GoodGNUs

Saturday saw the annual Chorlton Big Green Festival, one of the country’s largest Green Fairs, and this year blessed with a stall from Manchester Free Software (MFS).

Those of us volunteering to staff the MFS Stall had a great time - not just enjoying the vegan food and drink of the Fair, and catching up with old friends from Manchester’s numerous environmental groups in attendance, but from several hours of talking to the general public about software freedom.

While MFS membership is heavy in Unix admins and programmers, the group is about the philosophy of software freedom, not playing with technology - thus we all enjoyed engaging with the public on why freedom matters in software. Passers by ranged from committed Ubuntu users to those without a computer at home, yet nearly all were responsive to the principle of software built on values of community, education, and sharing knowledge.

Freedom in the 3rd Sector

Indeed, it continues to remain a puzzle why so many in the charity sector actively campaign against Free Software solutions, and promote the sector’s continued reliance on an unsustainable model of dependence on a few tax-subsidised, private companies.

These are issues I hope to tease out a little in my talk on Free Software in the UK Voluntary Sector, and why you should care, at MFS’s 20th April meeting. I’d welcome people with a wide range of views to come along and debate the issue afterwards.

To the UKUUG’s Large Scale System Administrators’ conference today where I was the rather strange choice of last minute speaker. Having spent 18 hours at the keyboard yesterday I wasn’t best prepared, but speaking on The Third Sector and Free Software shouldn’t have been too much of a challenge to me.

Indeed, despite the talk being more of a ramble at times, I think I managed to distill 4 key messages for the assembled Unix crowd:

1. There’s a real lack of IT knowledge in many VCS groups resulting in too many having no IT strategy. Please get involved with a local group at a governance level and help to make up this deficit.
2. Of all the resources lacking, training is holding back most groups. Please give a little time for effective training.
3. Many groups are tied into niche proprietary applications. Please help to code web-enabled, Free Software replacements.
4. I’m involved in lots of projects with great potential but not enough man power - please speak to me about collaborating on them.

I think I may also have mentioned what a great business model the Social Enterprise is rather too many times. :-)

If you were at the talk and want to get in touch about any of the projects, please e-mail me, or find me on Twitter.

• Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says
  93 clearly-stated answers to some of the desperate arguments brought up by those who’d rather not face up to the challenge of man-made climate change.
  (tags: climatechange environment globalwarming reference CO2 carbon)

What can I say? Speaking twice, on two different topics, in a week where I had major deadlines on three other projects is an unfounded faith in my time and project management skills bordering on wreckless! :^)

Somehow I survived, delivering a talk on the Monday session at Manchester’s Madlab, on the madness of Fractional Reserve Banking (though not having time to more than mention the alternatives), and on the Thursday, in Liverpool, on City of Abundance: Hacking the urban landscape for food.

Reviews of the Liverpool event are at:

http://www.mcqn.net/mcfilter/archives/liverpool/ignite_liverpool.html

http://bulletinthemessenger.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/ignite-liverpool-2010/

http://www.ldpcreative.co.uk/2010/03/ignite-liverpool-is-showcase-f.html

Ian Forrester’s recording of the Manchester event is up at:

http://cubicgarden.blip.tv/

Although not all of the talk videos seem to have uploaded correctly. As always with these events, there were a number of great talks - so I’m not singling out any!

It’s Good to Talk

Chief outcome? To be reminded what a great format the 20:20 or pecha kucha is. Distill a subject about which you’re passionate about to 20 slides, and talk for just 15 or 20 seconds on each. Not just a vehicle suited to the attention-deficient, but a challenge to the audience.

After all, it’s easy to switch off in a 40 minute talk and remember nothing afterwards, but five minutes done just right will push key points into your brain and leave you thinking about the subject days afterwards.

Could be a great marketing tool - sponsor a conference, and only demand five minutes’ attention in return. Just make sure that you follow up with a page of links and info somewhere memorable online, or take-away printed materials, for those hooked by your passion.

I’ll write up Ignite week more fully after the Liverpool event on Thursday night, but as Ian Forrester has put up a video of my talk on Re-Inventing Money at Monday’s Manchester event I’m embedding it below:

Thanks to Ian for filming the whole night - see the other talks at http://cubicgarden.blip.tv/