Tall. Eats a lot. Talks too much.

What does the best web / geek / tech event look like?

2008-07-17T11:07:23Z

I've been doing various events work this year, for some interesing and leading names in the web space.

As some of you may know, I helped found Chinwag as a commercial venture, which then went on to launch Chinwag Live series. We also did Big Summer 07 last year, which was a free party for over 2,000 people. Just 5 of us organised the whole thing, in 6 weeks. And I still have some hair left! ;-)

Then, earlier this year I was working with Mike Butcher at TechCrunchUK to help him kickstart some events in the UK and Europe. He's now jetting off all over the place meeting people and creating meet ups off the back of other events, as well as organising some really exciting ones of his own, such as the recent (very successful) Pitch! event.

Now I'm working at the Guardian, and looking into events as part of my research for my current role. Guardian events in the past have been on large scale, with a full events team organising events such as the Guardian brand at Glastonbury.

All these different types of event has got me thinking, what would be the best event you would want to go to? If you could combine all the aspects of events you've been to over the last few years, and come up with some almighty geek/tech/online/networking fest, what would it be like?

Mine would be something along the lines of, in priority order: Incredible speakers discussing their visions (not pimping their warez!), affordable pricing (I guess sub £100), good accessible venue in an interesting city, an exciting delegate list - perhaps one that's been thought out with tickets tactically released to ensure a wide range and spread of people, cool freebies/swag from sponsors, and great networking - be that at the venue or the pub down the road.

So come on, spill, what would your ideal conference/event look like? And while you're at it - I'd love to know what was your favourite event or conference you've been to this year, from a geek meet up in a pub right through to something like Le Web. It's whichever one left you with a "that was so cool I want to do it again next week!" feeling. The very first FOWA was mine.

Why 02 will never get my money

2008-07-11T07:57:04Z

I am so angry right now. I attempted order of the iPhone via the web on Mon/Tues whenever it was it came out, only to find a site full of errors. So I pop down to enquire at my local store - Dartford 02 shop - and they say I can reserve one, so I fill out the form for that. I get a call last night about 6pm to say actually, they can't reserve them afterall, I'll have to pop down at 8.02am with everyone else and take my chances. So far, so bad.

I pop down anyway, I figure it could be interesting to see what all this queueing and excitement is like - I've never done it before.

I get there, the shop has 5 people in it already, and a queue of 20 before me. I knock on the glass ask the lady behind the locked door how many iPhones there are as I'm at the back of the queue, 6 months pregnant, and don't really want to hang about if there are 5 phones. She says she can't tell me. I say that's not good enough, someone obviously knows, so they can tell me. She says she'll find out. Yep, you guessed it, she doesn't open the door again. After waiting about for 5 mins like a monkey, I go back to my boyfriend and the rest of the queue and give them an update.

So I figure I'll give it another 10-15 mins. Still no-one has gone in or out, or any representative come out to talk to us. I go back, knock on the glass, she still doesn't know how many there are or any indication on time that each is taking to set up. Apparently, she's in her own words, "just a security guard" and has no information. I ask for someone with information to come and speak with me. She tells me no-one is free to let anyone in the queue know any information. Staff in the shop can see me there clearly looking at them holding my bump and trying to get information. A few people have left the queue by now.

Here's a photo of the queue, with babies, children, and everyone else in it, whilst they know the whole time there are no phones (click on it to go to my Flickr where I've added notes):

Ten more minutes later, and pretty pissed off, I go and knock on the glass a final time.

"All I can tell you is we're out of the 16GB ones" she says.
"And you didn't think to maybe let us know that?"
(no-one has entered or left the store, so they knew this from before I started queuing, or asked the first time)
"No.".
"How many of the 32GBs are left?"
"I can't tell you that".

So, a wasted 30mins (and that would have been longer, if I'd have waited patiently as they hoped I would), and a distinct lack of lie in, and if 02 think that they're getting any money off me in the next millenium then that just shows you how stupid they think their customers are. I'm sure they would have left me there the full 1-2 hours until my turn was up, before telling me there were no 16GB ones left, had I not have persisted. Disgusting.

Yes, iPhones are pretty, they work nicely, and the apps are really interesting. Does this mean I am going to take leave of all my senses, to be dicked about to get one? If that's the level of customer service I get when I'm trying to give them my money, there's no WAY I'm going to chance an 18 month contract with them when they've already got it.

What a load of cobblers.

[edit] worth pointing out, there were also people with kiddies in the queue, as well as me, clearly pregnant (and I told them so) as well as people able to queue for longer periods. Not once were we given any update, or information, offered water, or even acknowledged for that matter. Unbelievable.

[extra edit] I've just been on the phone to o2, who give no apology. They have given me this email address though: complaintreviewservice@o2.co.uk so if you've had a bad experience I would call you to arms and ask you blog about it and send them a link and a copy, if you feel like it, ping the url to your blog in my comments too.

We may be needy nerds, but we're certainly not helpless push overs.

[FINAL EDIT] Haha, what a surprise - I just got this back in my email:

"Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

Mike Butcher makes the Hospital Club 100!

2008-07-08T08:24:15Z

A big congratulations to Mike Butcher at TechCrunch from me, who has made The Hospital Club 100, which was launched at the beginning of June this year in association with the Media section of UK newspaper The Independent.

I'm a big fan of the Hospital, and have been a member since it opened, so seeing them recognise Mike and his input to the industry is a wonderful thing. About time too!

From the Hospital website:

In essence, it’s a search for the authentic stars and media power across London’s creative industries; film, television, music, new media, journalism, publishing, performing arts, marketing PR undefined events, fashion, art, advertising, media law undefined recruitment and celebrity.

Mike came 47th in the list, ahead of the likes of Jonathan Mildenhall, MD, Coca Cola, and David Joseph, Chairman/CEO of Universal Music U.K..

Sadly, most of the content about the Top 100 is behind a members only website, so I thought I'd republish the list in full for you here.

1. Banksy, graffiti artist. Still anonymous but now hosting his own The Cans Festival under Waterloo station

2. Mark Ronson, musician. Producer of the moment and triple Grammy winner, collaborating with

Amy Winehouse, Radiohead and many others.

3. Lis Murdoch, CEO, Shine television production company. Is growing into an international media mogul in her own right.

4. Jonathan Ross, chat show host BBC1, presenter Radio2. They knock his salary but he still dominates the world of broadcasting

5. Amy Winehouse, musician, Britainundefineds best voice and current tabloid darling

6. James McAvoy, actor, the star of Last King of Scotland, Atonement and now Wanted

7. Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer. At 67, Dame Vivienne is still an inspiration

8. Agyness Deyn, model. Britain’s next supermodel.

9. Daniel Craig, actor. The sixth 007 returns in October with Quantum of Solace.

10. Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett, comedy duo The Mighty Boosh

11. Simon Pegg, actor. He’s also a stand-up, a writer, a director and a singer.

12. Sam Taylor-Wood, artist. Contemporary film artist, collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys and this year with the Buzzcocks

13. Ian McEwan, author. Shortlisted yet again for the Booker last year with On Chesil Beach. The film adaptation of Atonement raised his profile even higher.

14. Edgar Wright, film director. Hit big first with Shaun of the Dead and then Hot Fuzz

15. The Ting Tings, musicians. The band of the moment, their album ‘We Started Nothing’ went straight to number one.

16. Simon Amstell, television presenter. Droll presenter of Never Mind The Buzzcocks

17. Daniel Radcliffe, actor. Harry Potter star causes nude stage sensation in revival of Equus

18. Jo Elvin, editor, Glamour magazine. Launch editor and still at the helm of the original handbag sized mag.

19. Rob da Bank, DJ, presenter Radio1, founder of ‘Bestival’. The creator of a festival that sold out faster than Glastonbury.

20. Barbara Machin, television writer. The brains behind hit drama Waking The Dead.

21. Damon Albarn, musician. Prolific, experimental and ground-breaking.

22. Christopher Bailey, creative director, Burberry. Breathing new life into one of Britain’s best-known brands.

23. Peter Fincham, director of television, ITV. The BBC’s loss is Michael Grade’s gain.

24. Stella McCartney, fashion designer. From lingerie to sportswear, skin care products and now handbags, everyone wants to collaborate with Stella.

25. Stefan Lindeman, stylist, Grazia magazine. Secret weapon of the sassy weekly glossy.

26. Emily Sheffield, deputy editor, Vogue magazine. Alexandra Shulman’s dynamic number two.

27. David Babani, artistic director, Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Creative force behind the cutting edge theatre venue.

28. Ashley Highfield, CEO, Kangaroo. The biggest of cheeses in digital media.

29. Natalie Massenet, CEO, Net-a-Porter. The woman who dresses the stars.

30. Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse), music producer. Created the cult Grey Album while living in south London. Half of chart-topping duo Gnarls Barkley.

31. Trevor Beattie, creative director, BMB, creative king of adland and champion of winning new business.

32. Ben Whishaw, actor. After a breakthrough role in Hamlet he is set to star in a fresh adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.

33. Gail Rebuck, chairman undefined CEO, Random House. Oversees a stable of authors that includes AS Byatt, Ian McEwan and Philip Pullman.

34. Joanna Shields, president, Bebo. The boss of the most youthful of social networking sites.

35. Mike Mathieson, CEO, Cake Media. The leaders in experiential media.

36. Henry Holland, fashion designer. The twenty-something founder of House of Holland.

37. Ben Tufnell, curator. The force behind the Haunch of Venison art gallery.

38. Jo Whiley, presenter Radio1. Has shown an unwavering commitment to breaking new music.

39. Daisy Goodwin, head girl, Silver River television production company. High achieving telly exec who also writes poetry books.

40. James Herring, managing partner, Taylor Herring PR. Star publicist in the television and entertainment sector.

41. Ajaz Ahmed, Chairman, AKQA

42. Leona Lewis, Singer

43. Anne Marie Thomson, Head of Media and PR, Syco Music

44. Lisbeth Savill, Olswang

45. David Zeffman, Olswang

46. Stuart Bell, Media Director, The Outside Organisation

47. Mike Butcher, Editor, Techcrunch UK

48. Dave Stansbie, Creative and Strategic Director

49. Will Lewis, Editor-in-Chief, The Telegraph Media Group

50. Caroline Michel, CEO, PFD

51. Michael McCabe, Producer (Wicked, Spring Awakening)

52. Sebastian Faulks, Author

53. Eric Felner / Tim Bevan, Producers

54. Danny Cohen, Controller of BBC 3

55. Josie Rourke, Artistic Director, The Bush

56. Julia Peyton Jones, Director, Serpentine Gallery

57. Henry Deedes, Editor, Pandora, The Independent

58. Nick Denton, Founder, Gawker Media

59. Jonathan Mildenhall, MD, Coca Cola

60. Andy Coulson, Director of Comms, Conservative party

61. Oliver Marre, Diarist, The Observer

62. Gok Wan, Stylist, TV Presenter

63. Peter Kominsky, Stonehenge Films

64. Russ Lidstone, Chief strategy officer, Euro RSCG London

65. David Joseph, Chairman/CEO of Universal Music U.K.,

66. David Gamble and Simon Labbett, Creative Directors, Saint

67. Shane Meadows, Director/screenwriter

68. Jane Featherstone, Managing Director, Kudos Productions

69. Will Harris, Marketing Director, Nokia

70. Emma de la Fosse undefined Charlie Wilson, Creative Partners, OgilvyOne Worldwide

71. Richard Curtis, Director

72. Bill Prince, Deputy Editor, GQ

73. Alasdhair Willis, Founder, Established undefined Sons

74. Justine Simons, Greater London Authority

75. Thera Sharrock, Producer

76. Mark Thwaite, Editor, Ready Steady Book

77. Carrie Hindmarsh, MD, MundefinedC Saatchi

78. Wayne Arnold, CEO, Profero

79. Peter Mountstevens, Managing Partner, Taylor Herring

80. Gavin Turk, Artist

81. Amanda Ross, MD Cactus TV

82. Nicola Shindler, Founder, Red Production

83. Nica Burns, CEO, Nimax Theatres

84. Simon Trewin, Agent, United Agents

85. Carlos Acosta, Principle Guest Artist, Royal Ballet

86. Nicola Stephenson, Founder and MD of Mission Media

87. Flo Heiss, Creative Partner, Dare

88. Simon Jenkins, Columnist, The Guardian

89. Justin Walkey, Bird undefined Bird

90. Phil Hilton, Editor, Shortlist

91. Jim Dye, Roxanne Messenger, Copywriter, art director, kitcatt nohr alexander shaw

92. Mollie Dent Brockelhurst, Gaggosian Gallery, London

93. James Selman, Senior Account Director of Media, Freud Comms

94. Danny Rimer, Partner, Index Ventures

95. Andrew Perera, Regional VP of Comms, MAC Cosmetics

96. Richard Pierson, New-Business Director, Bartle Bogle Hegarty

97. Owen Williams, Press undefined Publicity Officer, House of Lords

98. Enyi Nwosu, Partner, CHI and Partners

99. Melina Jacovou, Managing Director, Propel London

100. Farah Ramzan Golant, CEO, AMV BBDO LTD

Pure genius

2008-06-25T13:07:03Z

From Mike Butcher at TechCrunch UK:

"Owners of the somewhat idiosyncratic FaceParty, one of the UK’s oldest social networks, appear to have had an altercation - with almost their entire user-base. On Tuesday night the normal home page was replaced with a diatribe against users who had complained about a fancy dress competition the site was holding. The site was cut off for several hours, blocking all users from logging in."

I'm loving reading what they put up - read it in full here. Marvellous.

Go on, how many times have you wanted to do that? I know I have. Good effort Faceparty, and you didn't hold back on the swearing either, I salute you! **

** probably worth pointing out to any potential clients out there - as funny and amusing as I find this, I would never ever do it in real life. I am a professional and can just about control my inner 15 year old.

Some days, I swear XKCD is following me...

2008-06-25T12:46:02Z

And from about a month ago:

Images nabbed from http://www.xkcd.com - the best comic strip on the web and no mistake.

Why I hate the Virgin brand so much

2008-06-25T11:38:10Z

Once upon a time, I used to be a big fan of Virgin, and the empire that Richard Branson had built up. To the point where I would have listed him in my top 3 heros if you'd have asked me five or so years ago. Alas, this is no more, to the point where I can honestly say hand on my heart I HATE VIRGIN. They completely messed up their takeover of NTL, and their trains aren't much better. What's worse than giving a really bad service? Not even having half way decent customer service to pick up the pieces.

Latest example - I was due to go to visit a client in Birmingham, and the track on which Virgin trains run had a signal failure that meant *all trains* out of Euston were cancelled that morning - so, all Virgin trains heading north. Thankfully I had a very good and kind client (Antonio Gould @ Maverick TV) who was fine for me to do the rest of the consultancy work from Chinwag's offices in London, so at least I didn't loose a day's work.

So, I followed the reclaim ticket refund to the letter, and sent my tickets recorded delivery back to customer services, with all the bits quoted, to get a refund for my £50 return ticket that I couldn't use.

Today, 5 weeks later, I have received a letter with a cheque for £23 from Virgin THAT CAN ONLY BE USED TO BUY MORE TRAIN JOURNEYS. Why £23? Well, Virgin's logic is that even though they are obliged to refund the whole ticket, because in theory I could have used the return part of my ticket (which I didn't, and they know I didn't as they received it with my correspondence, seeing as how I couldn't get to Birmingham) they only have to give me money to cover the part of the journey that was cancelled.

I am absolutely livid, and from hence forth will be boycotting all Virgin products.

Richard Branson - for running a set of companies that has beyond any doubt in my mind the WORST service I've ever encountered, I no longer think you anything other than a shyster and showman. You couldn't run a business if it bit you on the arse, you're just good at making money from cutting way too many corners. You should be ashamed.

I'm still here, honest gov

2008-05-24T09:42:50Z

It's been a while since I posted last, I have a few things written up to post about, but to be honest - I'm just not in the mood right now.

I've just finished a 3 month project for a client that was really rather stressful and ultimately not much fun at all. Which was a shame as it had all the hallmarks of something that could have been glorious. For the first time in my career, I said no when the contract extension date came up, and have been much happier since.

It's weird, but sometimes you need a not-much-fun project to remind you how lucky a lot of us in digital are - often working with great people, on exciting projects, delivering superb results. It's so much fun, it often doesn't feel like work; more an extension of a hobby or passion already present. But then once in a while something pops up that is just not really what you expected: people don't deliver on time, what they deliver is really below par, what started off as a great idea becomes a wobbly mess from lack of planning and correct staffing.

It's a good reminder that ideas are really easy, the magic lies in their development and details. I've been so lucky working with the people I have in the past, I sometimes think that's normal when actually I've just been very fortunate to work with mind-blowing brilliant people.

Still, I'm now doing some work for the Guardian next week, and then I'm on holiday for a bit. After that I've got an exciting project which will hopefully have budget clearance to go, and then I'm guessing you won't be able to shut me up!

Getting personal with an impersonal network

2008-04-18T15:23:03Z

I wanted to write about an increasingly interesting subject for me of late, discussing or mentioning personal information on shared networks or open webspace.

I've always been a very open person in my life, too much so people sometimes tell me, but I rather like being that way. It means that you can share your life and let others in to share it with you, building fast connections with people through trust and feeling closer to people through shared knowledge, and personal details. Obviously there's a downside, sometimes (but thankfully very rarely) I have found people judge you on being so open - feeling as if you're after something, or being a scared off if they're a much more closed person. Personally, I think the upside of sharing personal feelings, events and thoughts far outweighs the downside. It's been the foundation of some of my strongest relationships.

So I've been thinking about this in relation to the internet, and social networks and communities. It's like another step along the scale of being open, as not only are you sharing your thoughts and personal information with your friends and would be friends, but complete strangers too. Also, these thoughts are written down, or captured somehow in order for them to be passed into the network. So it's not just hearsay anymore, it's hard written/photographed/recorded fact. Makes it seem so much more important to really think about what you're "saying" in your networks, and how you "say" it. Once it's out there, it's out there!

Are you happy for everyone to know this thing, now and forever? In a world where socialising increasingly happens online and in game, I think it's a question that people will come across sooner or later. How will you deal with it?

To look at what I mean with a real life example: I am pregnant :-) Horay! It is very exciting, and I have been wanting to Twitter my feelings and pregnancy-related-what-I'm-up-to's for the last 3 months, but didn't due to the usual 12 week caveat that comes with being pregnant.

However, at the same time I knew I wanted to mention it when I got to the 12 week safer point (ie, now) but I couldn't work out how, and if I should. I asked a few people and they were the same as me - yes mention it, but what if you loose the baby? Being pregnant is obviously very personal but the happiness and excitement it brings is contagious, people seem to love knowing about a new addition in my short experience, whereas talking about loosing a baby seems infinately more personal and somehow out of bounds. Most likely because it's so rarely talked about as it's such a painful experience, and people would just rather not think about it or know it happens. Sharing bad events just seems harder to me, perhaps this comes back to my use of social media tools as a sort of Thayer PR, a happy place where everything is fun and happy. I only talk about fun bits of jobs, not the bits I hate, and I don't mention depression, just excitement.

Eventually after thinking about it long and hard I settled on this post, a true reflection of the confusion I've felt surrounding how much info to put out there in particular about my pregnancy. That way you know it's been put out there with a lot of thought, and hopefully some of you will share your thoughts on how much of your private life you share on networks that have started off professional and ended up being more personal, with the odd added stranger in there too!

I'd love to hear anyone else who's been through a personal situation and chosen to either discuss it or not, and if you did mention/discuss personal what was the fallout? Were you glad you did or did it bite you on the bum? All your thoughts on why you do or don't share personal life events would be really glady received whilst I work out where I stand on it all.

Overall, I feel like I want to share my life, just as I've done face to face, but a part of me just can't help feeling there's something out there that should mean I shouldn't... We shall see!

Twitter - the following of Twits?

2008-04-03T16:51:12Z

I've been motivated to write an update off the back of Jason Calacanis adding me to his Twitter feed. At first, I was quite chuffed, "ooo" I thought, "Jason Calacanis wants to know what I'm up to, how exciting". Ooooh no he doesn't, as I realised upon clicking through to check out his Twitter page. He's link baiting me. Hang on a minute, isn't that a spammer tactic...?

And he's not the only one, there's a whole bunch of them at it. What a load of cobblers.

Surely I can't be the only person who's worked out that it's not how many people follow you, but what you ratio of followers to following is that ranks you as an interesting and popular Tweeter?

If I see someone has got a 1:1 ratio, I can assume that they use Twitter with their close friends, and tend to follow people that also follow them. It's not water tight, but it's a fairly good hypothesis. Similarly, if I get followed by a user who follows more people than is followed by, I can assume that actually they're probably quite interesting, but depending on how high the number differential is, they're not as interesting as their group. Afterall, their group would follow them back otherwise, no? This extends right out to the people following thousands, and being followed by maybe 10. These people I avoid following like the plague.

So, Jason Calacanis with his 17,204 followers just doesn't impress me. He's following 12,302. that makes his ratio a rather limp 1:1.5 give or take. Even if I was to follow him, it's going to be a one way relationship isn't it. There's no way my Tweets are going to make it through his 17,204 at least daily updates on average (I'm guessing here).

Check out someone like Mike Butcher on the other hand, with his 1,103 followers to 335 followings, and you've got a 1:3. I know immediately he must have some really interesting Twitter chat going on. Also, you know that at 335 people Mike is actually following people he wants to know about. Whereas what buy in would I get from a Twitter baiter? None at all.

Final thought aka Thayer Rant: When will people realise the value of social media - especially the so called experts in these fields - it is not about quantity of information or network, it's about quality.

If you're all about the quantity, then you're not a social media mogul, you're an e-marketeer at best, and a spammer at worst. Nobody cares if you're being followed by 17,000 people if you've bribed them with a prize, or offered them sudo friendship. It doesn't mean you're popular, it just means you're desperate, or selling something, or both.

As always, these are my views, and I know that some people won't agree with them.

I'm being studied... Eek!

2008-03-16T10:38:39Z

I just received an email this morning from Mike Atherton leading me to this page - Sunderland Universities weblog homework.

I'm listed as a blog that should be read and discused?! I am both honoured and amused in equal measure. Thanks to Tony Nicholson for taking my blogs on, and giving this comment:

I went on Thayer Driver's blog (thayer18.livejournal.com) and found the mix of professional and personal quite interesting. At first I was quite sceptical if it would work or not, but as I read on the interesting mix proved a good interaction for her social networking friends. The first ever social networking Mexican Wave hade 15 comments in the last five minutes and her other blogs enabled her to promote the chinwag work that she does. It is important to create a good relationship with fellow proffessionals so I think if I ever get a professional working blog going I will do the same mix... but perhaps not as extreme!

Cool, huh?! :)

Thanks Tony!

It's an apt reminder that everything you do and say online is likely to be studied and scrutinised at some stage. It's also reminded me that it's important to bring a mix of not just what you want to write, but what's interesting to the table.

Have a read of the post, and the findings of the other students too, it's very insightful.

First known Twitter Mexican Wave?

2008-03-05T09:53:07Z

It worked! This pleases me greatly. Thank you everyone for indulging me. The super cool thing is it is carrying on whilst I write this, and even people I haven't heard of are @Thayer Mexican Waving :-D

[UPDATE: Thanks to t1mmyb pointing this out - a live link to who's been waving]

Check it out (the early wavers) - read bottom up:

UPDATE wavers:

And thanks to the wavers not in my Twitter stream:

http://twitter.com/benrmatthews
http://twitter.com/almosttwitty
http://twitter.com/bealers
http://twitter.com/t1mmyb

And my reply stream looks pretty funny too - check it out :)
http://flickr.com/photos/thayer18/2311521053/sizes/o/

Eight Random Things About Me

2008-03-03T20:26:52Z

Ok, so this is a bit of an odd post to do, but what the hey. I talk about Twitter and social media far too much, so for a change let's go Swimming in the Sea Of Me as my very good friend Sam Michel likes to call it.

Dan Hon tagged me in his post Eight Random Things About Me. I only just found out about this from a tardy Google Alert but it seems fun so why the heck not :)

I speak really bad but passable French and Greek, along with a few words of Japanese, Arabic and South African.
I actually meant to be an artist (oils and fabric, if you're interested), but decided that the Internet thing would probably take off and make me more money.
I can play the guitar, clarinet, piano, all the recorder family and get a note out of a sax and a flute. All pretty badly.
I have cooked properly since I was about 14, it is still my most enjoyable and fulfilling hobby.
I had long blonde hair all my life until I cut it off and dyed it brown in November 2005.
I left home a week after my 16th birthday to start a new life on my own, in a different country from my family.
I have no academic qualifications after my GCSEs.
Until 2 weeks ago, I had never owned a single product or service by Apple.

Heh, so there you go. Random, and hopefully insightful, that's me.

I tag:

Wow, I really need to start knowing more women who do personal blogs!!

EDIT: Also, rules are meant to be broken right? I tag two more people:

Twitter Survey - Results!

2008-02-26T18:13:51Z

Blimey, I actually did it, huzzah! Thanks to the wonderful Chinwag for letting me use their servers to host.

You can download the report here:
Twitter Survey Report: Feb 2008

Please feel free to send on the report and data, and use it however you wish. All I ask is that you credit me somewhere suitable. Many thanks.

I hope you enjoy it, and here's a sneaky peak:

People mainly use Twitter mostly to see what their contacts are up to (50.6%).
Most respondents to this survey are followed by twice the amount of people (101-200 followers) than they follow themselves (51-100 followers).
You’re most likely to become un-followed if your Tweets aren’t deemed relevant to your followers
Half the respondents (48.5%) had Twittered drunk…
… Yet thankfully most people (65.7%) have never regretted a Twitter post

I'm now working on a much better and well thought out Twitter survey, and if you'd like to be involved with that please do let me know by either commenting on this post or emailing me thayer18 at yahoo dot com.

Thanks to everyone who took part, and passed this round their Twitter stream.

UPDATE - Blogs that are talking about the survey

I'm tracking these via Google Alerts, so if you've done a post and it's not here, just say and I'll add it. Good to see everyone's views on it :-)

Twitter is not a popularity contest. Step away from your ego...

2008-02-26T10:04:22Z

Last night I cut down the amount of people I follow. I do this about once a month, after adding people throughout the month. It's something I've always done, and interestingly, every time I do it - it's something that has always caused some grumpiness from a few of those who I stop following.

I don't get this at all. If I stop following you, you are still my friend. This doesn't terminate our relationship, or mean that in any way I like you less. It just means that for now there are other people I am watching who I want to appear in my feed more often. If I follow over 80, in particular when I get close to 100, I find it very hard to track my real life close friends - you know, the ones I know personally, go drinking with etc. So I chop back a bit.

That's not to say I only follow people who are my close personal friends, as that's not true, but I do only follow people that aren't close personal friends if I find what they tweet about very interesting. Not just "not boring" but actually really interesting.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I've had emails from people questioning why I no longer follow them, and then getting grumpy when I tell them. This morning I noticed a Twitter from Paul Walsh:

@thayer reduces her no of feeds and my followers go from 606 to 605. Must do a little culling myself.

Do people actually keep count of those following them that closely? It might just be me, but that sounds like, "Thayer deleted me, I'm going to delete her" - it's a bit playground. The word culling seems a bit harsh too - from Dictionary.com:

CULL n. Something picked out from others, especially something rejected because of inferior quality.

My personal thoughts are: follow people because they're interesting, and because you enjoy reading their Twitters for whatever reason, don't just follow people so they follow you back, or to proove your mates. That is just silly.

Oh, and by the way - I track "thayer" to my mobile via Twitter, so if I don't follow someone and they talk to me I can still talk back. It just means that I can have a good clean feed that directly shows me the people I want to know about at that moment. Also, I tend to follow and unfollow people frequently, so don't be surprised if I follow you on and off depending on where you are and what you do. I also read feeds of those I don't follow when I get time and want to see what they've been up to.

A closing thought that I saw on Ben Metcalfe's Twitter the other day:

@sexyseo sure, I'll add u. But if I followed everyone who followed me I'd be drowned in tweets as I have 750+ followers. My blackberry would melt!

Exactly! And why should Ben have to follow someone just because they're following him?! Aha - it's because sexyseo uses Twitter completely differently from anyone I know:

Time to clean up my Twitter. Who do not follow me, you will be left behind ;)

So, it just goes to show, one persons Twitter does definitely not equal anothers.

Anybody else had any experience of this, either as a deleted followee who's narked or perhaps you have run into trouble by stopping following people yourself?

Twitter survey delayed - but with good reason. Honest gov.

2008-02-19T23:38:55Z

Okay, so I feel bad. I promised results by today, and it isn't going to happen. There are two reasons for this in my defense, m'lud.

I have a family visit tomorrow until Friday. Not just any family visit, but my: sister, her son, her husband and my Mum. This is a lot of family to visit, considering it's the first time I've ever entertained family in London. Eek. Send me good luck vibes. I'm slightly scared about how completely square and nerdy I am going to appear to my 8 year old nephew. He's probably already on web 5.9 and played all the games I own on the hardest levels. I think family is a fairly decent excuse as to not getting my homework done on time - I mean, it's not like my cat ate it, or anything. Did you, Spitz?
I met a very interesting chap today, mister Richard Nevins from Tipped. He's doing some really interesting research into microbragging. He also gave me a dissertation on Twitter that I would rather like to use parts of for the Twitter survey report - add a bit of meat to its bones, perhaps. Richard has also said he'll be happy to get involved in the next Twitter survey - and he's super academic and brainy, so it will be way better than the finger in the air job I did.

So - I'm sorry. Please don't get grumpy with me. I promise promise promise I will get something sorted by Tuesday next week. If I don't have anything done by then I will just publish the raw results so you don't have to wait any longer. But that's not going to happen because there will be a fantastic shiny report for you all, in PDF format and everything!

<hangs head in shame and shuffles off />

Why doesn't the web do marriage?

2008-02-16T11:46:20Z

Something that's really been narking me for some time now, is the lack of name variability on the web, and in particular on social or community sites.

When I first registered on Facebook, it really brought it home to me. My networks before then had been purely professional, so I only needed to use my current name. I emailed the support and asked how I could incorporate my maiden name (I'm divorced, and Driver was my married name). They said there was no way around this, other than to call myself Thayer Chappell Driver. Which does rather suck somewhat. I would also hazard a guess that this would mess up search results for Thayer Driver, seeing as how they clearly haven't thought about how to incorporate previous names.

So my problem is thus: I was Thayer Chappell until I was 23, and then I got married and became Thayer Driver. During my marriage my career took off quite nicely, and so in London I am known more as Thayer Driver, than Thayer Chappell. However, everyone I went to school with, worked with or indeed knew pre-marriage and subsequently lost touch with (as you do) wouldn't know me as Thayer Driver.

I guess I am luckier than most; you don't meet too many Thayer's - so if you tie some of my geeky interests and photos with the Thayer part, you could probably work out it's me.

Another angle is I know at least two people who have been kind enough to share with me their current name is not the name they were born with. These are both males, who chose to change their first names for personal reasons in their late teens. Like me, they wouldn't want to have their birth name, plus their chosen name on such sites - but people from school, and anyone else from before they decided to change their names wouldn't know it was them.

Seems to me like a massive oversight from these sites, I don't know of a single one that allows you to be found through metadata or any other clever means of past names. When you think about all the women whose names have changed through marriage and divorce, possibly multiple times, that is a *lot* of the population. Then add on all the people who choose to change their name for their own reasons, and you're suddenly left with a startling number who the social web is actually pretty broken for.

I'd be really interested to hear if anyone is developing a service that incorporates personal metadata that can be searched on but not displayed, and also anyone else that's either found this to be a problem. Maybe you've even found a way around it? I'd love to know :)

Is this the fallout from lack of user testing across the real social landscape? I often find in my own experience that social services aren't being built or tested with a variety of typical social users. Perhaps this is a symptom?

Perhaps there is a service just dying to be built here, where you can register your current and past names and places of work. Then you associate that with your openId and it slots onto all the social networks. If you want to build this please feel free. I'll be happy with just a a coffee and a credit ;)

Consulting for TechCrunch

2008-02-11T15:29:17Z

As Mike Butcher announced today on TechCrunch UK - I've got another new consultancy gig! I'm very proud to be working with TechCrunch and partners to bring some really exciting technically focussed events to the UK and also across Europe.

Mike says:

Plenty of people have been wondering when we’d start running some TechCrunch events on this side of the pond. But attempting to run a full-time news blog and run events at the same time is a recipe for chaos. So I’m delighted to say that TechCrunch UK & Ireland is going to be working with Thayer Driver as our Events & Sponsorship Consultant. One of the first things we’ll be working on together is a decent-sized TechCrunch event for the Summer, while looking at other opportunities in the meantime to bring our community of readers together. Thayer will be exploring commercial opportunities for TechCrunch events both in the UK, Ireland and, potentially, other European centres. She can be reached on thayer.driver[AT]gmail.com (LinkedIn page) and here is a little more information about her. Oh, and, unlike most events people I know, she can also build objects in Second Life.

So there you go! What he said ;-)

Please do drop me a line if you're interested to hear more about what we're going to be doing, and if you have any ideas or would like to be involved.

Twitter survey - update

2008-02-11T09:54:16Z

Well blow me - I didn't expect it to be quite so popular! Which is obviously fantastic news as it means the higher the response, the better the results can be relied on at the end. So far the survey has had just shy of 200 responses, which is great considering I was expecting maybe 30 or so just from my close community! It'd be great to get to 300 by Wednesday when I'm closing it off, so I'll be hunting down Twitter forums and the like to post it on today. Shout if you'd like to suggest anywhere.

I also got lots of feedback, mostly positive but also some negative such as the survey being too short, and the questions not being written in a way the respondent would have liked. I wanted to quickly address those points - this survey began life as a free Survey Monkey survey, and as such you're only allowed 10 questions, and 100 responses. Also, I've never done a survey before, so apologies for my lack of knowledge in the area. It was clear that as soon as it started to gain momentum that I should have paid for the survey in the beginning and also worked with other sources to develop it!

So, I'm going to be doing a follow up survey in the next month, working with Nik Butler aka Loudmouthman and anyone else who would like to contribute. Paul Walsh also felt he could do a better survey, so hopefully Paul will help me develop this idea some more too, for phase two. It's great to have an idea and then have the community feedback and want to help develop it further, I'm looking forward to learning.

I've also been asked which client this survey is for, and what the point is. Well, there's no client involved, I just wanted to get this information to share with the community. So, you're all my client on this project! I just felt with so much speculation floating about on how people want to use and receive Tweets, we should add a bit of backrgound to the discussions.

Thanks again to everyone for getting involved and taking part making this a really fun project. Results will be out by Friday, so stay tuned!

Oh, and if you haven't taken it yet, what are you waiting for? :-) Take the survey!

Myspace developer platform launch

2008-02-08T13:45:48Z

Last night was the launch party for the Myspace developer platform at the Hospital Club. I was lucky enough to get an invite by way of Mike Butcher at TechCrunch UK.

It was a really enjoyable evening; the hosts were incredibly hosty - the US team had even flown over straight from their US launch to join their UK couterparts, and they were all really friendly and down to earth. So good to see a bunch of people so genuinely interested in hearing feedbcack and having some fun.

In particular I had a good chat with Mitch McAlister (Head of Product) about what they've been up to regards developing European products and services. It was interesting to find out about the localisation of it all. I've never been a Myspace user so it was great to have someone so passionate and knowledgable talk me through some of what they're up to.

I also managed to catch up with Richard Moross from Moo which was fun. We're both photo fans, so I had bad camera envy when he took out his rather sublime SLR, having only my crappy mobile camera on me just didn't even compare. Thankfully, just as I was about to pop from jealousy, Evan Hamilton from Flock came over and talked us through what they've been up to. Another super chap who had flown all the way from California just to be at the launch event.

All in all a really enjoyable evening, with old friends and new, and brownie points to the US team for coming over, it was a real pleasure to meet you all! Especially John Faith (Executive Director of Engineering) who not only flew straight over with a hangover but also gave us an interesting presentation on the future of the developer platform. Top work.

Twitter fans - I need your help!

2008-02-06T21:55:55Z

Since posting about Twitter etiquette, there's been mixed views coming back to me from the Twitter-o-sphere. So, I figured, let's put this out to the community at large and find out some facts about how we're all using Twitter.

I'd be super grateful if you could fling this as far and wide as possible, especially on Twitter - I will post all the raw results here in one week, so let's see how far we can get it out there. The more answers, the better data we can all share. I'll even do an executive summary for all of you that just want the highlights :-) Everything that comes from this survey will be free to use by anyone.

So, without further ado - please tell the world - How do you like your Twitter?

My new trading name

2008-02-04T12:38:45Z

I've been consulting since last October, but haven't got round to calling myself anything other than Thayer Driver. Although this is very to the point, isn't really very fun or good for forms. Or when pitching to clients etc, "Hi, I'm Thayer" receptionist: "What company please?" me: "Um, Thayer Driver inc?" You get the picture.

So I put it to the Twitter community today, and had some good responses. My favourites so far are MediaDriver (sadly already gone) and DigitalDriver (also already gone). It may be worth pointing out here that Driver isn't actually my name either, I'm divorced and never got round to changing my name back. My real name is actually Thayer Chappell :) So trading under my divorced name would be a bit odd.

Funniest name so far Major Thayers (a parody of Major Players if you haven't heard of them).

Here's some stuff that might help someone come up with a good name:

my blog is Tall. Eats a Lot. Talks too much - so, TEAL, TTM, etc maybe?
Thayer is an anagram of hearty and earthy (haha! how true)
I consult in digital, web, communities, emerging tech, recruitment and gaming (videogames, not gambling)

HELP!

Click here to see the Twitter community's answers :o)

Acceptable Twitter volume and content

2008-02-03T10:27:51Z

As some of my readers will know, I have a bit of an issue with lengthy Twitter conversations between users. Anything over three replies between two people is just showing that the users don't understand the medium, in my eyes. Small converstaions of one or two replies are absolutely fine, and often very interesting, but if two people alone find they're "chatting" on an open channel, it's just yawnsome.

Also Tweet frequency; if someone is posting more than say five an hour (I don't really have an exact figure, it's what feels right or more importantly, wrong) then I get irritated by their dominance on my Twitter feed and tend to un-follow them. To give you an idea, I've unfollowed at least five people I can think of who at one point or other were posting up to 20 Tweets an hour. That's just a flagrant disregard for their followers time and social space online, I'd say.

And finally, this is also true of anyone who *only* uses Twitter as a chat program, ie all their Twitters are @someone. It's just boring, I'm interested in what people are up to, and the occassional questions, comments and thoughts that pop up.

I'm aware that I'm quite militant about my views on Twitter, in the same way that I will only connect on LinkedIn with people I have actually worked with and would recommend, and the way I culled my Facebook "friends" that weren't friends. But I've found that the value of my social network for me is all about the quality, not the quantity. I predict this will also start to become a more widespread view as people's networks grow and grow through evolving social media.

All my views aside though, this post, "Thinking about capillary conversations and choice" is a brilliant beginners through to advanced users guide on how to microblog, it is based on Twitter but I would suggest it is well worth rolling out across all microblogging platforms.

Back on Twitter

2008-02-02T16:13:57Z

Horay! I went back on Twitter yesterday, after my self imposed month off social media that actually just ended up being a month off Twitter and Facebook.. Yeah, I know, pretty useless really - but it did open my eyes to a few points:

Avoiding social media is nigh on impossible these days - you'd have to leave the internet as we know it to make sure you didn't see any social media in action
I don't have to keep using Twitter or spam myself out there to get business, in fact, I got more since shutting down my lifestreaming - although this could be down to actually being free to be approached for business for the first time.
It's easier to "hear" what other people are saying when you shut up yourself (I might have to implement this to my offline personality too!)
Twitter is brilliant, and I missed it a lot
Facebook is really "over" for me, although I am going to keep my profile afterall, as a bucket for all my connections, and it's very useful for the groups - in fact that's the one aspect of it I'd say no other social network site does as well at all
Plaxo Pulse is my new interest, but nothing on a par with how Facebook first caught me
I met my long term friends more often
I had to write a hell of a lot more email to keep in touch with people

I also gave up drinking in January - and no, contrary to how that sounds (and what I expected) it wasn't actually a boring month! I am hoping to cut back on my drinking to next to nothing over this year. I have had a couple of drinks in the last week but really missed feeling as clear headed as I did when I was long term sober, so I'm going back to not drinking from today, for at least another month.

All in all I'd say the experiment was a really useful exercise; if nothing else it's shown me how completely ingrained social media has become in today's internet, and how much more information you can gain automatically from being wired into the communities and embracing social web trends.

Right, I best get off and invite all those people I culled from my Facebook. If they'll have me back...!

What I've been up to

2008-01-31T12:39:36Z

It's been a while since I talked about what I've been up to, so I wanted to post an update. I've had a few people asking, and without microblogging (microbragging?) on Twitter, I forgot that a lot of you wouldn't know!

I've just finished some work for Apple which was really interesting. I have been researching social trends with regards emerging technology, to give them a presentation and report on how to evolve the Apple brand through community. I came up with the tagline "evolving through community" whilst working on the project, which I'm going to use as my company strapline.

Which brings me nicely onto a request for help - I have been trading under my own name, just because I never got round to thinking up anything better. However, I want to use something else, but I'm at a loss. Anyone got any suggestions? If you make a suggestion that I go with, I'll send you a hamper pack of my favourite Alergian coffee and chocolate :)

I've also been working on a social media strategy for Cogs Agency, and marketing work at Chinwag. Coming up, I've got some interesting research work in Second Life for Cheeze, and a recruitment project for a very exciting start up project that I can't talk about *just* yet but as soon as I can I'll let you all know.

So, all in all a blummin' busy January, and February's looking fairly hectic too! All very exciting.

I'm off to SheSays tonight, followed by Digital Outlook's 10th Birthday bash tonight, so will take my camera out for some good party shots, it's been a while since I got some noo meedja partay action pics!

PMOG goes into beta

2008-01-31T11:11:30Z

A very good friend of mine, Duncan Gough, is the developer and co-founder of PMOG - Passively Mutliplayer Online Game, along with Justin Hall and Merci Victoria Grace. It wa around for a year or so 2006/07, but then vanished from our internets when they got funded by O'Reilly Ventures last August. But now, it's BACK and in beta stage! Huzzah!

I'm one of the first lucky beta testers, and so far so good. It looks very charming with updated graphics, and all the old goodies such as mines and quest setting working well.

"PMOG is an infinite game built on individual network histories, transforming our web surfing into ongoing social play. With a game head-up display in Firefox, players can bomb each other, wage war over web sites, and lead other users on web missions. Ordinary web sites become caches for items and currency. PMOG fuses an MMO into our WWW." You can read more about PMOG here.

I'm waiting on a quote from the team when they get chance, so check back for updates.

[update - and here we are:]

Duncan Gough says, "PMOG is a lightweight massively casual online game that we hope people will enjoy playing because of its passive nature. It's going to be fun seeing how people play on the internet with the things we've made for them!"

Justin Hall adds, "It's a brain tickle to start to see people participating in a layer of play on top of the ordinary internet. All the information we have access to in the world is fantastic - having friends and strangers making mischief and magic out of web pages turns out to be a real good time."

So there you go :-) Best of luck to the Gamelayers team, can't wait to watch it develop.