what a shit day.

felt like a passenger of life today, really needed to hit the ground running this week, must pick three jobs and do them each day instead of chipping away at each.

totally unproductive -- i did like thirty minutes of work getting some buttons to match two sites that were bugging me. i really wanted to work as well but i just could not focus.

as per my last email you can see i have a lot on my plate but today was just a non event. trying to get a new lightweight template together for shows pages is my thorn in my side at the moment.

i'm sure things will be better once this cold lifts but it's really taken a lot out of me -- this combined with gym, lack of sleep and overloaded workloads of things to do before the new year is stretching me from all angles.

need to break through the barrier.

it's been really busy for the last month -- flying over to sxsweco, doing a live stream at the local nottingham trent university for eco fashion and sass brown and then taking three days off up to exeter for the likeminds conference.  feels like my feet didn't touch the ground.

so, what's happening where.  let me spend a few moments to give you a bit of a catchup and plan for the next few months.

transportation
i'm still looking for that elusive car rental, hiring for twelve months - it seems that nobody does twelve months and i'm having a hard time finding the right lease company to work with - ideally we would find a car leasing company that wants to wrap the car with their message and we drive, stream and feed into their social media campaign for a year with our live video streams that would run from inside the car -- i'm still looking.

turning ideas into products
anybody who knows me or follows what i do will know that i'm an idea factory -- they fall out of me like digital waterfalls and over the years i have had to put the brakes on with what works and what does not.  recently i have found four main things i want to work on and my multitasking mind seems to be able to chip away at them.  recently i met a

bunch of guys from exeter who i gelled with straight away and could see that their were at the starting point of business - i remember those days.  they are twin team, lightweight and lean and ready to go.  more on developments on that as they unfold.

preorder sales of the nomad jackets
the jacket preordering pages are up on ulule.  we are offering the first ten jackets an exclusive price of £250 for the first batch to raise interest -- the next £300 and the final full price of £350 for all future orders.  get in quick if you want the better pricing.  we are working on v3 of the jacket in november (jamie contact me!) and are looking at a better finish, better ventilation and finally that fabric qr code.

double stitching and finishing of the final product also need review -- the packaging side has taken a bit of a backseat but we are considering lots of recycled products turned into holdalls and bags for your unique jacket.

fibrecamp upgrades
we need a new mac pro, it's getting old -- so old in fact that final cut x will not install on it because the graphics cards are antique.  my rebuilt macbook pro has a new hd but cannot have the latest lion os on.  it's time therefore to start upgrades.  the studio space itself has been a bit quiet over the last month as i've been away and we need to move towards a more standalone operation that does not require me to be managing it.

we have a carpenter (finally) coming in to put our side table in so we can start to do courses within the space.  new sets of lighting and cameras are currently being looked into as well.

ark progress
we have a new date of january 2012 -- it's a long story but this money that was supposed to be there never happened and so other sponsors needed to be sourced, it's been a long time coming but we do believe now that things can happen.  we have got this far it's just getting the production schedule together and ticking boxes.

i'm really ready to get going on it all but i really need transport so i can drop in weekly at conkers to talk about the site and help out where needed.  i even had a conversation with a guy recently that has a satellite truck in nottingham that might be useful to do some 'ontheground' live streams from the forest.

charity work has taken a hit
so with everything that's been going on for the last three weeks it's been hard to commit to anything really in the charity arena which is frustrating but to be expected.  kinda feel i'm waiting for them to have some people step forward from the spread out offices to at least try making some content that we can get together on and brainstorm what works and what does not -- when the side studio table is made in fibrecamp that will make a difference because that means we can bring people over lunch to do some training in the building -- hands on.

watch tv brand advocacy
this has been going well actually, it's actually really good for me getting on top of schedules -- having that constant monthy note taking format from recording tweets that i'm putting out with the watchdottv hashtag on to videos and blog posts that i'm writing about and it was great to go ontheground at wearelikeminds to capture the vibe in terms of how people are applying video to there business.

building and redesigning themes for fibrecamp.tv
this is the thorn in my side at the moment, i'm trying to get fibrecamp.tv up (brand new theme) that will be simple enough that we can make a similar device that works on the ipad and has all those whizbang features of being able to spin the device left and right.  i'm also in the process looking at the fibrecamp show pages which have never been quite right.  it's all getting a bit of a makeover.

ontheground work picking up
as i mentioned above the ontheground work has been crazy - i was in austin, then at the ntu back in nottingham then headed on a train down to exeter for three days, i felt like i was living out of the ammobox for those three weeks.   i feel i have november to get things together now.  four weeks flys by, especially at this time of year.  before we know it christmas will be upon us.

it's great to get followed by venture people when your away at an eco conference telling people about your studio space, the ark and the nomad jackets.

i know, for a fact that with the right mentor and the right green savvy investors onboard i could rejuvenate a section of our teenager and adult population with the rising race towards social media.

i have made a suite of different ideas that alone could with the right investors make income from within six months. it's not a gamble. i'd not be burning through lots of cash in the hope of something coming out the otherside.

the fibrecamp studios are a concept to build sustainable spaces to cater for people to use a coworking space as a media drop in centre - connecting up those local businesses in a five block radius. i'd like to have 4/5 of these self sustaining centers around the country (uk) in the next few years.

the nomad jackets are the gear for your social networking task force on the ground to service your event, brand or services in a remote or hyperlocal capacity.

my ark is an acknowledgement that it cannot be just about me. it's about the potential future proofing of an unknown future. how do you do that? - by teaching and showing the old ways of how to eat, cook, live and create your own energy away from the world we currently know - enabling my daughter to be at least prepared to adapt to a world that is potentially ravaged by weather, climate conditions and scarcity.

and this blog, this blog me.dm is about finding that happy medium - using digital tools communicating your happy medium, not going large and not thinking small or apathy. utilizing digital tools to shape the world around you and yet notify how you did it.

assumption in an always on demand, realtime world is a dangerous thing - especially when that system grows so big and built on such frail infrastructure can be damaged so easily as we head into a digital assets world.

for me, investment is not just always about growth and success, it's about doing the right thing by the right people at the right time. investing in people who can deliver and can inspire has so much social gain that if your doing it well.. .

.. money comes naturally.

the zoom h1 arrived today.

it's a little bit more flimsy than i expect but tbh i really wanted it as a line-in device from a decent rode ntg2 microphone in rather than use with the x/y pattern.  it's a good backup device thou and will be perfect for refreshfriday style events 'ontheground' for getting interviews of a higher quality than the ones on my ipod touch 4th generation.

we lost the video feed last week, it went black.  then we fixed it.

lots happening last few weeks it's been quite the blur with work coming in and things picking up for the better.  ordered a bunch of new cables for the studio, got give some freebie kit to reuse in the studio space and got my introduction fee from verisign.  happy boy.

in this week (last weeks!) catchup we have.

- unofficial hotspot blog gets going finally
- nh-creative.com get's hosted
- i get the confirmation as a paid blogger for watch.tv
- north51 are doing a tech/mobile show
- carpenter is coming in soon to make side unit
- lucy locket work gathering pace
- cj explains about audiences europe
- mbr1400 cradlepoint router we hope to play with
- ark news catchup, almost almost there!
- cctv footage rip for a client from london riots
- refresh friday at antenna on friday mornings.