The Waving Cat

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Speaking about responsible IoT & user rights

By Peter Bihr
In conference, digital rights
2 Min read
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Happy to announce that I’ll be speaking at not one, but two excellent conferences this fall about a topic I care deeply about: A responsible IoT and users’ rights. In other words, how we can make sure the Internet of Things works for everyone?

Das ist Netzpolitik!
On 1 September 2017 I’ll be speaking at Netzpolitik‘s annual conference Das ist Netzpolitik! (program), in German, about tensions inherent in the power dynamics of IoT as well as the regulatory environment: Das Internet der Dinge: Rechte, Regulierung und Spannungsfelder.

Underexposed
On 9 November 2017, also in Berlin, I’ll be at SimplySecure‘s conference Underexposed (program). My talk there is called The Internet of Sneaky Things. I’ll be exploring how IoT security, funding and business models, centralization and data mining, and some larger challenges around the language we use to consider the impact of data-driven systems combined all form a substantial challenge for all things related to IoT. But it’s not all bleak. There are measures we can—and through ThingsCon, we do—take.

I’m very much looking forward to both events, and to chatting with the other participants there. These are some great communities. If you’re there, please don’t be shy, so come and say hi!

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Some quick updates: ThingsCon, PETS, SolidCon, Highway1

By Peter Bihr
In biographies 2.0
1 Min read
S

you live the surprise results of old plans

 

Writing the weeknotes for KANT I just noticed a few things I haven’t mentioned here, so I’m just copy&pasting them in:

ThingsCon is making big, big strides, including an advisory board and a ton of freshly confirmed speakers. To follow the progress, keep an eye on Twitter and the blog!

This week I’m off to Amsterdam to talk about 3D printing at a big conference for the pets food and toys industry called PETS. I’m going to take Chris‘ new Mac presentation tool Deckset for a spin there, which I’ve been playing around with for a few days and which is great.

Brady Forrest, speaker and advisor at ThingsCon and co-founder of PCH’s hardware incubator Highway1 also made me a mentor for Highway1, which I’m excited about.

Speaking of being excited about hardware/software things, I just learned I’ll be speaking at Solid, O’Reilly’s new conference about the convergence of hardware and software. San Francisco in May it is!

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Corporate Lectures?

By Peter Bihr
In conference
1 Min read
C

Over the last few weeks I’ve been asked many times if I was willing to become a speaker agent. It’s a nice side effect of organizing and curating conferences, but the answer is quite simple: No, I’m not.

But.

But I’m willing to do one thing, mostly as a thank you to some of the fantastic people I got to work with over the last few years through running events.

So here’s the deal. If you are looking for a speaker for a corporate event or lecture, and you are ready to pay an appropriate corporate fee for that speaker’s time (and mine), then feel free to get in touch and I’ll see what I can do.

If I happen to know the perfect person, by which I mean I can vouch for them being awesome and I know them very well and I know they are a good fit for your topic, then I’ll try to arrange something.

No promises – I’m not a speakers agent and I don’t intend to be one. This is a matter of giving something back for the many times some of these friends have helped out on short notice with their talks.

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I have an agent.

By Peter Bihr
In work
1 Min read
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Yes, it sounds as bizarre to me as it does to you, but I have an agent now for speaking gigs. Tessa Sterkenburg of The Next Speaker is a tremendously experienced agent and was recommended warmly by my friend Edial. She will handle all commercial speaking engagements for me from now on.

Want me to speak in your company? Ping her, and we’ll sort it all out. Looking forward to it.

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Convention Camp 2010

By Peter Bihr
In barcamp, conference
1 Min read
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Convention Camp LogoMy partner in crime Igor Schwarzmann and I were invited to speak at Convention Camp in Hannover this year. We will be talking in the Smart Cities slot. The working title of our presentation: “Future of Cities: Change of Perspective”. More on that as soon as we have something to show. This should be a lot of fun. Convention Camp is organized by the good folks at T3N.

Also, if you’re interested in smart cities and technology, you might enjoy the Cognitive Cities blog where we collect interesting trends from this sphere.

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Weeknotes #188

By Peter Bihr
In huh?
3 Min read
W

Das Fest 2007: Skateboard-Miniatur

It’s Tuesday and that means: it’s late weeknotes time!

Bioplastics, wallet, vinegar

Jay showed us how to make our own bioplastic wallets. Now I have one too, and apart from my own bad stitching I like it a lot. If only it didn’t smell so strongly of vinegar… but I did realized that I really like the very compact form factor. Forces me to cut down on stuff in my wallet, and that’s a good thing. Make sure to check out all the different workshops offered at Open Design City. (You can ask for different workshops, too!)

Collaboratory

We’ve had the first event of the Google-initiated Collaboratory “Internet & Society” with politicians to discuss the initial results of a survey we conducted. Quite an impressive and stimulating event actually: After an initial presentation of survey results by Google and the research team, the topic cluster “godparents” gave some insights into the wide range of answers we got. (All topic clusters hat one or two members of the expert groups as so-called godparents to split up the work. Yours truly was responsible for Anonymity On The Web.) Then we all split up into group discussions for an hour and had some in-depth discussions. Good stuff. We’ll be chewing the results to write up a final report.

Geek dinner

I was told one is random, two’s a trend, three’s a tradition. Or something. So I won’t hesitate calling our geek dinners at Kimchi Princess a tradition now. Lovely, inspiring dinner with Michelle, Igor, Johannes, Caroline, Matt, Ronen, Jan, Boris and plenty others. Nothing beats inspiring conversations with great folks over yummy dinner and cold drinks.

More speaking

Seems like there’ll be a number of speaking gigs coming up, both at smaller conferences and in-house client workshops. Also seems like this always comes in waves. One day I’m sure I’ll discover a pattern there so I’ll be able to line up a more coherent travel plan.

Android

I’ve been trying to root my HTC Hero to update to at least Android 2.1 (or even Android 2.2?) without much success so far. (No damage either!) Hints are very welcome!

Question

If you had to describe weeknotes in one word, which would it be: a) annoying b) useful c) don’t matter ? Feel free to let me know in the comments or any other channel. Turns out it takes more discipline than expected, and there’s only so many things I can write about at any given time while others I cannot discuss for awhile. So I’m not sure if I should keep sending them out or if you’d prefer not having them in this place. Thanks for your feedback!

Image: Das Fest 2007: Skateboard-Miniatur, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from leralle’s photostream

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Call to action: Help me with a panel on European Social Media (by Friday)

By Peter Bihr
In conference
2 Min read
C

I need your help. A few hours ago I was contacted by Robin Grant of UK-based social media agency We Are Social, who told me he could not make it to his own talk at SXSW this Saturday, and could I step in. Speaking at SXSW seems like a pretty big thing to me (hey, it’s SXSW!), so I was hesitant at first, but of course curiosity won in the end. So I’ll be filling in for Robin at this talk:

Lost In Translation: The Nuances Of European Social Media ( Saturday, March 13 at 12:30 PM).

The original announcement:

Europe is ahead of the US in terms of the consumer usage of social media, and yet little attention is often given to the nuances of what is on one hand is the world’s largest economy and on the other a collection of 48 countries with very different cultures. Find out why the blogging scene in Paris is 2 years ahead of the US, the Brits are all a Twitter, the Dutch prefer Hyves to Facebook and the Germans will take any chance to give brands a hostile reception in social media.

For obvious reasons I have no time to really prepare anything, but I’d love to take your collective knowledge about European Social Media into the conversation. Now here’s what I’m asking you: send me your inspiring examples, stats, ideas and thoughts on the topic. Whatever you see fit, let me know about it, and I’ll try to work it in. Help a fellow geek out!

Best way to get in touch about this is via email (peter@thewavingcat.com) or Twitter (@thewavingcat). Thanks, thanks and thanks!

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The Waving Cat