There are several good blogs capturing what went on at Thinking Digital – find them via the epilogger archive – not to mention that videos of the presentations will soon be available at the Thinking Digital site, so I’ll restrict myself to a list of some passing thoughts and links (speaking of which, if you’re at an event, epilogger does seem a handy way of capturing the backchannel so that it doesn’t disappear into the twitterdump forever…).
Word of the conference was ‘regolith’ – the loose material covering solid rock, not least on the moon. Here’s how moon dust can be 3d printed into a moon base – hopefully they will release the mindblowing video that we saw, but meanwhile here’s an interesting insight.
Jeni Tennison of the Open Data Institute mentioned these maps by Open Corporates as an interesting example of what can be done with open data, comparing the shift in access, and therefore in understanding and ultimately power, to the reformation.
While Spritz may involve collecting data about what you were reading (that gnarly privacy thing again), it does seem a very handy way to speed-read things like messages, emails and headlines, particularly on small devices like smart watches – there are a few apps powered by Spritz already available.
I’m not sure whether Meri Williams meant to create a PAM of motivation but that’s what appears in my notes – Purpose (do I know why?), Autonomy (do I have a say in what?), and Mastery (am I proud of how?) – but even the great PAM can’t help if people are not able to give a positive answer to the question ‘can somebody like me be successful here?’
IBM’s Watson seems to be an extraordinary example of machine learning – I instantly wanted it, in much the way I might idly want my own butler, and currently it’s similarly out of reach, but you can enjoy watching it defeat puny humans on Jeopardy… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18EdAKuC1U
Labour’s Digital Government Review is still looking for participation – and it’s run by Chi Onwurah, a politician I actually warmed to.
Mariana Mazzucato had lots to say of interest to those of us who work in the public sector – I may one day have time to read and review her book, but meanwhile it was heartening to hear a challenge to the view that government should only be about levelling the playing field or correcting market failures, and that in fact it has the power to invest and innovate for the long term, beyond the horizons of private enterprise – even that every piece that makes an I-phone smart was in part publicly funded. It was also interesting to hear an alternative view of tax breaks for r&d, noting that cost is not what drives r&d in the first place.
Even after working in and around HMRC for 15 years I learned a few things from Mark Dearnley’s presentation – not least that the very first business to business electronic transactions were Customs in 1971 (I knew we started e-government early but I’d never heard of anything before 1990s).
And for now, as a further illustration if one were needed of the diversity of Thinking Digital, I will leave you with the amazing chain fountain .
lowkeyhighflyer 