It really reminded me of that "state of the union" panel they have at every single comics convention. You know the one, it starts off all fired-up about whichever brand-new publishing ventures are around that month, and it's all fresh and exciting and enthusiastic and overwhelmingly positive, then always, but always descends into arguments about how to get people who don't read comics to start reading comics. And it always, but always ends up with exactly the same suggestions coming around and being shouted down. Everyone has their own favourites and their own dislikes which are someone else's favourites and people are so busy arguing the merits of which is better that they lose track of the initial positivity and the actual methods of outreach. This session was just like that, only people were arguing over which social network was better instead of which comic. And although there were a few really interesting points to be made, they kind of got lost in the noise.

One of the issues raised was how to train younger people to utilise social networks to maximise their potential for when they leave school¹, which kind of struck me as a bit unnecessary because if anyone knows how to use social networking, it's people who've grown up with internet culture being a part of their entire lives. Kids in school now can't remember a time without the internet, and are pretty savvy about how to use it. I was interested to learn that Facebook's terms of service apparently exclude children under the age of 18 who aren't in formal education, though. Is that because Facebook is worried about potential paedophiles who'd sign up as children, and couldn't be verified because they're not on school records? That makes sense, although, as someone pointed out, do things like that mean that terms of service are replacing human rights? I would have loved for that discussion to have continued, but someone hijacked it and started banging on about something else, and then proceeded to dominate the rest of the session without giving anyone else much of a look-in. By that point, my attention started to wander and I started thinking about dinner…

¹There was an entire session about Youth and Social Media which apparently focussed a lot on this issue. According to Utku, even he was older than the age group that session focussed on, and he's only just in his twenties!

Both games were quite silly and seemed a bit pointless even though they made us all relaxed by making us laugh. However, as Johnnie said, the making us laugh bit was important, because having fun playing games can create more sense of engagement than "important" discussions. (I certainly noticed this in the third session I went to, which really could have done with a bit of fun injected into the room to lighten it up a little. More on that one in the next post.)

The first game was called "noise ball" where people stand in a circle and throw an imaginary ball and make an accompanying (often very silly) sound. When you catch the ball, you have to remember to say their sound as well as make your own. Afterwards, we all noticed how much your attention gets divided between thinking of a good noise, following the "ball" and remembering the previous noise before your throw, which parallels the way your attention can get divided whilst juggling things when you're multi-tasking. This became even more apparent when a second "ball" was introduced into the game, and we realised that you had to actually stop thinking so much about what noise you were going to make, and pay more attention to what other people in the group were doing and where the "balls" were. As I twittered at the time (quoting Johnnie again), "It's less about delivering and more about being prepared to receive, " which goes back to the "two ears one mouth" principle.¹

This is the principle that was suggested by Toby Moores right at the beginning of the event¹, and the game was a brilliant active reminder to reinforce it, so despite my initial reluctance to join in I'm glad that I did. I wish more people had played it, actually, because there were quite a few who seemed to have forgotten that they were there to listen and not just talk (again, I must mention the last session I attended.)

The second game was also good fun and pretty interesting, psychologically. Two people take it in turns to draw the features of a face, and after that, they each add letters to name the person they've drawn. (You can see them all here.) What struck me about it was the way me and my partner kept avoiding certain features as though we were trying to force the other person into drawing them, which was something that several other people mentioned as well. In fact, this was so acute in our first drawing that we ended up with one of those carny half-man half-woman people, complete with beauty mole, lipstick and only half a moustache, all because my partner kept shying away from drawing the other half of the moustache. Well, having drawn one half of the moustache, I wanted a go at some other features like an eye, an ear, a necklace, an eyebrow; I didn't want to be stuck doing the same thing again! I found that really interesting, too. Perhaps that is quite reflective of how I work. It's true I do like starting things and then get bored or dispirited and go off to start something exciting and new.

So it was a useful session for me, personally. I don't know how useful it was overall, but I think it's always good to be reminded that sometimes it's good to do things which don't seem important so you can see what is important. And it's important to make the work fun.

¹ and one espoused by Abram Games, as I recently mentioned at the bottom of this post.

Unfortunately, the session was a little disappointing in that the discussion was just getting really interesting when we had to stop and move onto the second round of sessions. However, since it's already an active topic in the blogosphere, I see no reason why it shouldn't just continue it there.

One thing that we didn't have time to discuss properly at the panel is that it's not just about text-based books, of course, so much as traditionally printed matter generally. Joanna Geary has been raising the issue of the future of newspapers over on her blog quite a lot lately. She makes a great point in a recent post on the subject here:

"The people who queued outside The Washington Post for their special edition on Obama's victory would tell you there was a value to print and it has been argued that this is proof that newspaper is still the format of choice for important events. "People didn’t print out the news on their computers", goes the argument. [...]
What it does prove is that there is an innate value placed on print that is not just defined by efficiency or speed of delivery. There is something valuable about it as an object [...] Digital is, at the moment, still considered too transient a medium for keepsakes."

This is also something that's come up in relation to comics recently, as well. Last week I had a brief chat with Doctoe about the potential of interactive online comics — stuff along the lines of what Daniel Merlin Goodbrey does with his hypercomics, which opens up a whole new way of reading — and writing for — that particular medium.

In fact, every form of traditional printed matter is affected, and it's having an effect on the way we communicate with each other already. As one example, just look at how many times a printed advert will refer you to the website for proper, complete information rather than display it on the advert itself (TfL do it an awful lot, for example. And then have completely contradictory information).

One of the issues raised in the session that I did find really intriguing was the notion of how to create spaces for readers/viewers to actively feed back into the original work, not just saying if they liked it or not, but actually collaborating and creating new things off the buzz of the initial idea. A guy called Richard Galbraith (thank you, name-tags) said that he is currently "alpha-publishing" his novel as a PDF available on his blog so that people can collaborate via feedback, providing illustrations and a soundtrack. He has the idea that when finally published, the book can come with a USB stick to contain the music/image files, plus having a launch party with an exhibition and a gig. That sounds like a great way to utilise social media and old school media without either one of them having to be considered as "lesser" than the other, and also a wonderful way to keep the buzz alive and organically growing, especially if each collaborant¹ also opens up their own work to active feedback via their own blogs.

This also raised the idea that there is a new model for publishing which is emerging, as more people are taking control of their own work and its destination, instead of all trying to cram through one tiny gateway into the world of established publishing. The question is whether people have already forgotten about the previous model, and whether we even need it anymore, or whether it's worth holding onto it to learn from where it went wrong (which is always something to consider whatever the medium).

There's also a really good report of this session up on girlygeekdom.

¹I know there's no such word, and really the correct word is collaborationist, but I think my version is more elegant, don't you?

A lack of focus was to be expected, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was being run along the unconference principle, which can be more erratic than conventional events — "organising without organisations" as Clay Shirky put it. Secondly, and perhaps more important to remember, it was only the very first event of an ongoing social experiment (for want of a better term), where one of the main principles is to learn from mistakes and find new ways to do things.

That willingness to be open to making mistakes in order to learn from them is kind of fun and exciting to be a part of, anyway. I know some people find that a lack of distinct focus can be frustrating (myself included, actually), but it also means that there is more of a chance for some brilliant idea to come completely out of the blue and sweep us all off our feet, as they're not all trying to cram through one tiny gateway¹. As one of the organisers, Toby Moores, said, "We are becoming agents of change. We are the ones that can make it happen."²

Or, to put in another way, coming out of the "Less Talk, More Play" session run by Johnnie Moore (reviewed in a bit), and paraphrased by me in this twitterpost: "an activity which seems inconsequential can be important because it's all about relationships and roles, and mixing it up for new ideas."

A "Network of Networks" event like this, which brought together over 40 UK networks and social groups into one place — not to mention all the people from around the world who followed it online — is certainly going to be a useful one for mixing it up and getting new ideas.

I know there's been quite a lot of feedback (mostly via Twitter or on the wiki) from people complaining that the lack of focus was frustrating in the sessions because it seems as though nothing is going to actually get done, but I think you have to remember that throughout history some of the greatest ideas have been the ones started outside of official parameters, the ones that start in the bar after the main event is all over. As James Whatley noted, the most useful sessions can often be the ones that pop up outside the prearranged parameters. I think there are going to be lots of great ideas coming from all of these interesting people and we're not going to know about all of them to start with because they're not all going to be recorded on video for people to watch online. That's always how it works.

I think, too, that most of those who attended Amp08 are eager to learn from the first one to make the next event in February more successful. I loved the fact that there was so much positivity flying around the place, and that everyone I met was, for the most part, incredibly warm and friendly and welcoming. I know that sounds a bit hippyish, all touchy-feely, but I don't care if you're cynical enough to actually believe that. If you are cynical enough to actually believe that, you ought to get off your high horse and come down here with the rest of us, because it's important to remember that there needs to be an atmosphere of warmth and support to encourage people to break out their ideas without being too scared or embarrassed to do so. As Matt said to me last weekend, "there's nothing wrong with a bit of idealism. Idealism has got a bad rap and it's good to see people reclaiming it for good purpose." (Or something like that; I can't remember it verbatim.)

We're agents of change. We can make it happen. Here's to the future, and here's looking forward to Amp09. Today's World of Tomorrow!³

¹Chris Meade actually used this analogy during the Future of the Book session (reviewed in next post), but I think it's a useful one in many contexts.

²Which suddenly reminds me of the "YES WE CAN" thing from the Barack Obama campaign, which is really cool, because that became "YES WE DID" and it's good to be reminded that not only are we the ones that can make it happen, but sometimes it actually does happen, too.

³aka #twot