The second Digibury Weekender took place last Saturday (17th). The good people at Deeson know that weekends are precious. So they make the Weekender something worthwhile!
Big credit to Simon Wakeman (@simonwakeman) and Tim Deeson (@timdeeson). They came up with some genuine thought provoking presentations.
The morning kicked off with Simon Hughes (@simonjchughes) and Rachel Coldicutt (@rachelcoldicutt). They took us on a journey. They showed us what social media can do with an idea. How it can aid a campaign or just order your life.
Anjali Ramachandran (@anjali28) continued this theme. She spoke about how Third World societies can benefit from digital. The point for me was how these societies might leapfrog developed nations, stale and weighed-down with dogma. Technology could enable a level playing field.
While the morning was all about the micro the afternoon was macro orientated. In some respects the upbeat message was gone. This was all about harsh pragmatism and where research was pointing us. Alina Triggs set the tone with a perspective on automation.
Taking communications, the pace of change will continue. As this recent Gartner report predicts, within three years 20% of business communications will be authored by computers. So business content production by humans will be 20% less, assuming no growth, hence jobs will go.
Some believe people will move into more consultative roles. They will fill temporary niches. I am a strong believer in the collaborative economy. It would be nice to think that specialisations will become a valuable resource. Ideally this army of consultants will be able to market their specific knowledge and make a useful contribution. Creating the mechanisms to do this needs to go on the societal to-do-list.
The next presentation by Adam Graham (@adamgraham) looked at how humanity can benefit from technology. This contrasted with previous presentation. His assertion that digital will enhance our lives proved convincing. I liked his idea of the digital detox.
The final presentation was by Simon Wardley (@swardley). His was a view from a modern management consultant who had acres of digital experience.
This was harsh zeitgeist prediction. He illustrated how to map likely organisational outcomes using a series of predictable influences. He used this as a way of reducing management decisions based on gut-feeling. This was a pragmatic look at the way management needs to be advised.
The diversity of topics could have made this a quite unmanageable event. In reality the one common thread running through was the involvement of the host Robin Ince (@robinince), co-host form BBC R4 science series The Infinite Monkey Cage. He was able to offer just the right amount of humour to keep the tempo.
This was a professionally produced and immensely enjoyable event. I would recommend Digibury to anybody interested in digital from almost any perspective.
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