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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...

SPEAKERS:

Chair: Greg Tallent - Senior Lecturer, E-business, LSBU and Bearstorm
Greg is Senior Lecturer in E-business at London South Bank University. His main research interests are in the web phenomenon of 'social networking', 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.

Simon Willison - Technology Development, Yahoo!
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 weblog. He is one of the hackers behind Django, the open-source Python web framework aimed at "web developers on journalism deadlines". Simon will talk about the web services being developed by Yahoo! and the opportunities for companies and developers to work with Yahoo! content.

Tom Loosemore - Head of Strategic Innovation, BBC New Media
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 'civic hackers' dedicated to developing sites (such as FaxYourMP.com and TheyWorkForYou.com) 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 BBC Backstage project and community building.

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) outline.
See the Beers & Innovation (2) outline.

Check out the Beers & Innovation blog

About Beers & Innovation:
This is the third 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) 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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