British PM, Gordon Brown, announced an initiative earlier last week which they are calling “Ask the PM“. This will be a regular feature on the 10 Downing Street Youtube channel. The basic premise behind this initiative is to get YouTubers to submit video questions to the PM who then selects the best ones (with his press team I’m sure) and then replies with video responses. I like the fact that the Brown administration are engaging with social media and encouraging participation at a time when younger voters particularly have become apathetic in many parts of the world and I’d like to see more political leaders doing the same.
We have already seen this trend emerge in the U.S. Presidential race, with Democratic hopefuls Obama and Hilton blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, YouTubing etc., and now it really seems to be making its way into mainstream politics. Only time will tell if technology and the web will help make democracy more participatory and governments more accountable.
I have just returned from one of the most impressive conferences I’ve ever attended. Google Zeitgeist Europe (not to be confused with Google’s search trends service) is an annual 2-day conference, which began in 2006, and is by invitation only for around 400 of Google’s strategic partners in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region. This year’s Zeitgeist was held at The Grove in Hertfordshire, an impressive English estate about 40 km’s North-West of Central London.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a trade conference and Google products weren’t pushed down your throat as you might’ve expected, although there was some obvious tie-ins with certain products like YouTube and of course very strong branding throughout the event. The agenda was somewhat TED-like with a diverse mix of technologists, politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs as speakers.
Lauren, my lovely wife-to-be, accompanied me on the trip and we arrived a couple of days early so that we could visit her sister in London and do a bit of sightseeing along with some modest shopping (1£ = R15!?). A real highlight was getting to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre on the West End (thanks Rose!!!) as well as stopping by the London Google office for a tour and free lunch.
After a memorable few days in London, we made our way up to Hertfordshire the day before the conference officially started. I played a round of golf at The Grove’s championship course while Lauren had an even tougher time at the day Spa. A cocktail party with cuisines and entertainment from different parts of the globe, which represented the diverse backgrounds of the delegates, capped off the day’s proceedings.
I knew this was going to be a serious conference when, early the next morning, a number of black helicopters roamed the skies and sniffer dogs wearing reflective jackets explored every crevice of the hotel. As we would later find out, British PM Gordon Brown would be opening the conference (read the transcript of his speech) and other notable speakers that would take the stage included Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Sir Salman Rushdie, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin & Larry Page accompanied by CEO Eric Schmidt.
The gala dinner at the end of the first day was nothing short of phenomenal and featured a bevy of entertainers that had all been discovered on YouTube. One of my favourite performers was Beardyman, a British beatboxer, who had the crowd entranced by his super-human vocal skills.
Skip halfway through this video to see his performance:
There was a large video production crew that filmed all the sessions at the conference and of course these videos are all available on YouTube in the Google Zeitgeist Channel.
This highlights video summarises the event quite nicely (I am in the shot at 2m49secs):
All-in-all a very slick and memorable event and I and we look forward to going again..
Well I know what I ate last night and it wasn’t pretty. The restaurant was great — Emily Moon outside Plettenberg Bay — and the food was equally palatable but I was curious about the fish I ordered as I’ve never seen it on a menu before. The fish in question was “Gurnard” and I made the mistake of Googling it on my iPhone after I had already ordered it and proceeded to show everyone else at the table (many of whom had also ordered it).
This has to be one of the strangest fish I’ve ever eaten:
I’m relieved it wasn’t this variety — the Flying Gurnard:
Sea robins [AKA Gunards] are bottom-feeding scorpaeniform fishes in the family Triglidae. They get their name from their large pectoral fins, which, when swimming, open and close like a bird’s wings in flight. Sea robins have six spiny “legs,” three on each side. These legs are really flexible spines that were once part of the pectoral fin. Over time, the spines separated themselves from the rest of the fin, evolving into feeler-like “forelegs.” The pelvic fins have been thought to let the fish “walk” on the bottom, but are really used to stir up food. When caught, it makes a croaking noise similar to a frog. The first three rays of the pectoral fins are membrane free and used for chemoreception.
It tasted a bit like creamy Hake. Now you know…
who is youngBLOOD?
I am currently Head of Digital for the South African division of the Trader Media Group where, amongst other things, I manage a digital department and am responsible for the commercial success of several digital products and services » more
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