2.1 Seminars //
All Together Now
Thursday 23 October 2008
Recent dramatic developments in online technologies have brought us together for social, business and educational purposes. Think Facebook, Flickr, De.li.cio.us, Wikipedia, WordPress and Blogger. Think again on Open Source, Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science. But is this just part of a wider change in society?
- receive practical advice for your business and social networks
- get clued-in to the critical debate on business benefits and privacy issues
- experience real world networking with practitioners, businesses and students
Hands-on Workshops:
- An introduction to Social Media: Matthew Yeomans, Director, Custom Communications
- Getting Creative with Linux: North Wales Linux User’s Group
Speed Networking in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government’s Local Supplier Development Project
Seminar:
- Peter Westwood, Lead Developer for Wordpress
- Keir Whitaker, Event Manager at Large, Carsonified
- Tarek Cheniti, Saïd Business School, Oxford University
Book now! FREE but advance booking essential.
Further details and online booking:
http://www.bloc.org.uk/cgi-bin/showbig.cgi?id=91 ... read more
Register NOW for All Together Now in 30 seconds - it's FREE!
A Soft Sell
Thursday 4th December 2008
It’s David and Goliath time! New technologies mean small players can now make a marketing impact traditionally reserved for big-budget big-business. What do these unprecedented developments mean for you?
- learn new marketing skills and update existing ones
- look at real world marketing examples
- explore current trends in online marketing technology
- check out future technological developments
Hands-on Workshops:
- Go Mobile: Chris Mills, Developer Relationship Manager, Opera Software
- DIY? : Basheera Khan, writer, photographer, wannabe geek & Simon Cotton, Managing Director, View Creative
- Informal Networking ! guided by the northern bloc team in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government’s Local Supplier Development Project
Seminar:
- Mark Boulton, Creative Director, Mark Boulton Design
- Tom Kay & Ernest Capbert, Finisterre
- Richard Ishida, Internationalization Activity Lead, W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Book now! FREE but advance booking essential.
Further details and online booking: http://www.bloc.org.uk/cgi-bin/showbig.cgi?id=92 ... read more
Register NOW for A Soft Sell in 30 seconds - it's FREE!
Shutdown
Thursday 29 January 2009
The personal computer promises everything faster, better, cheaper. You can even conduct your social life online. But does this shift risk damaging our local economies and communities? What happens when you turn your back on the computer and use technology to build communities in real life instead?
- look at technology’s ability to bring concrete benefits to tangible communities
- examine the digital divide created by new technologies
- explore new business models with one foot in technology and the other in the real world
Hands-on Workshop and Masterclass:
- Outdoor Programming ! Paul Granjon, electronic artist and fine-art lecturer
- Technology-enabled Social Innovation Masterclass ! Paul Miller and the Social Innovation Camp
Networking:
- Meet the Neighbours ! Gill Saunders and Amy Cuff, The FAN Groups, Cardiff
Seminar:
- Adrian Bowyer, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath
- Paul Miller, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, School of Everything
- Simon Whitehead, Movement Artist
Book now! FREE but advance booking essential.
Further details and online booking: http://www.bloc.org.uk/cgi-bin/showbig.cgi?id=93
... read more
Register NOW for Shutdown in 30 seconds - it's FREE!
Social Networking within the Creative Technology Sector
Thursday 22 November 2007
The internet has enabled ‘social networking’ - communities of people with shared interests and activities to become connected. Social networking includes an array of online networks used to communicate and share information including Facebook, YouTube (video), Second Life (3D online digital world), blogging, podcasting, and wikis (collaborative websites). Social networking can help organisations, businesses and educational establishments to administrate, manage and back-up activity, as well as offer a new platform for communication, content delivery and distribution. ... read more
Launch of northern bloc 2 completion report
Tues 25 September, 2007
This lunchtime event launched the findings of northern bloc`s second phase; presented the aims and objectives of northern bloc ’s proposed third phase and included short presentations from three creative technology practitioners based in the northern bloc region.
... read more
Let’s Get Together - Gwynedd: networking creative technology practitioners
Wednesday 23rd May 2007
This event comprised an hour of quick fire presentations (5 minutes each) followed by an hour and a half speed networking, led by the Local Supplier Development Project. There were 12 five minute slots available for artists, designers, film makers and programmers or anyone who works with technology creatively. ... read more
Let’s Get Together - Anglesey: networking creative technology practitioners
8th March 2007
If you work with technology and creativity in Anglesey, Conwy or Gwynedd and would like to expand your network, find out what other people are doing or seek out potential collaborators or business associates then come along to Let’s Get Together at Menai Bridge Community Centre on 8th March.
... read more
We Can Work It Out
Wednesday 31st January 2007
The third seminar in the Northern Bloc seminar series continued the investigation into ‘collaborative knowledge development’ to focus on the process of collaboration itself.
Speakers include: Jennie Savage, artist; Vicky Isley, Boredom Research; Brendan Walker, Aerial and Abigail Tweed, Arts and Business Cymru.
... read more
Open Source in Practice
Wednesday 13th December 2006
This seminar built on the theme of ‘collaborative knowledge development’ established in the first Northern Bloc seminar, to investigate and profile practitioners and companies who exploit Open Source software (software which is free to use, change and augment) and open ways of working.
Speakers included: Basheera Khan, Editor, Ping Wales; Andy Clarke, Web designer and consultant, Stuff and Nonsense; Simon Blackmore, artist; Kevin Donnelly, Welsh Language software developer, Eurfa
... read more
Let’s Get Together - Conwy: networking creative technology practitioners
Tuesday 21st November 2006
If you work with technology and creativity in Anglesey, Gwynedd and Conwy and would like to expand your network, find out what other people are doing or seek out potential collaborators or business associates then come along to Let’s Get Together at the Royal Cambrian Academy on 21st November. ... read more
Quiet Revolution: society, politics, technology
10 October 2006
The first in a new series of Northern Bloc seminars, Quiet Revolution brings together organisations and businesses which use technology to create real impacts in the world at large.
Speakers include:Dafydd Hughes, Department of Enterprise, Innovation and Networks, Welsh Assembly Government, St Asaph; Francis Irving, mySociety & TheyWorkForYou; Alan Harris, KnowNet & Nick Temple, Network Development Manager, School for Social Entrepreneurs and Coordinator of the Global Ideas Bank ... read more
We Are Not Alone
Wednesday 8th March 2006, 5 -7pm
We Are Not Alone is an informal way to meet other creative people working in the Heads of the Valleys area (or people from other areas who would like to expand their network). The event will bring together practitioners who have been involved in the Southern Bloc project. It will also widen the network to include practitioners in other artforms, such as visual art, dance and performance.
... read more
Quiet Revolution: Technology, Regeneration and Social Enterprise
Tuesday 17th January 2006
This seminar will examine the ways in which the economics of regeneration interact with, and benefit from, online technologies and other digital media. The event will look at open source as a reducer in the barrier to enterprise; the benefits of collaborative software for the regeneration agenda and the potential of the market for creative technology practitioners in a regeneration economy. ... read more
For the Love of Money: Betws-Y-Coed, Conwy
Tuesday 6th December 2005
This seminar will explore the issues surrounding creative practitioners who want to develop, as yet, one-offs into more mass produced or mass marketed products/software/services. Routes to marketing work are varied – some creative practitioners are involved in continuing research, invention and application of new techniques in new media, others have produced a ‘marketable idea’ and some have received coverage for a work which became a product. ... read more
For the Love of Money: Blaenau Gwent
Wednesday 7th December 2005
This seminar will explore the issues facing creative practitioners who want to turn their ideas or products into mass-produced or mass-marketed products, software or services. The session will address the variety of approaches to marketing or mass-producing work; the research, invention and application of innovation in new media and the production of a ‘marketable idea’. ... read more
Intellectual Property and the Creative Technology Sector, Conwy
Thurs 3rd November 2005
This seminar will examine the ways in which IP (Intellectual Property) impacts on the creative technology sector. The seminar will address the commercial implications and opportunities for the exploitation of IP, along with other approaches including open source and ‘copyleft’. ... read more
Intellectual Property and the Creative Technology Sector, Blaenau Gwent
Wednesday 2nd November 2005
This seminar will examine the ways in which IP (Intellectual Property) impacts on the creative technology sector. The seminar will address the commercial implications and opportunities for the exploitation of IP, along with other approaches including open source and ‘copyleft’. ... read more
The Creative Technology Sector and Near Future Technologies, Conwy
Wednesday 19th October, 2005
This seminar aims to offer insight into possible routes and development potential for creative practitioners and SMEs in Wales. The creative industries are a much discussed sector which has, in fact, been long in existence. What, it could be argued, has changed recently is that this industry is now recognised as having the potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property.
... read more
New Media Curation
Thursday, 1st April, 2004
This day seminar has been programmed for Curators, Commissioners and New Media Practitioners in Wales.
... read more
What`s Technology and What Shapes it?
Friday 8th March 2002
This seminar explores the current significance of the term Otechnology¹ and a number of theories as to what shapes it. ... read more
Ordering, Information and Navigation
Friday 22nd February 2002
This seminar will ask whether the process of classification ever allows for flexibility, enabling users to initiate a personal enquiry through complex and established information without having to conform to conventions. ... read more
Gaming
Friday 25th January 2002
This seminar will explore the significance of gaming strategy and the nature of play specifically via computer technology, focusing on user engagement and audience integration. ... read more
Outside the Box – Microcontrollers
Friday 7th December 2001
This seminar will explore the use of mechanics, electronics and mechatronics in art and offer a user-friendly short introduction to programming and the use of microcontrollers. The seminar will also focus on how computer programming and algorithms, coupled with a responsive aspect to a work, touches on sociological and psychological issues such as the imitation of creature behaviour and the modelling of nature, artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of creating autonomous machines, and the individual versus society. ... read more
Ideas and Innovation: Creativity and Artistic Processes in the development of New Media Content and Products
Friday 16th November 2001
This seminar will explore the relationship between ideas and commercial innovation, focusing specifically on how creativity and artistic processes can supplement the development of new media content and products. The seminar will extend the contemporary discussions surrounding the relationship between business and art which, until now, have tended to focus on commercial sponsorship of the arts. ... read more
Content Strategy for Convergent Media
Friday 12th October 2001
This seminar asks crucial questions: what are the implication of producing sound and visual content for combined data and communications technologies? ... read more
Scary Y2K
December 1999
This seminar will focus on our human capacity for prophecy ... read more
Transforming Identities
October 1999
This seminar will explore the possibilities for transforming our existing identities through new technology. ... read more
Virtual Geography of the World Wide Web
May 1999
A seminar exploring the World Wide Web as an imaginary space. ... read more
Virtual Reality: Immersion and the Virtualisation of Lived Experience
April 1999
This meeting asks: Is virtual reality new? Should cyberspace simulate reality? ... read more
Subversion
February 1999
This meeting aims to explore a growing professional sector which hybridises the creative and conceptual approach of artists with viable businesses concerned with technology. ... read more
Curating: new technologies and fine art practice
January 1999
This meeting explored the curation/commissioning issues related to new technologies and fine art practice. ... read more
Sound
December 1998
This meeting concentrated on the art of sound ... read more
Ecology and Technology
November 1998
Ecology and technology are apparently binary opposites with ecologists claiming that in our haste to `advance` we have caused detrimental and irreversible damage to our environment. ... read more
Print and Publishing
October 1998
This meeting explored the important role print has had in forming knowledge and disseminating information. ... read more
Technological Determinism
September 1998
This meeting explored the belief that society and culture are determined by technology. ... read more
Site-specific Bloc: The Real and the Virtual
July 1998
Site-specific Bloc explored alternatives to the fixed, static or monumental sculptures that are often associated with public, site related art works. Via the internet new multi- site relationships are now possible. ... read more
Bio-bloc: Science in Arts
June 1998
This meeting addressed the rapid advances in scientific technologies and explored whether the arts, and more specifically installation related work, can supply a critical commentary on developments in biotechnology. ... read more
Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Machines
May 1998
This meeting will explore the latest in both CAD software and CAM hardware.
... read more
Interface/Interaction
April 1998
This meeting aims to explore alternative interfaces used to access computer processors as well as look at the changing role of audiences from the spectator to that of the participator of participant/spectator. ... read more
