I'm shattered. And frustrated for the conversations I didn't have.
They were talked about stuff that I was really oblivious to. And that's not good. But most of them were at least my age (I'm feeling old). They had all owned typewriter! So maybe there's hope for me.
Neville raised one point in his presentation that really struck me. He said he could see neighbourhood Intranets being something of the future.
Now I talked to him afterwards and he's very much talking about a local, server-hosted Intranet that does everything that an Intranet does.
However, I had already started wondering about it in a different way.
My street in London is about 150 meters long. I figure there are 300 people on it. It's quiet, and relatively friendly. Many nodding acquaintances. But it's not particularly community-focused. And yet there's a lot that we can and should have in common. We set up a Neighbourhood Watch last year. There are at least a dozen kids who go to the same school. People have had craft sales. Older folks sometimes need help with their shopping...
Unfortunately, in true English style, many of us stay behind our twitching curtains.
How can we use Web 2.0 to get around that?
You could go MySpace, limit access and only get your 'friends' to look in. However, if I am anything to go by, MySpace is too complicated for many of my neighbours.
So I am thinking that I might set up a site on Blogger.com and let people post comments. Maybe a bunch of us could have publishing rights.
But there's also the security issue. How much do we want to let the whole world know about our street politics and safety issues.
Any ideas? Surely this could be a great way of encouraging community and replacing the proverbial 'church notices'.
Thanks for your advice and ideas.
/df
P.S. Neville. Thanks for the invite to a bloggers pub night tonight. I'm really, really sorry to miss it. But my children needed watering.