Saturday was a great day in Adelaide. No airplanes and no scheduled talks or workshops so I could let my mind flow and not hold tight to any particular focus. Lovely.
The day started with a walk to the Adelaide Central market via the Adelaide Christmas pageant route where I saw thousands of people – families – lining the streets waiting for the start of a parade. It is wild to see a Christmas event in 40 degree centigrade heat, with “survival stations” along the way.
I then met up with Mike Seyfang (@fang), Mark Thomson of the Institute for Backyard Studies, and John Legg and Chris Rawlinson of Helpful Partners. Alas, our buddy Dave Wallace (aka LifeKludger) could not join us. We missed him, because the conversation around tinkering, creatively remixing physical and digital materials to serve real, local needs related to much of Dave’s passions and talents.
Mark had brought up the conversation on tinkering, having seen me muse about it on my blog in the context of technology stewardship. I was hungry for the conversation.
Mike put up a great blog post capturing some of the conversation. He tied it to my Friday preso on communities and networks and it is worth re-sharing the tweets and links Mike put on the post.
fang #edayz09 a community would notice @dnwallace is not here, the network simply drops the (weak) connection … @nancywhite keynote reflection.
Chris and John run a local consultancy called ‘Helpful Partners’ who specialise in making complex information clear and accessible.
Mark is the ‘old tool’ responsible for the awesome ‘Institute of BackYard Studies‘ home of shed culture and master of the great Australian piss-take. Someone I’ve been wanting to meet for a long time (thanks GB) Author of fine books like :
The Central Market meetup was really an extraordinary treat as these four wonderful guys each brought something different that magically connected to what was a very coherent “whole” for me.
Then it was time to meet up again with Michael and on to picking up E-Dayz star, Cathy Moore, and seeing her off to the airport with a few more music stories on the way. Then we drove out to the beach to have lunch with Frankie Forsythe.
With a little break for afternoon work in the cool of the hotel, Michael took me up to Mt. Lofty to see the spread of Adelaide from above and watch a quiet sunset.
Sunday morning Kerry Johnson and her hubbs Paul arranged for an informal tweet up breakfast with Leo Gaggl, his two kids and Annie Ferguson. Coffee, conversation at a relaxed pace was a great topper for my Adelaide visit. Thanks, all!