Enterprise Thursday presenting Dr. Aleks Krotoski
4th March 2010, Corn Exchange, Brighton
Enterprise Thursdays (Sussex University) presents Big Breaks in the Digital Age” Discover how to make it big in the media world – keynote talk by BBC TV’s “Virtual Revolution” presenter Dr. Aleks Krotoski.
After a great session covering Expression Engines architecture me and Adam made our way back to the corn exchange in Brighton looking forward to Aleks’s talk. I was a bit worried that the place will be over packed but luckily it was just perfect with a nice number of people and enough free chairs, not only we had a sit but food and nice wine was available (with all the excitement of the day I dint have much to eat so spot on).
Aleks or as she amusingly enjoys hearing Dr. Aleks talked about the journey that got her were she is today. Her story telling was great and with out bothering to spell it out Aleks’s story illustrated many of the topics that where illustrated in the Wired Sussex Media Jobs + Skills Fair 2010 earlier session.
The talk was followed by a Questions & Answers session, and the questions asked where surprisingly good (and why not? you say, and right you are I answer) and her answers where inspiring (I am in an over excited mood about technology lately but it really was).
Some of the topics I found especially interesting where
Her view on “leveling technologies” involving emerging markets like China Africa as the internet access sweeps the globe (that’s probably as far from her own words as can be but its how I remember it) I especially found that inspiring as: while I lost hope for society as a whole to rectify the many social injustices it created, I still believe that the internet can provide an opportunity for individuals and on line communities to make more then a symbolic change (So now I am both over pessimistic and over optimistic at the same time).
She also talked about many aspects of social networking ranging from the use of branding, the ability of social networks to create a fake sense of ownership & about how successful social media takes a long term approach.
Aleks Krotoski made a bold and interesting statement about facebook being on its way out. My understanding of this is that she referred to on-line communities as a relatively new concept, and as people get used to it they will expect it to mature and reflect more closely their view of real social networks supporting smaller groups i.e. I don’t have 15,000 friends but I only have 10 close friends maybe a 100 other friends 100 people I know through work and another few hundreds online associations. She didn’t actually say all that, its just my interpretation (so if anyone got it from another angle let me know). The way I see it in the Friend Face of the future it may be incredibly rude to ask a complete stranger for friendship.
Some useful links for Dr. Aleks Krotoski :
Aleks Krotoski http://alekskrotoski.com/
The guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alekskrotoski
Twitter http://twitter.com/Aleksk
Guy Shneerson