Will sms you multiple times en route to Vegas. Because I’m going to Vegas

My housemates (a couple) last night (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

@A: Lime cordial in bed. #fail

@B: @A in bed. #fail

As far as the #followfriday – which has inexorably been condensed to #FF – I find it useful, as I still maintain quite a small twitter follow-ship, but I don’t really engage in it myself, largely because I’m too lazy.

@george: You raise a very valid point. The first edition dictionary of Yanyuwa, which is unpublished but online (http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:11306) is a good example of obsolescence in the digital age. The original files are in an obscure format for the original Mac from back in ’84, and nobody seems to know what to do with them. Lukily, the dictionary needs to be rewritten, which is underway now.

It does raise interesting questions about the permenance of digital data even if it IS archived properly though. Another example is the fact that some of the field dictionary and notes taken by Jean Kirton in the early 80s are stored on 5.25″ floppy disks once again stored in the AIATSIS database. How useful said disks would be nowadays is good question, before we even approach what to do with the data that’s stored on them.

At the same time, migrating and converting large scale archives of any digital information is a huge undertaking, and usually archives like the ones run by AIATSIS are run by very dedicated people, but they only have a finite amount of funding to put towards those kinds of activities. Most data now is created to conform to the standards of certain archives which then keep the data in formats that are guaranteed to be accessible. Old data doesn’t have this luxury, and there’s a question whether it should be kept in the format it’s in, or converted to a more accessible and permanent format, and if option two is the right one then who’s going to pay?

Yet, here we are in the modern era recording things so dependent on electricity and particularly types of technologies that change within a few short years. How long will it be before things recorded on 5 and a half inch floppies are practically irretrievable? Or when CD technology is long since replaced?

Worst part is, for the information age, it’s recorded on stuff that’s not as tangible as clay tablets. Just imagine what happens if we ever have a technological disaster that wipes out the world’s computers and/or electricity. There would go every bit of knowledge recorded on such media.

Tweeting on clay tablets actually does make some sense.

My partner also made a good point the other day being that we are so concerned about being green and eco friendly and sustainable in all ways that, when were long gone, all the buildings we put up now won’t last as long as the roman empire therefore leaving no trace of us having been here at all

I’m making my way slowly through Blooming English and enjoying it a great deal. Particularly like the Australian focus.

Mixed emotions on this, however in general I agree with you these memes are starting to drive me mad, though have to admit to adding a couple myself. I still like things such as #traveltuesday and #winewednesday, and to my mind that is what hashtags are for. The other thing that is concerning is the direction these memes are taking, i.e. wandering off into the world of smut, I had no problems letting my 6 year old daughter read my twitter stream but now it is more of a problem, and if she wants to continue read it then I will have to unfollow certain folk, if I can’t filter out most of the hashtag stuff.

Cheers

Darren

Would a new standard in #tags result in that becoming the new #tag?

I too noticed the #3wordsbeforesex etc etc and – somewhat cynically of me – immediately thought of bots – along the lines of the forever lovly ‘Britney gives head’ that i’ve been so fortunate enough to be followed by on several occasions – so decided to ignore them. Surely I’m not the only one that thinks this. If everyone started to think that way then you’re right. #deathtohashtags it is i guess

Thanks for the post mate. I’m really going to be echoing the thoughts above me here but agree with you that a stream would have been great medium to better communicate what was going on at the event. This is certainly something we will be doing next time around and potentially at this years upcoming Australian Leadership Retreat (http://www.ausdavos.org/australian-leadership-retreat.html). We’ll see, but it’s certainly something I am very much keen to have a play with and see how it goes.

Overall, I think the tweet stream worked pretty well at helping people get a feel for what was going on in the room, but agree that it didn’t quite communicate the deeper levels of the intricate topics discussed. I always found the questions from twitter, however, surprisingly relevant given that they only had a 140 character understanding of what was going on. I thought most of the questions from twitter were quite intelligent and actually helped lead the chatter away from well worn paths the participants were treading and direct it down a new/more action orientated focus.

Cheers for the considered thinking on Future Summit.

Steve

Some other feedback we got was that we were just repeating not opining, it was interesting because we were effectively hammering out as fast as we could what was being said and occasionally adding a view, especially when Julie Bishop was speaking.

I think the vibe from the twitter crew on the ground was a bit around “there seems to be a lot of talk but not much action” but they are seeing that most of the action happens after the summit from the ideas and connections are made.

The other big benefit was the intrigue and dialogue from the over 50 leader set with the youths from the twitter set. It is only a beginning but I am sure we can take it further in the future. Thanks for the feedback, it is a good perspective and we will look to keep expanding.