Speakers:

Stephen “Trib” Collins "Slouching toward intertwingularity - the power of participatory culture."
on parents worrying that their kids are spending too much time online "Don't fret. He's probably adding value." Claimed if employers didn't loosen their grip on access to social media websites like Facebook, Gen Y will not choose to work for them.

Bronwen Clune "Why the world needs citizen journalism."
She challenged us to "Make a difference." but I'm not entirely sure what that was in relation to, or anything else she said.

Matt Bateman - "Where is the money in online advertising in Australia?"
He said he'd tell us where the money is and where the trends are.
The Money is in advertising.
The trend is to behavioural targeting of advertising.

Mish comment > Genius! Didn’t see that one coming. Sheesh!

Mark Jones "The Social Capital Revolution"
He let us know business's true value is in their people's knowledge. By business appearing open and transparent via social media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc. they will grow and retain their customer base. He didn’t provide any evidence of this apart from a couple of vague references to assumed knowledge of such.

Stuart Clarke homepagedaily.com
Talked about the new business model around his .com startup. Didn’t sound like anything new to me. Get investors to pony up all the dosh, get a site online, grow it, after a while: whack advertising onto it.

Kate Carruthers "Digital Marketing and Strategic Foundations"
She urged people to "jump in" to the online opportunities. To start small, experiment, play with the media, mix and match. Learn. She said the key to any endeavour, online and off, was to "know your audience" and "build relationships".

Joanna White "What's happening to the quality of journalism?"
Seemed to talk about the quality of news online - not really sure what she was on about.

Ben Gerhold "10 steps to becoming an internet mogul and avoiding the receivers."
I think this was supposed to be clever and witty - I got really bored with this really quickly and stopped listening after number 2.

Janine Carhill "Beyond Web 2.0 - gentle whispers of the future"
Didn't touch on the "future" at all - unsubstantiated and pointless comments like "Get on FaceBook now! if you don't, you're behind. And it will bite you in the bum!" Couldn’t make much sense of what she was trying to say (except that she has less friends than her other friends - which meant what exactly?).

Tim Noonan "Web 2.0 Friend or Foe to 1/5 Australians?"
Claimed one in five Australians have or will have a disability, and those disabilities often mean exclusion from online social media due to the "noise" of website code and design. Urged developers to bring accessibility from the "nice to have" list in a web project to "fundamental core" during the planning stage.

Panel Discussion
How Media companies are dealing with the challenges of this new world – including traditional media, online media and hybrid ventures. This turned into a circular, pointless, unproductive discussion about newspapers vs the web and how to make money from taking newspapers online.

The Great Debate
“That the new world of media choice is a dagger to the hearts of producers and creators alike.” More of the same.

Unconference Sessions:

Session C: Gentle Whispers of the Future with Janine Cahill leading a discussion “examining the technologies creating the spaces where convergence happens.” Mostly the group who gathered shared experiences about online lives, associations, theories while Ms Cahill tried to talk about the “future” but she couldn’t even think outside her own idea of “computer” (she could barely work the one she had). She mentioned Second Life as an example of where the internet was heading, and when questioned as to why people would want to experience virtual worlds she answered “To make money.” She finished by showing a very strange and seemingly pointless series of photos of a multimedia installation with no context whatsoever.

Session B: Social Computing and Participatory Culture led by Stephen “Trib” Collins. He asked the question “How can we go about changing our workplaces who are resistant to social media?” (or something along those lines) the discussion was formless, dominated by a clique of well heeled opinions, and quickly veered off topic to never return. Rapidly reduced to a pissing competition to see who could drop the biggest company name. Does the CIA trump IBM? I wish I’d brought a gun to this cock fight.

Session A: Discussion led by Tim Noonan was a chance to speak with a blind man who accesses the internet. He answered questions on accessibility, markup, page structure preferences, online roadblocks and obstacles to information, sex and puppies.

Pub Afterwards: