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Something is brewing...

The UK's quirky innovation culture - at once dynamic and loveable, while at the same time maddeningly inadequate - has been taxing the minds of a lot of people recently....

Like in this post, from Tom Coates on Plasticbag.org, which elicited an avalanche of comments and was echoed around the blogosphere:

"...our industry seems dominated by a few moribund and clumsy giants leading a culture that's inarticulate, unadventurous and profoundly constrained. There's something very wrong here.

My main question is this: Where are all the bloody start-ups? Where are the small passionate groups of creative technologists (people with clue) getting together to build web applications and public-facing products that push things forward? Where is the Blogger or Flickr or Odeo or Six Apart of the UK? What aspect of this country is it that confounds these aspirations? And I know that Audioscrobbler is wonderful. I really love it. But eventually you have to ask - is that really all we can do?

So is it a lack of money or a poverty of ambition?"

Beers & Innovation was founded on the premise that an open debate on these issues is needed, and with the hope that together we can start untangling some of them...

Social By Design...

The sixth Beers & Innovation looks at design, development, business and innovation in the social software sphere.

SPEAKERS:

CHAIR: Neil McIntosh - Assistant Editor, Guardian Unlimited
Neil is assistant editor of Guardian Unlimited, the Guardian's award-winning website. He takes particular interest in editorial innovation and leads development of the site's network of weblogs and podcasts, which have notched up a number of technological and editorial firsts in the last year. He has also written and spoken extensively on the impact blogs and nanopublishers are having on the media. Prior to joining Guardian Unlimited in 2004, Neil was deputy editor of the Guardian�s technology section, Online, and he has worked as a reporter and editor for a variety of newspapers, online services and broadcasters. He lives in London with his wife, and two cats, and has his own blog at www.completetosh.com

Meg Pickard - Consumer Experience Lead, Social Media, AOL Europe
Meg originally trained as an anthropologist, conducting ethnographic research in the field of online communities, before succumbing to the Internet industury's bright lights over a decade ago. Joining AOL UK's editorial team in 1998, Meg spent several years creating bespoke (and often award-winning) editorial solutions for commercial clients, before taking on a wider role with AOL Europe, and is currently User Experience Lead for Social Media. Working closely with strategy, product, editorial and design teams around the world, she is responsible for devising and delivering compelling user experiences within social media projects, as well as spearheading related thought leadership and innovation within the organisation. Meg is also one of the longest-running bloggers in the UK, as well as being a writer, passionate photographer and geek.

Tim Morgan - Commercial Director, Mint Digital / blog)
Tim Morgan is Commercial Director at Mint Digital. He is responsible for helping television and other clients harness the power and benefits of the web to create online properties that genuinely engage with their audience. This unique approach, fusing web expertise with creative flair has led to web hits such as Islandoo (http://www.islandoo.com) and the white-labelling of their user-generated TV platform Bloombox.

Philip Wilkinson - Co-Founder & CEO, Crowdstorm / blog
Best known as a founder first of Shopgenie and later of internet heavyweight Kelkoo UK (now part of Yahoo!). After Kelkoo UK, Philip joined Telewest Broadband as a commercial manager in the blueyonder broadband internet division for a couple of years before leaving to once again start some new ventures. In 2005, he founded a range of vertical comparison search sites known as Genie Group which uses the genie character brand to find users the best prices and products in areas such as broadband, dvd rental, loans, credit cards, and poker. In 2006, he started development on a social shopping product for the web 2.0 space known as Crowdstorm, which works out the buzz around products to help users find what to buy. It is also one of the first attempts at creating a worldwide product database by users using a wiki-based system.

Who should attend:
Anyone who's ever had a good idea and never did anything with it. Anyone who did. Anyone else who cares about these things.

To be kept posted on all future B&I nights, sign up for the fortnightly NMK Newsletter (just drop your email address into the third box down on the right hand side of this page).

See the Beers & Innovation 1: UK Start-up Culture outline
See the Beers & Innovation 2: User-Generated Content outline
See the Beers & Innovation 3: Web Services & Mash-ups outline
See the Beers & Innovation 4: RSS Frontiers outline
See the Beers & Innovation 5: Aggregators & Upsetters outline.

Read the Beers & Innovation 1: UK Start-Up Culture report
Read the Beers & Innovation 2: User Generated Content report
Read the Beers & Innovation 3: Web Services & Mash-Ups report

Check out the Beers & Innovation blog

About Beers & Innovation:
This is the sixth in an ongoing series NMK are producing, with each Beers & Innovation focusing on a particular key issue for / sector of the UK's innovation and technology scene. The next one will be announced soon. Regular updates and relevant discussions can be found on the blog. For enquries about this or future B&I nights, email deirdre.molloy (AT) chinwag.com (and editor (AT) nmk.co.uk) - we welcome all your comments, ideas and feedback!

NB: Payment for this event is by Switch/Maestro or Credit Card ONLY. Please select this payment method on the booking form. Thank you.

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