Oxford Geek Night #13

I really enjoyed last night at Jericho Tavern with Oxford geeks:) I am not very good in technologies themselves – I understand social media from usability point of view, I am not a programmer. The closest I got to programming was basics of CSS while tweaking my Polish blog on blox.pl and when learning basics of SAP (written in ABAP). One day if I need to I would like to learn a bit of programming because with all my ignorance I find it amazing to see a written word (structured in a similar way to the languages we speak) transformed into a graphical representation of it. What I am trying to say is…I really respect the knowledge of everyone present at Oxford Geek Nights every time I attend the event and I feel that my short write ups are a big shallow compared to the experience itself. Last night all presentations were very interesting and engaging however there were two things I got from the #OGN. One was the fact that I am well impressed by the amount of interest and investment The Guardian puts into stepping into social media. As a foreigner, I observe a certain type of sceptical criticism of the content of the site, and sometimes I do stand behind those who disagree with their articles. However, the way they dealt with approaching Salam Pax and taking his voice on the board of their platform, the way they try to spread the word about social media and voices representing it IS good. And now, seeing that they are willing to sponsor events like #OGN they start to impress me. I have seen different understandings of sponsorship in my last 10 years of event organising – here and in Hungary – and I must say that I support the one of full understanding of the event aims and trust in organisers. If you go to the event and people say ‘thx for the beer’ they do not mean ‘thx for getting us drunk for free!’ They mean ‘thank you for making it possible for us to be here’ and they genuinely appreciate it. There is nothing better than that for anyone who wants to be perceived as a good sponsor, at least in my opinion. And now, after listening to @mibgames presentation, I like The Guardian even more. I was also grabbed by the first presentation on accidental journalism by Andrew Walkingshaw. I think it is an idea worth exploring! I am also glad that Marcus decided to mention Digital Britain fail, because it nicely leads up to our next week’s event, Barcamp Transparency. My photos are up on Flickr, but I am sure there will be better ones up, so do check the #ogn hashtag.

Thank you Torchbox for organising, Friendsofed and Moo Cards for helping out, thx to J-P for perfect management, and thx to The Guardian for my lovely glass of wine.