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. Come along to the third Beers & Innovation night to find out how the UK's doing with web services and mash-ups, hear from some practitioners in the field and have your say on the issues... true false false 0 <b>NB:</b> <i>Payment for this event is by Switch/Maestro or Credit Card ONLY. Please select this payment method on the booking form. Thank you.</i> <br /> <br /> <b>Something is brewing...</b> <br /> <br /> The UK&#39;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.... <br /> <br /> Like in <a href="http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/07/where_are_all_the_uk_startups.shtml" target="blank">this post</a>, from Tom Coates on Plasticbag.org, which elicited an avalanche of comments and was echoed around the blogosphere: <blockquote> &quot;...our industry seems dominated by a few moribund and clumsy giants leading a culture that&#39;s inarticulate, unadventurous and profoundly constrained. There&#39;s something very wrong here.<br /> <br /> 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 <a href="http://www.blogger.com/start" target="blank">Blogger</a> or <a href="http://www.flickr.com/" target="blank">Flickr</a> or <a href="http://www.odeo.com/" target="blank">Odeo</a> or <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/" target="blank">Six Apart</a> of the UK? What aspect of this country is it that confounds these aspirations? And I know that <a href="http://www.last.fm/" target="blank">Audioscrobbler</a> is wonderful. I really love it. But eventually you have to ask - is that really all we can do?<br /> <br /> So is it a lack of money or a poverty of ambition?&quot; </blockquote> Beers &amp; 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...<br /> <br /> <b>SPEAKERS:</b> <br /> <br /> <b>Chair: Greg Tallent - Senior Lecturer, E-business, <a href="http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/" target="bank">LSBU</a> and <a href="http://www.bearstorm.com/" target="blank">Bearstorm</a></b> <br /> Greg is Senior Lecturer in E-business at London South Bank University. His main research interests are in the web phenomenon of &#39;social networking&#39;, in particular how the Internet has enabled identity and personality to be shared by people within interest groups. He has lectured extensively on: Media Disruption in the Internet Age; What is Web 2.O?; and A Philosophical Framework for Web Behaviour.<br /> <br /> <b>Simon Willison - Technology Development, <a href="http://www.yahoo.com" target="blank">Yahoo!</a></b> <br /> Simon Willison works far Yahoo! on the Technology Development team. He is an experienced client- and server-side developer and maintains a long running technical <a href="http://simon.incutio.com/" target="blank">weblog</a>. He is one of the hackers behind Django, the open-source Python web framework aimed at &quot;web developers on journalism deadlines&quot;. Simon will talk about the web services being developed by Yahoo! and the opportunities for companies and developers to work with Yahoo! content.<br /> <br /> <b>Tom Loosemore - Head of Strategic Innovation, BBC New Media</b> <br /> Tom Loosemore is a senior manager at BBC New Media, where he has championed the building of solid foundations underpinning bbc.co.uk, including search, single sign-on and content management. Tom is one of the founders of a small cabal of volunteer &#39;civic hackers&#39; dedicated to developing sites (such as <a href="http://www.faxyourmp.com" target="blank">FaxYourMP.com</a> and <a href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com" target="blank">TheyWorkForYou.com</a>) that poke British democracy with an internet-shaped stick in the hope that one day it might wake up. Tom will be speaking about the <a href="http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/" target="blank">BBC Backstage</a> project and community building.<br /> <br /> <b>Who should attend:</b> <br /> Anyone who&#39;s ever had a good idea and never did anything with it. Anyone who did. Anyone else who cares about these things.<br /> <br /> To be kept posted on all future B&amp;I nights, sign up for the fortnightly <b>NMK Newsletter</b> (just drop your email address into the third box down on the right hand side of this page).<br /> <br /> See the <b><a href="http://www.nmk.co.uk/event/2006/02/09/beers-and-innovation" target="blank">Beers &amp; Innovation (1) outline</a></b>.<br /> See the <b><a href="http://www.nmk.co.uk/event/2006/03/30/beers-innovation-ugc"> Beers &amp; Innovation (2) outline</a>.</b> <br /> <br /> Check out the <b><a href="http://innovationeye.wordpress.com/" target="blank">Beers &amp; Innovation blog</a></b> <br /> <br /> <b><i>About Beers &amp; Innovation:</i></b> <br /> This is the third in an ongoing series NMK are producing, with each Beers &amp; Innovation focusing on a particular key issue for / sector of the UK&#39;s innovation and technology scene. The next one will be announced soon. Regular updates and relevant discussions can be found on the <a href="http://innovationeye.wordpress.com" target="blank">blog</a>. For enquries about this or future B&amp;I nights, email deirdre.molloy (AT) nmk.co.uk - we welcome all your comments, ideas and feedback!<br /> <br /> <b>NB:</b> <i>Payment for this event is by Switch/Maestro or Credit Card ONLY. Please select this payment method on the booking form. Thank you.</i><br /> <br /> <p><a href='/article/2006/09/13/beers-innovation-mashups'>Report on the event.</a></p> 1000 1000 2006-03-30T13:52:35+01:00 2006-04-27T21:30:00+01:00 0 376 default.jpg 51.516155 -0.135506 false 2006/3/30/beers-innovation-3-web-services-mash-ups-nmk 2006-04-27T19:00:00+01:00 Beers & Innovation 3: Web Services & Mash-Ups (NMK) 2008-02-03T08:49:04+00:00 5 Pitcher & Piano (upstairs room), 69 Dean Street, Soho, W1D 3SD.