dale Carnigie is right (clue: listen first, sell second)
• In social media, copying others doesn’t work.
• Digital is like having a fear of swimming … you can take lessons or just be a kid and jump in and play
• The phase ‘real time retailing’ – from Tweet to t-shirt (thanks to John Cleese for that one)
• Start with the people, then the process and lastly, the technology
• Its not for everybody …

Fascinating (and beautifully presented video) initiated by multi-channel media company Bonnier in partnership with design consultancy BERG imagining a possible vision for digital magazines.

With thanks to Nick Seeber for the link.

Image: Videogrid by Ross Phillips

On Sunday I went to see the new digital exhibition at the V&A in South Kensington, Decode: Digital Design Sensations.

The exhibition explores three themes: Code showcases work that use computer code to create new artistic works; Interactivity highlights works that viewers can intereact with and influence; and Network focuses on works that use digital traces left behind by everyday communications, for example flight paths, and looks at how the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and collaboration.

I really enjoyed the exhibition and was struck by how popular, in particular, the Interactivity section was. Exhibition visitors engaged with works that allowed them to manipulate the digital works through movement or voice – a highlight in this genre was Daan Roosegaarde’s Dune with its rows of pulsating LED reeds at the entrance ; other works such as Fabrica’s Venetian Mirror or Ross Phillips’s Video Grid allowed for viewers to ‘be’ the artwork. The most successful piece of the exhibition was Daniel Rozin’s Weave Mirror, a beautiful grid that responds to viewers movements illustrating shadow and light. A disappointing aspect of the exhibition was the many exhibits that were not working, highlighting the need when working with technology for constant monitoring. Also it reminded me of the recent Guardian article on the rise of the camera phone and how exhibitions, amongst other cultural experiences, are being changed/damaged, depending on your point of view by the sea of camera phones being held aloft.

An excellent event and workshop programme accompanies the exhibition including a Decoding the Digital Conference on the 4th and 5th February; a Digital Design Festival on 27th and 28th February; and workshops in Processing, OpenFrameworks and Fashion Design in a Virtual World.

Decode at the V&A runs until 11th April 2010.

An interesting breakfast event at London based The Hub, Islington on Wednesday 20th January, 8.30-9.30am

Becky Willam and David Hawksworth, co-founders of the brand communications agency Given London, decided to do something a little different at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – the ThisPlace project. They asked one simple question on twitter: what’s worth saving in #thisplace?

Answers came in from all over the world and they squeezed them into a pocket-sized book, beautifully illustrated by London-based artists. The aim was to get the books into the hands of delegates at COP15, to remind them of the personal, local and immediate context of climate change.

The success of the ThisPlace project has demonstrated how social media can be used to make positive impact. Join Becky and David for breakfast here at the Hub to hear more about their campaign, where it’s going next and what they have learnt about the ways social media can best be used to create change.

Attendance is free to Hub members and £4 for non-members. Email alex.rinsler@the-hub.net if you want to come, with the subject line Booking: Hub Breakfast. Breakfast will be provided.