my afternoon with lonelysandwich by Jeremy Fuksa
My afternoon with lonelysandwich. from Jeremy Fuksa:Creative Generalist on Vimeo.
great advice for a friday afternoon. but i'll still use my blogging as a yellow post it note.
The Heather Gold Show from SXSW 2010
The Heather Gold Show from SXSW from Mr Nat Higginbottom on Vimeo.
Yay! - @aquilatv got this up today. you can see what lighting problems we had with it being outside but the audio makes up for it and the show was great with some fantastic topics raised. you should watch this.
decompressing after sxsw - some thoughts
quicklink | heartofaustin.com
finally got around to writing a blog entry. going to just write, not think - just straight out onto the keys. i'm starting to feel a little better, it normally takes me a good week to get back adjusted to the timezone difference let alone adjust to heading to southby this year exhausted, drained and very poorly - not excuses, i was a mess. i've lost loads of weight in the process, oh and i snapped my veneer that was literally fitted days before i flew out. the highs and lows man, the highs and lows. It's no secret that my life has been a roller-coaster of epic proportions in the last six months. i'm not going to go over all the details but life has been tough, stressful and to be honest 'not very enjoyable' - most people that know me well enough know i like to work, dabble and play in this space. my creative energy has been constantly zapped by the day to day battle that we all go through - the grind. Saying all that i was really pleased when aquilatv (nat/julia) said they had managed to secure some funding for a mini 'ontheground' team to go out to austin - amazing. i was never going to be able to go this year and so i was 'over the moon' to go. we had a rush job to get a lot of things going before we went away and it was tight and untested on the theme (as seems to be the case with me and ontheground/sxsw) as we literally flew away. i was coughing and flying pretty darn shitty before i even arrived in austin and was hoping that the sunshine/vitaminD would give me the boost i needed... .
sxsw videos | clips for edit later from Phil Campbell - England on Vimeo.
and, well it never. i was vacant and exhausted and really out of whack finding some days it hard to concentrate on what i was supposed to be doing. i felt like i was really letting the side down on a few areas, looking back i could have done a much better job - and should have. Here in lies 'therub' - i have never been to sxsw in a working capacity before and it felt extremely weird to be in the trade section. In the three years i have been going to sxsw it was the very first time i have seen inside the trade part before! - i normally just frequent the hallways and 'float' about - probably the reason for my lack of media in recent years.
I really travelled light this year, i never took my laptop and knew that we were on limited funds. also getting the sprint evdo card back online was something outside of the budget i had per day so having connectivity all the time was going to be a real problem - even then the US phone i had sometimes worked when called inbound, sometimes not. I found myself hanging out with @jasonjarrett most of the time 'to catch up after so long' and crashing on his settee at his hotel as he was reasonably 'downtown' - sarah was a good $20 taxi ride away and unlike nats hotel (where they could arrange a taxi and it was on the side of the freeway) getting a cab BACK from sarahs was a major nightmare. Waiting up to 1hr and ringing numerous times to get make sure it was on the way - lots of connectivity and mobility problems compounded by my constant hacking up. I know, i sound lame and should have 'got my shit together' - i did try on numerous occasions and had a really good day one of the days.
sxsw videos | clips for edit later from Phil Campbell - England on Vimeo.
Then there was the rezpondr problems (again) twitter feed just would not allow for twin hashtags for some reason and trying to arrange getting a simple fix like that done with the added timezone shift and lack of contact directly was stressing me and others out. After getting back it turns out the problem is that each single subdomain is polling every sixty seconds. each one! - we have no rate management, no subdomain traffic management (as in go quiet if traffic to that domain is low = not busy) we just have a stack of domains that are constantly polling. something that after three years of sxsw i only get to truly find out the problem too. as you can imagine, i'm really keen to get the crawler ported to ruby or python asap. i would have also liked to have done the layout different after realising that the website was going to be displayed on the stand. it was not really designed for screen - i would have made the vimeo areas bigger and the player more dynamic so things were moving. a live and learn lesson i guess.
nat was a superstar media maker. he is used to turning up at a shoot and just hitting it all day - whatever there is to record and record it. fit in as much recording as possible in a day and boom. i was shocked at the pace and sheer amount of capturing a camera man does, i did feel out of place and did not know how to compliment nat - my esp radar of covering things when he was shooting them was totally off. i did not know if i should be recording audioboo with your average joe about their products and services or if that was off base for what we were doing for screen west midlands. the things we did capture for screen west midlands i think was good thou - i would have loved to have had a schedule to hit each company one after another. i guess i just like the idea of capturing a bulk of content more linear. sxsw is not linear - it ebbs and flows and things change very quickly, things are not close by and rooms are a long walk away. the green room was on the other side of the building. maybe a remote fixed camera we can control from a stand would be the order of the day next year - something remote but fixed, everytime i went to the room it was empty. the ustream presentation was a highlight. i went to the ustream presentation to maybe glean some information about the cloud infrastructure they use and how they might be developing special hardware as they grew into the cloud with all the celebrity endorsements they were getting. i decided to stand in the line to ask questions and asked 'are ustream developing greener hardware to offset their carbon footprint as they grew bigger in the cloud' to which i was met with a really firm texas 'no' - not pleased with the comment i waited a short while because asking if that was a 'texas thing' which got a slight 'ooooh, ahhhh' from the audience. i said my piece and left. i seem to have come all over all green yet i still had flown all those miles to attend. catch 22. I hardly got to see any of my friends this year, i hardly went to any parties - i never stood in a que for anything (because i see no point in spending an hour in a que like a fanboy just to attend a named party to hang with the premade packaged and ready a-list posse) but was really pleased to get to attend the 'lemmy' world exclusive of his autobiography that was recorded over three years. that was brilliant - that man is made of iron and is still very much a badass, it is amazing to me that he is still touring!My new veneers cracked on the last day of video recording. cracked right down the middle and by the time i had got home had completely come off - as of writing this i have two/three weeks to wait to get it replaced. i'm so so pissed about it. one minute a decade of confidence issues was wiped away for a week and all was good in the land of campbell and then the next i'm back to the world of hiding away and wondering if you can really paint over the cracks knowing that what remains underneath is still the problem. i know, too deep and meaningful for a set of nashers. i'm really hoping that this one will be ok. i know that my 'bite' is completely wrong because of some missing teeth which totally put all my eating and biting out of whack. it was my own fault - i had a mexican drink the size of my head and went head long into a taco like that scene in jaws where you see him chewing on that airtank. muppit.
another highlight was seeing the 'boys' boot shopping. what with jason and his armadillo/lizard boots and nat purchasing a pair too (we really should have bought the hat as well) it was a nice time out from the conference centre. it was great to hang out with some of thescreen west midlands posse at the iron cactus too - the food there was pretty special. sixth street came alive in that warm, horse and cart vibe with people spilling out of bars into the street. i really never managed to capture a lot of content (wanted to get some fixed shots) from sixth street and i never went to my favourite bar at the top on the left there. i totally forget the name - a very weird sxsw year for me.
sxsw videos | clips for edit later from Phil Campbell - England on Vimeo.
so that's my decompression. i guess there is a lot more to add which i'll probably do over the coming week if anything pops into my mind (of which i'm sure there is plenty) that i have forgotten - also i have a debrief with the aquila guys next week.
oh and yeah i forgot to mention, racing pedicaps is way cool. ;)
sxsw videos | clips for edit later from Phil Campbell - England on Vimeo.
'lemmy' the movie world exclusive at sxsw
quicklinks | http://www.lemmymovie.com
One of the highlights for me at southby this year - quite unexpected too. The lemmy movie was excellent, really nicely shot with a variety of people from the rock and roll world and some really excellent commentary. i had no idea that lemmy was such a badass and that he was *still* touring. the background into his day to day was very interesting too. when you get chance you should grab the film, watch it on a big screen and jack up the volume. that dude is like a piece of iron considering the things that have happened in his life - yet he still manages to keep going!
all hail sxsw. 'ontheground' team back in austin.
quick link | http://sxsw.com
http://www.supercooldesign.co.uk Rebecca Cadwallader (@beckycad)
http://www.televisionjunction.co.uk Justin Eames (@justineames)
http://www.fishinabottle.com Helga Henry (@helgahenry)
http://www.wearefierce.org Nat Higginbottom/Phil Campbell (@exsanguinator - @philcampbell)
http://www.aquila-tv.com Toby Barnes/Matt Watkins
http://www.wearemudlark.com Fitzroy Coward
http://www.persuaders.co.uk/profile Chris Unitt (@chrisunitt)
http://meshedmedia.com John Newbold (@john383)
http://www.383project.com Nick Lockey (@nicklockey)
http://www.mavericktv.co.uk/index.php Ben Stanley
http://www.trilby.co.uk Ruth Ward (@ruthward)
http://www.rewiredpr.com Jenny Moore/Lisa Meyer/Johnny (@supersonicfestival)
http://www.capsule.org.uk
http://www.capsule.org.uk/supersonic
roadcamp.org - information for potential sponsors
quicklink | twitter and kickstarter project
* please note these are my views and not the views of any other person connected with the roadcamp project. they are my suggestions to potential interested sponsors in getting me across to toronto to join the roadcamp experience and a flight back from austin at the end of sxsw. i'm looking to find $10k from four seperate sponsors ($2500 each) - this blog post is to explain what i promise we can deliver for your product base and brand. i'll be aiming it at on message tech companies who's products i intend to use for the duration of the trip stateside. the $8k is for the sponsoring of the transport and requirements of the project and $2k is for my flights to toronto and back from austin - i will pay for my own expenses during the trip. apart from social capital what can a sponsor expect to get out of a bunch of social media makers running around like headless chickens producing media as they dash from place to place and event to event? - as this would be my third year i can honestly say that aside from the 'human' collective element of enhancing our virtual friendships in the physical - not a lot in the usual sense of sponsoring. seriously, if you really want to invest as a sponsor in social media you need to know what your message is and what you want to glean out of being in the middle of this social meatspace of seriously smart people. It's a melting pot. the conversations are engaging, the information flows and ideas and failures of the past year are shared in a euphoric engaging manner. we are re-connecting our physical to the information flow that we have been watching in the previous year. these are not just friends, these people have an unparalleled connection to my time, these people are good people, doing things in their lives that effect others, often in a positivity, upbeat vibe. you have a good idea, a brilliant product or something that pushes their buttons they will invest their most valuable asset - their time, in the things you care about. these are the coders, visionaries, artists, musicians, creatives of existing successful web 2.0 sites. concepts and ideas who's often radical thinking, ethics and rewriting of the business rule book make you re-evaluate why you do what you do and how you do it. social media and the art of the conversation with your clients is changing the way the customer interacts with your business. if your not talking to your customers before, during and after you sell them your service/products your not doing your job properly. your actually missing out on saving yourself a lot of pain and money on ideas that just might not work in this brave new digital world. am i overselling it? - i don't think so. i'm sure all the people at the business club i told two years ago to get on twitter are probably respecting my suggestion now - although many of them would dare admit it. but that's cool, those are not the people i hang with now. being an early adopter is not enough, being able to 'adapt' early and often is the new standard. your business needs to be able to surf the tsunami wave of information, choice and demand. you have to be where the kids play. and those digital mood swings change often. So now i have got that of my chest let's look at what we can offer a sponsor(s) to share in the excitement of the roadcamp experience - from the interactive elements that we can broadcast and chat about regarding your products and services while in transit down to austin and during our interactive sessions onboard the bus and at each evenings tweetups. it's going to be awesome, it will be talked about and it will be streamed as much as possible. create buzz before sxsw starts by having a multi media team document their digital journey into the yearly pilgrimage to geek mecca. this would be my third year in austin for sxsw if you enable me to go so you know i'm not flying blind into austin - we also have some friends who live in austin that we are looking forward to hanging with when we get there. What i personally can offer you. . .. . audioboo with xlr rode ntg2 microphonei have the most downloaded account on audioboo, i have barely scratched the surface of being able to get my message/audio out there yet - i do an almost daily audio show called 'audiogravity' and would love to do a daily show a few times a day which would mention your products and services. this audio can be reused by you on your website and can be used as testimonials for us using your products on the road. we use a custom iphone cable for our iphones that allows us to use top quality broadcast quality microphones from rode - the ntg2 (if you have a ntg3 you would like to send us to use rode, or even sponsor that would be nice) - a high quality mobile audio podcasting solution - we can record lots of audio for you during the length of this roadtrip. posterous, flickr and geo located photos
we already have the distribution network in place on this blog, we can post geo tagged photos from all our locations as we are travelling around giving people an interactive feel to where we are, these also compliment the audioboo posts which also have a photo and geo located positioning on them as well. all of the images that we send to our posterous are automatically distributed on flickr and other picture sites. we truly believe our collective network of twitter followers are very interested in the roadcamp project and would really enjoy the daily updates our group could produce - i believe we have a few photographers onboard as well so expect some quality stuff here. maybe some kind of daily 'pic of the day' scene documenting us using your hardware in a certain way or task? satellite tracking and location updating
i have experimented with some level of tracking with bambuser when we have done video streams before for our gumball rally we did for twestival and charitywater in 2009 but we have some new for 2010 in conjunction with a potential link up with womworld/nokia using the fantastic new laptop unit the booklet 3g. this awesome all in one unit has a 3g slot, a-gps and a fantastic long battery life. we have a bunch of ideas for updating our location regularly and some of our interactive elements will be quite ground breaking if we can find the right sponsors to work with. tracking the bus as we go in almost realtime is a strong commitment by us to make the experience as much as for the remote viewer as the people on the bus. flip, kodak, creative, zoom are you out there?
no trip, project or event would be complete without someone putting one of the new mobile media making devices in your face. we want to do that in droves. we want you to enable us to capture content on the best device you have at the moment. do you want to show the world how good your product is for a roadtrip used by seasoned media makers. do you want to capture the reaction from someone that have never seen your device before - do you want to start a conversation about your device as part of a lifestyle choice rather than a techy geeky gadget? - we can help you do that. i can work with you PR team to come up with stings or set piece work that you might need for any of your coming years product base. interviews with organizers
quite obvious this but you want to know what people are doing out there in the world of social media - we know the people that are doing wonderful things, often these are friends we have not seen for a while so the excitement of being in the physical space brings great energy to every single interview. part of the roadcamp is to teach at tweetups at different locations along the route - we want you to be part of that too. rezpondr & doorstepr custom theme and geomapping
at the start of last year i started to develop a web service called rezpondr to aggregate, distribute and transcode video content based on the output of a socialmedia small content producer - the project stalled for a variety of reasons but the codebase and the project is alive - we are actively working on a new and improved geo mapping solution based on google maps with a new improved python based backend - we have made the ui simple and interactive - the project to be used for http://conkertu.com is a perfect compliment to the roadcamp for collecting together all the media we produce in one place for brand sponsors to 'at a glance' see our media output. geomapping per location and around austin
when we actually get to austin we do not expect to just 'stop doing media' the roadtrip will be an amazing experience but actually getting to austin and telling people about our trip and sharing the stories should trigger new ones when we go from party to party and conference session to conference session. the scale and vibe of sxsw is like nothing your brand has ever seen - why go in cold. sponsor the team that will be wired and on point for then then arrive into austin! gumball, eurorush and charity work
for the last few years i have been working directly with womworld/nokia on a variety of projects involving their products and brand and have raised money for charity on a number of times during these. the gumball rally was a four man team from travelled from newcastle to london via 4/5 different twestival locations along the route. we raised over $4000 for charity on this event and learnt a lot about mobile power needs and cellular network capacity. more recently i was part of the 'eurorush' which involved three teams members travelling around to separate twestival events across europe raising money for charity with nokia. i can provide references and contacts if so required. If you are serious about sponsoring the roadcamp and indeed myself to be part of this amazing project/team please get in touch via my twitter account or email and let us work something out together - i can only promise you get great things and some fantastic social media making. am available for chat via skype on dm_clanlife_uk and mobile phone - my number is at the top left of my main site - http://me.dm
putting together the plan for roadcamp - the road to austin
quicklink | i need sponsors/donations
*WE NEED DONATIONS * | kickstarter project link
The bus will travel from Montreal > Boston > NYC > Washington DC >
Louisville > Nashville > Memphis > Austin over a three day period: Day 1: Montreal > Boston > NYC > DC
Day 2: DC > Louisville > Nashville
Day 3: Nashville > Memphis > Austin I've found a flight to toronto with air india (no really) for about £266 from heathrow airport (i wanted to go from brum but that was like £600) i'm looking around now for a sponsor/donations/sponsoring in general to cover the trip. I'll hoping to travel down with the rest of the crew from toronto down to austin and that spend three days or so covering as much as possible from a videoblogging, audio perspective. I'm hoping to link up with @aquilatv and maybe @lloyddavis while there (if i get there! - no wait, i will get there!) and also the irresistible, irreplaceable @orchid8 who i'm hoping i'll be able to get some floorspace in austin. But, not only do i need to get over there we also need some sponsors for the trip to make it as epic as possible. I've copied this in below and i believe that some of these figures can be discounted - i've also attached the original pdf media kit. Looking at the following deals for each sponsor.. you can see what each deal offers by looking in the media kit. Platinum Sponsor : $8500 (-40% **)
Gold Sponsor : $5000 (-40% **)
Silver Sponsor : $2000 (-50% **)
** those prices are only discounted until the 15th of Feb however so gotta be quick!
You can find more information about the roadcamp below. Oh, and before i forget - a whole bunch of additional awesome people are onboard the media making bus, again check out the pdf and if you can assist in sponsoring that would be fantastic. Blog: http://www.RoadCamp.orgEmail: info@RoadCamp.org
Twitter: @RoadCamp
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/RoadCampOrg
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadcamp
Blip.fm: @RoadCamp (download)
an awesome eco package from the states for my birthday
it's my birthday on sunday (17th) and i'll be 37.
the early part of 2009 was fantastic - the first six months i would say, included my birthday and sxsw. i had the chance to hang out with some good friends who i had established very strong connections with over the last couple of years via a variety of video chat systems including skype, tokbox and seesmic. fast forward to this year and things are a totally different story of course with lack of job and various financial problems. it happens, it's always happened at trigger points in my life and i've got quite used to having to flex in situations like it. i've discovered that most of the time it depends on what you hold most dear at the time - status, money, fame, fortune, health, karma - any number of things that pop up at various junctions in your life you think you should be chasing.
Since november i have been helping out with the conkers tweetup - a hyperlocal sustainability tweetup/catchup in the heart of the national forest and i love it. I love how relaxed it has made me in some ways to my approach to material things and how it has sparked me to acknowledge my requirements for using less. I've also managed to turn my geekery and passion for technology into a useful community element and have done some training/started to get a number of local people using posterous to blog about projects and passions that are important to them. Some have even started to produce content. Anyway, back to the point - one of my lovely friends @rojopelo has sent me a great birthday package gift in a true eco sense and it really made me smile. Just wanted to say thank you for thinking of my birthday and it was really kind of you to go out of your way to put it together. thank you.
Posted from Swadlincote, United Kingdom
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