Luck, Love, and Dinner
Posted by Ben on January 22, 2010
I’ve always seen sexuality as just another part of me, like a limb or an eye… and so when it came to things like pride marches, or the LGBT society at university, I never bothered. It’s not like I go up to people in the street and wave my arm at them to prove it’s there… So why should I stand up and say “I’m a geek, I like food, and – oh – I’m gay”?
Lucky
It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I’ve actually been really lucky. And no – not because I’ve always been able to fulfil my loves of eating and gadgetry – but because I’ve not once come up against a bad reaction to the way in which I live my life – not once have I had anything other than neutral or positive reactions from people ranging from friends back at secondary school through to colleagues today.
However – Alan Turing, Benjamin Britten & Oscar Wilde – three people I have always greatly admired for very different reasons (notably my love of technology, music, and literature) and who all died long before I was born, weren’t quite as lucky as I’ve been.
Recently I started to think that maybe the reason people take the whole ‘pride’ thing seriously isn’t because they want to draw attention to themselves, but to those people who were ridiculed, persecuted and ultimately doomed for simply being who they were. That said, I wanted to stay true to myself too – and I knew I wasn’t part of the ‘scene’ that so many people I know are. Then, one evening, a good friend of mine inspired me.
Gay and Geeky
There’s no way I could accept that I was the only gay geek in the world of IT, and meeting my good friend Seb confirmed that for me. While I love talking gadgets and technology, it was the first time in an age I’d been able to, in the next breath, talk about relationships and love lives.
It was then that Seb had a lightbulb moment – many of our female friends talked about how great it was to go to the girl geek dinners that were being organized – maybe it was time to organise a gay geek dinner, and see who showed up.
As it happened, quite a lot of people expressed interest and came along – including another one of the people I’d always looked up to, as the photo shows.
That was April last year, and once a month since then we’ve had a dinner and a bunch of help organising them. I’ve met so many new and interesting people – not least my partner – and my own confidence grew as a result. Before I knew it, and without changing who I was, I was making a difference and helping people.
Why tell the story now?
Anyone who knows me will know that I love talking – whether it’s about the fantastic technology I work with, human rights, or what I’m having for dinner. Over the past few months I’ve talked to a lot of people – some not quite as confident or as forthright as I can be. Some who have only recently begun to accept themselves for who they are, or who have only just started to realize that the days aren’t looking as dark as they did for Britten, Wilde and Turing.
And so it’s for them I’ve broken my usual tradition of technology-focussed blog posts and told this story. Come along to the next gay geek dinner – you never know who you might meet!
Killing in the name of McElderry whilst raging against the X Factor…
Posted by Ben on December 20, 2009
I think it’s brilliant. And by that I don’t mean that I dislike Joe McElderry’s song, or that I’m a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine. I kept well out of both sides of the argument and didn’t buy either single (personally, I’m more of a fan of The Muppets).
Power of Persuasion
A while ago I read a book called The Tipping Point. It’s a great read and highly recommended. It talks a lot about how social trends have developed and hit their tipping point – the point at which it stops being a small trend and makes a huge impact.
Let’s be clear, this year’s UK Christmas Number 1 race was not about the music. It wasn’t a battle between two songs, or artists. It was all about the politics – a group of people that felt really strongly about not wanting another X Factor number one single, a large number of people who either felt the same way or jumped on the bandwagon – verses a group of people who were fans of the Joe McElderry song and a large group of people who felt strongly that it should beat the Rage single or jumped on the bandwagon.
The Right Tools for the Job
Anyone who’s watched the Eurovision Song Contest will know all about politics interfering with music. But what’s interesting about the battle between Joe McElderry and Rage Against the Machine is the way that people came together to make it happen.
The campaign was started on Facebook – and quickly gained a hashtag and a huge number of retweets on Twitter. Leveraging social media as the tool to make their campaign happen, the guys that started the movement inadvertedy captured the minds of many likeminded people. As more and more people used the hashtag on Twitter and joined the Facebook group, it became less about the core reasons that the cause was started, and more about ’sticking it’ to whoever – Simon Cowell, The X Factor, Manufactured Pop Music.
There were other factors, too – Rage Against the Machine said quite early on that they would donate the proceeds of the single to UK Charity Shelter (a great cause) – and let’s not forget that much talked about Radio 5 interview.
But this campaign had the social web at it’s heart, and so that’s what’s so brilliant – this whole thing has been a fantastic example of how Social Media is a tool that can be used – whether the reasons are right or wrong – to reach a huge number of people in such a short space of time.
The Reaction & The Aftermath
One of the most interesting things was watching some of the conversations on the social web just after the announcement was made. There were the two polar opposite sides of the argument – the people on both side who were both ecstatic and angry. There were those who took the moral high ground and mentioned it in a very impartial way. And then there were the rest of us – sure, I had a preference about the music, but my life wasn’t about to change. I chatted to a few people on Twitter about the result and how they felt about it.
Ironically, the biggest backlash I read was from an ITV employee, who branded those who bought the Range Against the Machine song as “Pathetic”. He clearly felt very strongly about it (as his Twitter feed seemed to show, he was saying similar things to many ‘Rage’ fans)
Many of the people who’s tweets I read were celebrating “the end of X Factor” or the “downfall of manufactured pop”. While they were on the winning side of the battle, their arguement could be deemed just as flawed.
Will this result change the music industry? Certainly not.
For the first time in history, I’m willing to bet that this year’s Christmas Number 1 will have far more of an impact on the business world – as millions of eyes at thousands of companies around the world turn to social media, having seen what it can do here, tonight.
Who do you think you are?
Posted by Ben on November 12, 2009
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to present to a group of technology enthusiasts at the inaugural Reading Geek Night about digital identity. I’m not a big fan of bullet points on slides – and so uploading my PowerPoint from the evening wouldn’t really make a lot of sense. I wanted to capture some of the things I talked about – and the questions I got after the talk – here on my blog.
Not too long ago, I posted about Digital Identity – talking about a few experiences from my own life, and starting to think about the idea of education being the key to cracking the abundance of fear and misunderstanding that starts to show when people start to look at who they are digitally. At the Geek Night, I talked a lot about how to ‘have your cake and eat it too’ when it comes to your personal brand – the idea of being able to have both a private garden and a public playground online.
Eating it too…
I achieve this in a very simple way – I have one outlet online that is closed off, private, and very heavily screened. For that, I use Facebook. If you look for me publicly on Facebook, you see only what I want you to see – a photo, and who my facebook friends are. I could have it set not to show me at all – but I want people from whom I’ve been long disconnected to be able to find me again if they want to. The rest of my profile and activity on Facebook is hidden to all except those I accept as friends on the service.
Simple.
So then there’s my personal brand, or ‘who I am’ digitally and publically. A positive, unified personal brand can really be your best friend – it’s like a wing-man for your professional life. For this, I stick to a few simple rules:
- Keep my avatar unified and up-to-date
- Whether it’s Twitter, an about me page, or one of the other many social web applications I use, I maintain the same avatar on all of them. I keep it up-to-date too, so if I change my hair style or appearance, I’ll be recognisable both across all networks, and in the ‘real’ world. I choose it carefully too – a picture really does say a thousand words!
- Have a pre-canned short and long ‘about me’ bio
- There’s a reason that companies stick with well-known slogans, and it’s in a similar vein that I put a lot of time and effort into having two complimentary bios that I can publish without a second thought. I put a lot of time in to writing both a two paragraph and a 160 character version, and make sure I use them, along with the same avatar, on everything I do publicly.
- Be positive and natural
- It’s almost subconscious, but people respond better to positive language. Whether it’s a potential future employer, or your mates down the pub, the best thing you can do it ‘think before you post’. Remember that what goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet.
Be not afraid…
One last piece of advice I have – and I can’t stress this enough – is don’t shy away from looking at your digital identity. There are always those people who will never want to have an online presence – but as we move more and more into the age of digital, it’ll get increasingly more difficult not to be connected in some way, shape or form.
That said, your digital identity shouldn’t feel like a chore – it’s who you are after all. Be who you want to be, and you can’t go too far wrong.
Finally, if you do one thing after reading this post, I’d like to think you’d spread the word – make the people around you aware of their digital identities. It might be interesting to see who they think they are, digitally.
The Real IT Crowd…
Posted by Ben on November 5, 2009
When you say the word ‘geek’ to some people, they think of spots, hunchbacks, and an inability to find a date.
The notion of geeks being anti-social is one of those urban myths, sort of like when your Mother told you that the moon was made of meat, or that if you picked your nose your brains would fall out. Over the past two decades, ‘social geeks’ have regularly met up, discussed cool stuff, and braved the world beyond their screen in the interests of getting to know one another. This gave birth to one of the IT industry’s best kept secrets:
The ‘Geek’ Community
It’s not all socialising – there are user groups, presenter nights, think tanks and conferences – and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the 12 months I’ve been involved in the tech community, it’s that a social geek is a more productive geek.
“Each time I attend a community event, whether it be a conference, presentation or just a few beers I never come away without learning something new.” said an enthused Dominic Green, a recent university graduate who joined Microsoft as a developer, Azure enthusiast and general boffin. “That’s one of the great things about the dev community – everyone involved in it is so passionate about software development, it creates an almost addictive atmosphere.”
It’s not just stalwart developers that benefit from the UK tech scene – Ben Hall, all round IT ninja and co-author of Testing ASP.NET Web Applications had this to say: “Being part of the community has opened my eyes with regard to writing amazing code and using different frameworks to their full advantage, allowing me to be a better informed developer and benefiting my team and others around me.”
Ben was keen to let us know it’s not all about writing code – “With the support of my peers within the community, I have been given the opportunity to speak at conferences and become a published author – something I never thought possible before joining my first user group”.
While the scale of the tech scene is a well-kept secret, many people seem to struggle with a more profound problem – how to get involved. The saying “it’s who you know” is thrown around a lot, and seems to put a lot of people off of the tech scene – I mean – what’s the point in trying to open a door if it’s locked from the inside?
Thankfully, the door is a lie.
When I first started getting involved in the UK tech scene, I knew very few people that were a part of it… but I decided to jump in at the deep end, and see how easy it was to keep afloat – and so I went along to an event… and people talked to me. People I didn’t know. People I got talking to. People I then met up with for coffee. And a drink or five.
“The developer community has exposed me to many technologies and concepts that I would not have experienced without the wide range of people, interests and experiences.” Dom said to me. “Being a part of the developer community has allowed me to build up a great network of contacts and friends.” – and he really hit the nail on the head with that – these people aren’t just contacts, some of them are now friends too.
So how can you get involved?
Go to an event, user group, geek night, tweetup or general geek themed shindig. There are always people there willing to be social and tell you what’s on their mind.- Don’t just listen – join in the conversation. Twitter is a great medium for that if you can’t make it to a physical event.
- Love the geek world, and it will love you. If you’re passionate about what you do – whether you’re a developer, an IT Pro or just a technology enthusiast – you’ll find like-minded people.
Check out the LondonDev Community calendar for geek events in London, other events in and around the south of England, and check out the GeekUp and other events if you’re based ‘up north’ or in Scotland.
There may be a local tweetup near you too – take a look around at the various events happening in the UK.
I’ll see you there!
Imagine a world… again.
Posted by Ben on October 19, 2009
Two years ago I started this blog with a post about the Imagine Cup – a worldwide software competition for students that I was taking part in at the time. I posted several times about our journey through the competition – and eventual success at the UK finals.
The competition was a truly amazing experience – I leaned a lot about the industry as a whole, as well as some of the technologies I worked with, and I formed some valueble contacts that eventually helped me when it came to finding my feet in the IT industry.
The team at Microsoft have just kicked off the 2010 Imagine Cup competition, and so I thought it only fitting to share the information – please pass it on to any students you know, as it’s a really lifechanging thing to be involved in!
The Imagine Cup is the worlds largest student technology competition with thousands of the best and brightest students from around the world competing for the opportunity to represent their country at the international finals (this year to be held in Warsaw) and ultimately win in their category.
The competition has four categories this year:
Software Design
This year, Microsoft has worked with some of the UK’s leading charities to provide you with a selection of project briefs to form the basis of your entry. There’s a good range of briefs all addressing real world problems identified by partner charities. I would really recommend using these briefs (although this is not compulsory) as they will get you off to a flying start.
You can find out more and download the project briefs here.
Game Design
As ever, Microsoft are predicting that Games Design will be a very popular category this year. The competition is largely the same as last year but with one key difference – you can now use either XNA or Silverlight to build your game.
Microsoft are also planning on running a series of X48 type events where all entries would be submitted as Round 1 entries – details to follow.
Find out more about the Games Design competition here…
Digital Media
The Digital Media competition is designed for your team to create a video as interesting and as enticing as possible so that people want to pass it on, share it, and get the entire world to vote for it. The videos that become the most viral – win! This is a chance for those who’ve always enjoyed creating videos and multimedia experiences, to develop one that can change the global community.
Visit the Digital Media competition page to learn more.
IT Challenge
IT Challenge highlights the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust and secure. You, as a growing IT professional may think you have the base set of tools and techniques, but are you ready to consider a customer’s unique needs and configurations that will make all of the pieces of a specific system fit together?
Visit the IT Challenge competition page to learn more.
Now is the time to jump in so check out the UK site, register and compete – good luck!
Who Am I?
Posted by Ben on October 1, 2009
If you look at the time stamp of my last post, you’ll see that it’s been a while. The Open Bracket is something that I originally started just over two years ago to review a lot of the cool technology that I was coming into contact with at the time, and was regularly updated. I recently decided to re-generate the blog, give it a new look, and diversify it to be a bit more of a view-from-the-trenches of the various things I do and have a heavy interest in. There’s more about the various pies (mmm, pie) that I have fingers in on the about me page.
Pulling all of the various things I do and social networks I belong to onto one site proved a lot more difficult than I first anticipated – I’ve been an active internet user for over 12 years, and I’ve been pretty noisy. Combine that with the fact that I have a fairly unique name (the only other Ben Nunney I could find on the internet is an experimental film director), and I realised that I could find quite a lot of ‘me’ online with reasonably minimal effort. A scary thought!
A while ago, I was teaching ICT in a secondary school in south east London. A lot of the students made use of social networks like MySpace and Bebo, and most were on Windows Live Messenger to each other. With the plethora of websites, gadgets and devices aimed at young people, it’s no wonder that young people tend to have a digital identity before they’ve got any qualifications.
So, who am I?
What shocked a group of them was telling them that once something is on the internet, it’s there in one way shape or form forever. Nothing about their age would protect them – publishing things in an un-protected manner on the internet is about as public as it gets. In a world where even our Prime Minister’s wife is Tweeting, more and more people are signing up to various internet bandwagons without first answering one simple question: who am I?
I’ve worked hard to manage my digital identity. I’m known as bennuk pretty much everywhere online, or by my real name. I took a conscious decision some time ago to use my real name against the things I do online – using the internet as a digital extension of my real identity. This has worked out well for me, and I give a lot of thanks to Twitter for some of the people it’s helped me to connect with over the past few years.
Some people, however, want to be able to use the internet without having their identity revealed for the world to see. Facebook is a great example of this – mine is set to private, so that I have a place on the internet where I can connect with old friends away from the professional networking that I do. People can search for me on Facebook and it’ll tell them that I’m registered on there, but that’s it unless I give them permission to see my profile.
All well and good – but there are sites on which you can ‘uncover’ information about people. 321people.co.uk, for which you can see my results here, crawls the web and picks up information about whoever you search for. For mine it’s picked up this blog, many of my social network profiles, various images, and an email address. If I was trying to protect my privacy online, this would be very unwelcome news indeed. Some things aren’t even my doing – even if it’s someone who’s referenced you, and not something you’ve posted yourself, it still has your name to it.
It also leaves me feeling a little bit like Jean Valjean, the bread stealing protagonist from Les Miserables. While I’ve chosen bennuk because it’s a representation of my name (I’m Ben N from the UK), the indelible nature of the world wide web means that, to an extent, I’m stuck with it. I may as well have it engraved on my chest.
But what about everyone else?
I’ve made conscious choices about how I want my digital identity to be perceived – buy many people either aren’t well enough informed or don’t know the pitfalls before they jump into the world of the internet – and find it very difficult to change once they’re in there. What we really need to do is educate people, like the kids I used to teach, about how to use the internet safely in that respect, and to ‘plan’ their digital identity a little more.
While schools have recognised this, the vast majority have taken a very draconian, knee-jerk view of banning all social networking within a school’s walls, and letting the children fend for themselves. Let’s disregard for a minute that historically, when you ban things they just go underground (often with disastrous consequences), and look at the real reasons for the decision. Young people are typically miles ahead of their teachers in digesting an area that moves quicker than any other taught subject in the world.
An Answer?
There are some teachers out there doing fantastic things with new media, social networks, and who really embrace the digital age. Others need some help. I recently became aware of the ThisIsMe project from the University of Reading. While not specifically aimed at schools, it’s a fantastic project aimed to show people a little more about how digital identity works, and what their options are for managing their online presence.
Tools like this can only be good for raising levels of awareness within teachers, young people, and the populace in general. The problem here is not the internet itself. Sure, it can be a scary place – but it needn’t be dangerous or full of terror if we keep a clear, well-informed head. Of course, that’s far easier said than done. I’ve no doubt it’s going to be a slow process… but I feel positive that with projects like this and others starting to emerge, we might just get there.
I encourage anyone who is digitally active to take a look at their digital identity and get in touch with who you are. You might be surprised what you can find about yourself online!
iPhone – Getting Serious?
Posted by Ben on March 17, 2009
So this evening marked a huge shift in the way what the iPhone works. Apple announced the new features that would be available in version 3.0 of it’s iPhone operating system, and, well, there are far too many to list. What is clear is Apple’s message that the iPhone can be a serious enterprise tool – something they started when they added support for Microsoft Exchange back in the 2.0 release of the OS. With all the new functionality, one question strikes clear in my head:
Can you turn an entertainment device into a reliable business device?
Well, let’s take a look at what the new OS will have to offer….
Productivity Features
Finally, we get cut, copy and paste functionality across all of the Apple apps (Mail, Notes, Messages etc). It’s a long overdue feature, but the technicalities of making it work seem to be responsible for the delay. Scott Forstal of Apple said “the user interface took some time, and we had to develop a pasteboard server that runs under all apps, then you have to protect from malicious code…”
We also get an Outlook style search as an ‘additional’ home screen. The new ‘Spotlight Search’ screen allows you to search across the phone – be it contacts, calendars, email, SMS or Apps – and delivers your results right there. It also searches IMAP servers you have configured on the phone. You can also load an app this way by just typing in the name of it – just like you can in the Windows Vista start menu.
Open Formats
There’s also now support for many more calendar formats, allowing you more flexibility with subscribed calendars, and a whole range of new APIs that will allow apps to evolve even further. Indeed Oracle have already announced new apps coming with the new OS. Apple are also allowing application developers to communicate with the native hardware and functionality – which means we’ll see far more applications that can target specific purposes.
So what does this mean?
Well, it means that the iPhone is becoming more of a serious contender to Windows Mobile and PalmOS based phones that always had the edge when it came to productivity. But what else? If you look carefully at the announcement, Apple are being woolly where it counts – dependable and reliable service. There were no announcements about battery life, which is one of the biggest iPhone grypes. There were also no promises of reliability, with Scott Forstal being quoted as saying “We want to ensure the highest reliability and uptime for our services, but we can make no guarantees”.
And it comes down to that one question: Can you turn an entertainment device into a reliable business device?
Well, Apple are trying – and on the face of things, it’s looking good. I think, however, that it’ll be some time before I entrust all of my business logic to a device initially designed for a posing teenager.
Victim Support
Posted by Ben on December 12, 2008
Imagine being the youngest in a family of 6. You’re young and you’re good looking – and all you really want to do is make things better, more fun, and get people communicating. You have a lot to live up to though, especially as you’ve had a few issues. Everyone is constantly comparing you to your older brothers, saying how they wished you were as reliable and as friendly as them – even your least successful brother, two generations older, who would frequently be found hanging.
Sounds familiar, right? There’s not a media outlet on the planet that hasn’t had a dig at Windows Vista since it’s release in January 2007. Even in the lead up to it’s release, under it’s then code-name ‘Longhorn’, press coverage became less and less favorable for Microsoft’s flagship operating system. But what drove the world to care so much about an operating system – and why did the media take an interest in something that, traditionally, was left up to the so-called geek press?
‘It just works…’
I don’t need to point out all of the ways that technology has revolutionized the world over the last 15 years. My first computer, the Amstrad 1512 (left), was more of a quirky thing to have in the corner of the living room than something that actually integrated with my life in any way. So, has the uptake of computers into the mainstream been as a result of them getting easier to use?
Opinion differs, but I tend to disagree. With all of the added functionality that all computers of the 21st century have, they have an added level of complexity to match. We are forced to learn new acronyms and phrases in order to perform the simplest tasks, compelled to know the difference between an airport and an AirPort (and how extreme it is), and offered help in writing letters by talking paperclips.
Matter of image
I was recently chatting to my brother about the differences between Apple and Microsoft. “I think apple is conceived as cooler”, he told me. “Bill Gates is a stereotypical ‘geek’ isn’t he – maybe people associate that image with Microsoft. I think people generally think Microsoft is better, but Apple is cooler.” So does that mean that the whole issue is still ruled by the image of the geeks vs. the popular crowd?
Stephen Fry, a popular public figure both in the UK and the world over, recently went on a rant about Windows Vista. He’s reviewing technology for The Guardian newspaper, but also has a twitter account. Using his massive following in social networking as a sounding board, he posted some really quite abrasive comments about his new Vista laptop. The result? Within around three hours, there were a plethora of articles about the incident. The BBC had even reported on the power of his words with their article ‘Can Stephen Fry Kill a Gadget?’ earlier that week.
And yet, when I ask people in the industry, they don’t seem to see the power of the media. Kris Athi, a software developer, said “I think public demand has switched the media over more… I think the pubic create the trends,and then the media play on it” – and this seems ubiquitous. Another technology enthusiast said “With companies the size of Apple, Microsoft and Google, I think the shareholders shape the tech market not the media. The market drives forward the media in terms of what they expect to see now and in the future.”
‘Every dog has it’s day…’
In my mind, technology’s greater stance in the media has been reciprocal. The internet – possibly the best (and arguably the worst) invention in the last 50 years – has expedited this greatly. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter, alongside online news, review websites and quirky little stunts that the internet makes possible have really helped technology to penetrate every aspect of our lives. More than that though – it’s helped media to evolve, and as it’s done so, has allowed media to shape it in turn.
The power of the media has destroyed the image of what is essentially a stable and usable operating system. Vista will, in my opinion at least, never be widely accepted or trusted. It’s certainly done the Windows brand a lot of damage from both a consumer and business perspective, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the company tackles the issue with the forthcoming release of Windows 7.
That does leave one final burning question… did Vista really deserve the kicking it got?
Answers on a postcard…
Surf the new wave of Windows Live…
Posted by Ben on December 3, 2008
So a while ago I made a few posts about some of the beta software involved in Windows Live Wave 3. Well as of today, some of the new online features of Windows Live have gone… well… live.
One of the most notable features is the new Windows Live Home – a place where you can aggragate many things such as Flickr, Twitter, RSS feeds and all of your Messenger status updates, as well as posts from people’s spaces, photos etc. This ties in well with the new profile that allows you to add friends across networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.
This ties in well with the whole new way that Windows Live does photos, videos, storage and more. I was never a huge user of the social networking elements of Windows Live, but so far I’m incredibly impressed by the way this can bring everything together!
Check out this blog post from the Windows Live Team that details more of the changes that have been made, and go to my new Windows Live profile and add me to your network! Don’t forget that if you have messenger, or any of the other Windows Live services (including a Hotmail account) then you’ve already got all of the new Windows Live features!
Stay tuned for the new releases on the software side of Windows Live!
A Fruitful Folly
Posted by Ben on December 2, 2008
After reading on Eileen Brown’s blog about The Simpsons’ recent take on Apple, I couldn’t not share. While I’ve nothing against those who like Apple’s products (everyone has the right to choose, and until recently I was a proud MacBook owner… even if I did run Vista), I think that this highlights, in true Simpsons form, what lots of people think.
Too good not to share!
About
I'm a Technology & Social Media Specialist, Writer, Public Speaker, Musician and Food Critic all in one package - and The Open Bracket is a place for me to brain-dump things that I find interesting, noteworthy, or that I can't be bothered to write on a post-it.
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