Today was the first day of the Participatory Design Conference being held at UTS.  Just a reminder about the Industry Day that’s happening on Thursday, for which Zumio is a sponsor.  (I’ve been unable to attend the entire conference due to work commitments — if you attended, please drop us a comment with your thoughts!)

The programme for the day is looking great — I’m very excited to see Mariesa from Inspire is presenting the opening keynote.  In talks and conversations I’ve often singled out Inspire as a great example of involving young people in their processes across the organisation, so I’m really looking forward to hearing more about their work in the participatory design space.  And of course I always love to hear from the folks at Digital Eskimo and CollabForge, who I know are doing great work.

But I’m also very excited to hear from some new (for me) voices in this area — and there’s plenty of very interesting folks in the panel and research sessions in the afternoon.  In any case, I hope to see you there…

Just a quick note to mention that Eventbrite, a popular event organising web application, has announced discount pricing for non-profits and charities – Eventbrite for causes.

The blog post makes mention of the U.S. requirements, but the pricing extends to non-profits in other countries as well.

As mentioned previously, I’m attending the Social Innovation Camp organised by ASIX this weekend – now only one sleep to go.

I was going to write a quick post on my hopes for the weekend, but I read James Dellow’s take on it this morning and he says it better than I could, so head over and have a read of what he said ;)

I, too, will be attending in a “roving ‘mentor’” capacity, and I’m very much looking forward to participating in developing the variety of interesting and inspiring projects that have been invited to the camp. Should be a lot of fun…

Registration for attending the camp is now closed, but for those of you who want to follow proceedings from afar, follow AuSIX on Twitter, or search for the #ozsicamp hash tag.

Just a quick note to mention a few up-coming events that I’ll be attending.

Essential Media Communications (EMC) Summer School

I’ll be presenting at EMC‘s “Summer School” program this coming Thursday 18 February. The two-day event is mostly a hands-on practical event, exploring campaigning tactics on a demonstrative campaign. (Disclosure: EMC is one of Zumio’s clients)

My keynote will kick off the event looking at how participatory activism (including social networks etc.) presents great opportunities, but requires a different perspective to traditional tactics to make the most of it.

This is an invite only event, but Gemma at EMC, who is co-ordinating the event, tells me that there are some spare spaces for participants from NGOs and non-profits – so get in touch with Gemma if you are interested: gemma AT essentialmedia DOT com DOT au.

Social Innovation Camp

The team at the Australian Social Innovation Exchange (ASIX) recently announced the successful ideas that will be developed at the up-coming Social Innovation Camp being held in Sydney 5-7 March.

I’ll be attending the event which I hope will be a great couple of days. Zumio is also providing consulting services as part of the prize for the winning idea at the camp – more to come on that front soon.

Enviro 2010

In July I’ll be attending and presenting a short talk at the Enviro 2010 conference in Melbourne.

I’ll post more about the topic a little closer to the date, but in essence my talk, which is scheduled for 22 July, will be looking at how applying the principles and tools of design practice and social networking to sustainability challenges presents opportunities for innovation, along with other benefits.

Via cheiftech:

Enterprise 2.0 for Breakfast – January 2010

Thursday January 21, 2010 at 8:00am

Single Origin

60-64 Reservoir Street
Surry Hills, New South Wales 2010 Get Directions

This is our second Enterprise 2.0 for Breakfast in Sydney.

James Dellow aka Chieftech (from Headshift) and Alex Manchester (from Step Two Designs) invite you to join them for breakfast to chat informally about Enterprise 2.0 and related topics like Knowledge Management, Intranet 2.0 and Collaboration.

Come along to ask questions and share your experiences of introducing social computing to the enterprise!

I’ll be attending – hope to see you there…

I received this via email from a friend and thought it might be of interest:

World Usability Day – Be a part of it!

World Usability Day 2008 is just 24 hours away. This is your chance to be part of a global effort spanning 43 countries and over 150 locations as we help spread the world about the importance of usability. This year’s theme is transportation, and our Sydney event focuses on the issues and challenges that face alternate forms of transportation in and around the city.

UPA Sydney has put together a varied and interesting program of presentations, discussions, workshops and activities. Our impressive line-up of speakers includes:

• Alinta Thornton (User Experience Lead, Independent Digital Media) on what it really takes to get people out of their cars
• Kevin Cox (Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Edentiti) running a discussion on how to make carpooling viable
• Alan Cadogan (Strategy Director, City of Sydney) discussing the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 vision
• Michael Lister (Senior Transport Planner, Parsons Brinckerhoff) discussing bus route design – unleashing the omnibologist within
• Warren Salomon (Sustainable Transport Consultants Pty Ltd) on the major role that bicycles will play in the new transport paradigm
• You will also have the chance to view and evaluate the design and photo exhibition, participate in other workshops and discussions, and join the global transport challenge. And finally, you’re invited to help us close out World Usability Day 2008 with a social event.

This event is free and open to the public and will run from 10am– 5pm, Thursday, November 13, 2008.

Location:

University of Technology Sydney
Haymarket campus
Room 12, Level 1, Block B, Building 5
1 – 59 Quay Street, Haymarket.

Drinks to follow starting at 5:30 at Henry Henry (Henry Deane Plaza, 8A Lee St)

For more information, please visit http://www.upasydney.org or send email to events [at] upasydney.org.

I can’t believe how quickly time is flying lately. Web Directions South seemed so far away when the program was announced, but now it’s just two weeks away!

Preparations are under way in camp Zumio (the recent Slideshare contest providing extra inspiration), and it seems like it’s going to be another great event this year – especially with an “new and improved” WebJam taking place on the evening of Day 1 at Bar Broadway.

If you missed out on the recent discount pricing, you can use the promo code “WDS08-GY” when you register to get $50 off the ticket price.

Anyways – I hope to see some familiar faces on the day – especially given the fact that the two other sessions scheduled during the slot I’m presenting in (11:45am on the 25th) are top quality too – I’m disappointed I’m missing them in fact!

• Twitter is an Event Aggregator – Interesting use of Twitter – posting news related to the “Super Tuesday” primary voting in the U.S.
• Companies must listen to the Web 2.0 world – I don’t like the “avoid risk” case for social media strategy; I prefer to focus on opportunities. This article provides an overview of the potential risks. I’ve found that blogs can be a bell-weather for broader constituent sentiment, so worth watching.
• Internet fundraising trends 2008 – A collection of predictions for fundraising and donating in 2008, incl. a spot from Priscilla @ Solidariti and Seth Godin.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed on 05-Feb-2008.)