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Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Jeremy Frey
by Graeme Earl
Jeremy Frey is Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK He is fully committed to a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to chemical research. He uses laser spectroscopy to probe molecular structure, reactivity, and dynamics in a variety of environments, ranging from single molecules to interfaces and surfaces, which he studies with interfacial non-linear spectroscopy. His most recent laser research probes the shape of single large molecules of biological significance, such as enzymes, using EUV and soft x-ray coherent diffraction imaging and x-ray spectroscopy. Experimental data is transferred automatically to an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN): LabTrove, which his research group developed.
At Southampton , his collaborations with Physics, the Opto-Electronics Research Centre (ORC), and Electronics and Computer Science have been particularly fruitful. He continues to be vigorously involved with the UK e-Science and e-Research programmes. Jeremy led the CombeChem project, which developed e-Science and Grid infrastructure to provide support for and carry out chemical research, including, for example, the Smart Tea Project.
Subsequent projects deploy Web 2.0 &Â social networking technologies to develop a âChemical Semantic Webâ; the e-Bank & e-Crystals projects established Publication @ SourceÂČ as a key goal in the drive for appropriate curation. Jeremy was the chair of the UK e-Science User Group (2005-7) and in 2005/6 held a Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Mathematics and its Applications at ANU, Canberra. He has recently been appointed as the champion for the RCUK Digital Economy IT as a Utility Network.
ITaaU Web page is http://www.itutility.ac.uk/
In what ways are digital technologies transforming our lives?
Huge increase in the access to material and information, opening up choice, though perhaps not considered knowledge, ability to communicate rapidly with many people & groups to obtain input, advice and with luck make better decisions! When digital replaces physical, rather than supply information about the physical world, then the transformation is much more dramatic and personalised mass customisation is possible.
What can the latest technologies do for you?
Smart phones, Cloud services are just the start of the potential to transform IT and information provision into a utility – but are these utility services ones we will trust? When we can trust them we are empowered by them, when we can’t the result can be devastating, much more rapidly and globally than ever happened in the pre-digital world.
If youâre not online, are you out of the game?
No not quite, but just playing a slower game! I don’t have a smart phone (yet) – I can use my phone to talk to people, so while I may not always be online all the time, I have become used to being in contact, and perhaps having time with no email might give time for more thought and less rushing about?
Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Danny Weston
by Graeme Earl
Danny is currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Greenwich funded by the RCUK DE www.patina.ac.uk project, applying Actor Network Theory to ‘Bots’. He also has an interest in Floridi’s ‘Philosophy of Information’ and ‘Information Ethics’, Computational epistemology and social media. Whilst his academic background is in philosophy and politics he has also spent nearly a decade working in IT roles. This has included working on electronic trading systems on investment bank trade floors, supporting a community of online tutors for UFI and teaching computer forensics, digital enterprise and computer ethics.
How are digital technologies transforming our lives?
On the difficult side – forcing us to think and act in digital ways; which inevitably means often squeezing the analogue into discrete digital packages. Then there is the scattering of our attention – though that is as much about the means of delivery (mobile devices, email etc) as it is about being digital’. Also there’s the enormous amounts of data that can be used for passive mass dataveillance. On the positive side – freeing us from unnecessary labour and enabling greater levels of creativity for a much wider range of people (think ‘Web 2.0’ etc) and providing enormous amounts of data that could be used for accountability, transparency and self-reflexivity.
What can the latest technologies do for you?
Each technology fundamentally presents you with a choice: there have been debates in recent years for example as to whether Google makes people ‘dumber’ or ‘smarter’. It’s a choice. You can use Google to look into the minutae of a celebrity’s life or you can use it to find e-learning resources on theoretical physics. The choice is yours.
If you’re not online, are you out of the game?
No not necessarily. We’re a bit fixated on communication – which of course is important, but digital technologies can be used in many innovative ways that don’t require the hand-holding of constant connection with everyone else via the internet.
Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Ring Xu
October 7, 2012
by Lisa Harris
Ring Xu is currently studying for her PhD in Marketing in the University of Southampton. Her research interest is in social media marketing, especially in online networked marketing in social media websites. At SXSC2 she will be running a workshop to demonstrate how business can benefit from building a profile on Sina Weibo, one of the most popular Chinese social networking sites. She can be found on Twitter @ringmktgx and Sina Weibo @ææMKTGć°ć棫. Ring has a blog about her research interests and also a hands-on guide of how to use Sina Weibo.
In what ways are digital technologies transforming our lives?
Several years ago I was using my NOKIA phone and the only things I did with it were sending text messages, making phone calls and listening to music. I have been using different generations of iPhone for a couple of years and Iâve found it really convenient in terms of connecting  the various aspects of my life. I no longer subscribe to newspapers, I read them on my laptop and on my phone. Though I still subscribe to paper editions of Vogue and Elle, I prefer bringing my iPad with me from which I can read the electronic version rather than carrying those heavy magazines around. I have four email accounts on my phone and over 80 applications. I guess what I am trying to say here is that digital technologies transformed my life into a more convenient, if busier, one.
What can the latest technology do for you?
 As much as I stay online, I feel that sometimes I am isolated from the world and technological advancements undermine my human relationships. At the same time, they make it much easier for me to find things, knowledge, and people that I am looking for. I love it but sometimes I hate it. I call it a âdouble-edged swordâ.
If youâre not online are you out of the game?
Not really but it depends on what you do and where you do it. For businesses, staying out of the online world may not be a wise decision, because your customers are there. If you are not, they will be taken by your competitors.
#SxSC2 speakers
by Graeme Earl
We have added the #SxSC2 speakers to the sotonDE/sxsc2 list. If you aren’t there tweet @SxSC.
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#SxSC2 attendees
by Graeme Earl
We have added the #SxSC2 attendees to the sotonDE/sxsc2-attendees list. If you aren’t there tweet @SxSC.
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Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Julius Duncan
October 4, 2012
by Lisa Harris
Julius Duncan, Marketing Director â Headstream, and Project Director â Social Brands 100Â
Julius has been leading the communication industryâs thinking on social media for the past six years. Since co-founding social specialist Headstream in 2006 he has influenced the development of social media from its early status as an experimental arm of âdigital PRâ, to the enterprise changing discipline it is today.
As well as looking after Headstreamâs own marketing and content strategies he is the Project Director for Social Brands 100, the leading annual ranking of social media performance. He is also a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureauâs âSocial Media Steering Groupâ, where he focuses on establishing best practice guidelines, and introducing better ROI measurement for social media.
Prior to Headstream Julius has held directorship positions at integrated marketing agency Five By Five, and financial communications agency Finsbury. He got the communications and digital bug as a business journalist for Financial Times newswires and television in the first dotcom boom of the 1990s. He can be found on Twitter @juliusduncan
In what ways are digital technologies transforming our lives?
There are the obvious and easy to spot effects. Tablet and smart-phone adoption allows internet access on the move with implications for how we travel, shop, socialise, and interact. The digitisation of money means contactless payments are here, and cash-free systems will become the norm in the near future. Entertainment is no longer prescribed and sold in physical formats, we can time shift our TV viewing through Personal Video Recorders like Tivo, and easily access and share sound and video files wherever there is an internet connection.
Potentially more significant are the effects of the digital layer of data that is being built up around human society all the time via every online interaction. By making sense of this collective âbig dataâ we will be able to identify trends and insights that create meaningful breakthroughs in public health, medicine, climatology, in fact any significant challenge faced by humankind.
What can the latest technologies do for you?
Open source technologies and the internet continue to shift power from the few to the many. Now everyone can be a publisher, access a global audience, and activate that audience with the right message. Products that previously required large-scale investment to build and distribute e.g. newspapers, computer games, can now reach massive scale without huge budgets and resource e.g. Huffington Post, Angry Birds. The world is out there, waiting for the next valuable idea, it could be yours.
If youâre not online are you out of the game?
Firstly, letâs make a distinction between affluent countries with high internet penetration, and those without substantial numbers of internet users. In those connected countries you are definitely playing the game with one hand tied behind your back if you arenât online. The information, access and network potential that online provides can benefit any individual, business or organisation. In the second case it is those that can access the internet first who will benefit the most, and it will most likely be mobile rather than fixed line telecom which provides that connectivity.
Day 5 Thursday 27th September – Boards, Secret Clubs and a Single Malt Ecosystem Service
by Guy Poppy
In order to maintain the energy of the group, today involved a diverse range of activities, including meeting with our Malawian Advisory Board. Prior to this, Felix and Miro presented work on Tipping points and how we could incorporate this important topic into the ASSETS project. This very serious topic cannot help but bring humour as the team felt the tipping point of productivity was being reached through our long and daily meetings â time for a different afternoon strategy. In serious terms, the project has a real opportunity to link the social and ecological concepts around tipping points, which should have a significant impact on the whole conceptual basis of this area. Hopefully this can be achieved in a similar way that Kate Rayworth from Oxfam has linked social foundation needs into Rockstrom et al ideas on planetary boundaries.
The meeting with the board, well the two which we were able to attend on this occasion, was very useful and I feel important in ensuring wider impact of our work. The board members were very well placed to help us develop our Theory of Change and should be able to help with the communication and dissemination in Malawi.  It was the first time I had been called a Village Headman, as Sosten introduced me as the project leader to his VC – the Chief! The CEO of the energy company outlined how the lack of reliable electricity coupled with reluctance to change in behavior, resulted in people continuing to use firewood to cook, even though itâs more expensive and far more damaging to the environment. This practice in turn affects the reliability of electricity from the dams, due to changes in water flow caused by deforestation. Thus, the vicious circle and wicked problem continues⊠It will be important to see how our research may help, in any way, address this issue, but it highlights the importance of attitude and human behavior. Towards the end of the meeting, he was called to say Zomba and lost half its power and thus the reliability issue came to the fore once again!
During the afternoon, the social scientists worked as a group to generate timelines for their work â the project was finally in full flow, and the natural scientists identified data sources and a road ahead for the modeling work. This included discovering about the secret club who own certain forests where they obtain spiritual and cultural services. Some have tried infiltrating these clubs to find more about them, but getting the data might be tricky â we volunteered Simon to join, but perhaps he would be better employed in Southampton. The key now was to steer these groups forward whilst keeping the cross-talk successfully developed so far in the ASSETS project. After a highly productive few hours, we retreated to the market for some relaxation time.
The market was not as full-on as I was expecting, but that was nice considering this was a relaxation part of the week. The eclectic mix of ware on show was stimulating to all of your senses and I bought some gifts for my family. The evening was completed by a lovely team meal at Dominoes restaurant, which is owned by Clement â head of Forestry. We shared the ecosystem services prize of Single Malt whisky which I won last year from ESPA in producing the best explanation of why ecosystem services are important for a London taxi driver. I cannot recall exactly what I said now but it was something about the food, water, energy and health you currently have are due to ecosystem services â if we continue to use them like we are, we will need to colonize a new planet. Thus, we have the choice of either discovering how to get to another livable planet or be more sustainable and manage our ecosystem services better.
Day 4 Wednesday 26th September- Three steps forward and two back and TV coverage
by Guy Poppy
Today was always going to be a tough day in many ways. Some important decisions crucial for the successful delivery of the 4 year project needed to be made and some of us were going to be interviewed for a 25 minute Environmental TV documentary covering our project on Malawian TV. If I did not think the day was going to be long and challenging, I was reminded of that by the reappearance of the giant spider in my shower â even I found this one too big to remove and thus decided to shower whenever they were not on the wall by the shampoo bottle.
The morning was spent wrestling with the study site selection and the usual discussions relating to the best design for the ecosystem services, the PRA and household surveys and finally, and not to be ignored, the ability of working at the sites chosen. The team is so full of talented people, all of whom are respectful of one anotherâs opinions, and because of this the morning became a stimulating and creative task rather than a challenge. We decided to run a transect form west Zomba (Chingale), through a transition /frontier zone on the forested plateau and then continuing on towards Lake Chilwar. This method captures different distances from the large forested plateau, important providers of ecosystem services and the Lake Chilwa area which is so affected by actions taken on the plateau, yet provides other key services form the lake.
This lake has dried up in the recent past, and is likely to dry out again if further land use change, including further deforestation, and climate change occur. As the population of Malawi has increased significantly in the past decade, the consequence of the lake drying out would be severe and affect many people. I hope that the knowledge from our project will help to improve the management of the Zomba plateau and surrounding valleys to stop this from happening or to better manage the recovery from such an environmental shock beyond a tipping point.
The day concluded with some of the team being interviewed for a Malawian Environmental Programme shown three times a week and at a 9pm prime time slot. It was a pleasant surprise, and yet another challenge, to have so much time to discuss our project on television and not offer our 25 minutes of interview for a 30 second sound-bite. Sosten, Nyovani, Carolina and myself worked hard to explain why our project was important and what we will do with our findings. I hope we managed to rise to this challenge and you can be the judge when we hopefully post the progrmmae on youtube and on our ASSETS website http://espa-assets.org/. Seeing my colleagues in action in front of the TV crew reassured me for the second time today that the ASSETS team is really special and I am honored to be leading the team to address such a globally important and worthwhile issue.
Creative Digifest #SXSC2 Speaker Profile: Andrew Keen
October 3, 2012
by Lisa Harris
Andrew Keen is an Internet entrepreneur who founded Audiocafe.com in 1995 and built it into a popular first generation Internet company. He is currently the host of âKeen Onâ show, the popular Techcrunch chat show, a columnist for CNN and a regular commentator for many other newspapers, radio and television networks around the world. He is also an acclaimed speaker, regularly addressing the impact of digital technologies on 21st century business, education and society. He is the author of the international hit âCULT OF THE AMATEUR: How The Internet Is Killing Our Cultureâ which has been published in 17 different languages and âDIGITAL VERTIGO: How Todayâs Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Usâ, his controversial critique of contemporary social media.
How are digital technologies transforming our lives?
Digital technologies are turning us into networking addicts, incapable of spending time alone, uncomfortable with self-reflection, dependent on how others see us. Digital technologies are creating a shadow over our lives. They are creating a society dominated by voyeurism and surveillance. It’s a world that Alfred Hitchcock could have created. I call it Digital Vertigo.
What can the latest technologies do for you?
The latest technologies can isolate you, undermine your human relationships, feed your narcissism and turn you into a corpse. A better question to ask is what we do for the latest technologies. And the answer to that is to humanise them by creating a network in which data degenerates, a network that has learnt how to forget.
If youâre not online, are you out of the game?
Out of the game? Life isn’t a game, even if digital gamers want to turn it into one. Unfortunately, however, only the very rich and very poor can afford to be offline. For the rest of us, then, existing on the digital network is the dominate reality  of the 21st century. As the fictional Sean Parker said in the movie The Social Network: “first we lived in villages, then in cities and now on the Internet.”
Day 3 Tuesday 25th – working with the community
by Guy Poppy
After almost three days of talking in a conference centre, it was time for me to join the team engaged with Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA). We headed into the valley East of Zomba, where the ASSETS team had been training field workers in PRA and for me to see the village first hand that I had seen on the maps and tables presented yesterday. This was my first visit to the areas where we would be working over the next four years and I was excited as we pulled up into the community. Several groups were already discussing ecosystem services and ranking how important the services were to the community. This was a powerful approach which captured so much information of qualitative richness, so often neglected as everyone strives to quantify and statistical probe data. As a natural scientist now working and leading multidisciplinary teams, it is great to see the power of qualitative approaches, especially when integrated with the more quantitative household surveys and food diets, which in turn will help inform the rest of the team and especially models involved in assets.
I had the privilege of undertaking a transect walk through the village from the dam under construction outside the village boundary right down to the centre of the village, the hub of so much activity with our team these past few days. Joseph from WorldFish acted as a translator for us as we walked with two villages who shared the knowledge of the key features and ecosystem services in the village, which related to their attempts to stay food secure. It was eye-opening to see the reliance of improvements in plant breeding in providing hybrid maize, which also led to increased reliance on fertilizers, supposedly provided from the Government. At the same time, this fertilizer frequently leached from the soils and affected the fish ponds and water supply. A two-edged sword as fertilizer could really increase yield and help towards food security, whilst at the same time create a circle which can result in poor soils, low yields and polluted waters. In contrast, trees were being used to generate insecticides (like neem) and applied by reed-brushes to the crops which needed attention, and provide the pest regulation not on offer through insecticides to this community.
I found the experience humbling and motivational. The lady with Joseph in the picture was from one of the poorer parts of the village, yet she had easy access to water and was clearly a good farmer. She was also very pleased in having her photo taken with Joseph and reminded me powerfully of the need to ensure the knowledge form our research project has impact beyond academic journals.