October is coming to a close, and this pretty much means a massive end-of-year sprint as I’ll be off for a vacation in a couple of weeks, so lots of things should be out of the door by then.
### In self-directed stuff…
Our release of **Dearsouvenir** has been delayed a bit on the last mile. On the plus side, the magazine looks amazing and comes in at a whopping 264 pages, times two languages. Also, with [Will’s](http://willperkins.com) massive (and patient!) support we just submitted a complementary app to the iOS app store that’ll help you actually find all the souvenirs while on the go.
To the left, you see a screenshot of the list view of the cities featured in both the first issue of the magazine as well as in v1.0 of the app.
I’m super excited.
**[Understanding the Connected Home](http://theconnectedhome.org/)**, the ebook with thoughts on living in tomorrow’s connected home that I co-wrote (and in fact am still co-writing as it continues to expand) with [Michelle](http://twitter.com/thornet) has been triggering all kinds of interesting conversations. Can’t wait to dig in further.
Over at **[Interaction16](http://interaction16.ixda.org)** we’re about to announce another brilliant keynote and some other exciting news. It’s been such a pleasure to be working with this group, and I couldn’t be happier that this project has another 5 months or so to go.
### In client work…
Very happy to have kicked off a half-year project together with [Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (Designswarm)](http://designswarm.com) (always a pleasure!) for [Bosch Software Innovations](http://bosch-si.com/). It’s all about building stronger bridges between the #iot and developer community and the whole thing will culminate in a conference in March 16. Keep an eye on the Bosch SI website and [@boschSI](https://twitter.com/boschsi) for updates starting next week.
Working with current office mates [Syspons](http://syspons.com), I’ll be spending some time looking into German international development and cooperation funding and innovation networks in East Africa for a German ministry. Very excited about this one.
### In miscellaneous…
Not at all work-related, but we prototyped a first installment of [A la Card](https://www.flickr.com/photos/thewavingcat/22383227599), a new fun salon-style event format where we pair dinner courses with games. Our first menu:
– Lavosh & triple-letter-score dips roast Z10ucchini rolls
– Settler squash with chili & cilantro sauce, lentil walnut salad, Catan sheep cheese & hand-made Swabian lye rolls
– Pistachio & rica baklava with raki straight from Istanbul
Thanks to Alper, Clare and Matt to help prototyping, and to Ben & Cam for the inspiration.
### Shout outs
Cisco kindly invited me to join the grand opening of [openBerlin](http://www.cisco.com/web/DE/innovationcenter/berlin/index.html), their IoT Lab in Berlin. It looks like it’s a serious, large-scale effort and the new campus is here to stay. It’s good to see this kind of commitment to the development of IoT in Berlin. Welcome!
### Coming up
In November, I’ll be headed to London **[Mozfest](http://2015.mozillafestival.org)** to talk connected home as part of the [Global Village](https://2015.mozillafestival.org/sessions), a connected home track that Ian Forrester of BBC R&D and Jon Rogers of University Dundee curate, and will be hosting some shennanigans around connected homes – especially the kitchen – with Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino. We call it [Kitchen @ HomeLab](http://www.iotmanifesto.com/) and might just launch something new there and then. (Tease, tease!)
First-hour supporters of ThingsCon Marcel Schouwenaar and Harm van Beek of [The Incredible Machine](http://the-incredible-machine.com/) will join to run workshops on IoT, ethics and the [IoT Manifesto](http://www.iotmanifesto.com/). Should be good fun!
**[ThingsCon Amsterdam](http://thingscon.nl)** will be taking place in December, once more curated by the lovely Amsterdam crew around Iskander, Monique, Marcel and their teams. Alas I won’t be able to attend (because vacation), but the line-up is shaping up to be fantastic. Just last night I remotely joined the advisory board dinner meeting and I can’t recommend this highly enough.
