Time to promote the best conference this side of the … well it’s fully online and distributed so that geographical metaphor would crash and burn in the Mississippi. In fact, this is a region-free conference, just like all media should be. [I knew I’d find my conceit eventually 🙂 ]
Re-wilding the Network, Making New Connections
From November 4 through the 6th Reclaim Hosting will be putting on its 5th bi-annual conference, which makes for 10 years of Reclaim conferencing if you’re following the math. The theme this time around is “Rewilding the Network,” inviting folks to think about how we imagine a web beyond the mega-platforms that have sucked much of the fun out of our online networks. We’ve already gotten some really awesome submissions, and with less than two weeks to get your submission in, I’m hoping some of you brave souls that still read the bava might submit and join us for what promises to be three days of old school fun.
Hell, I even read a blog post suggesting that the great Todd Conaway might submit a session about his adventures in the ever-becoming world of VR. It might even prove true that he plays mini-golf in virtual space with Gardner Campbell on the regular!
Anyway, I’m not just the President of Reclaim Hosting, I am also a client. So I’m looking forward to a few sessions of my own. In fact, Andy Rush already submitted his talk on thinking through what a federated media empire might look like, and our shared interest in PeerTube was enough for him to let me ride is presentation coattails.
I’m also planning on presenting with Michael Branson Smith about how our Family Pictures Podcast has emerged over the last nine months to be a weekly lovefest. This will be a live podcast session that will not only dig into the technical bits of how we manage the labor of a podcast, but also wax poetic about how the process is everything. More than the likes and subscribes, doing this ongoing project has been about building a real, authentic conversation around and with the things we love, i.e. movies. It’s all about the personal relationships, which is probably a good way to promote Reclaim Open.
Ai Maddeness Logo Created by Tom Woodward using AI. I love it so!
Finally, I’m hoping Tom Woodward will join me for a session to explore the AI Maddeness project, which will be getting off the ground this coming weekend. This is something I’ve been slowly building off the side of my desk with Tom, and the short story is it’s an attempt to build an AI-driven sports media empire around a season of Madden 2001. I understand there’s a lot to unpack in that statement, but suffice to say I’ve become obsessed with the idea of resurrecting a 25 year old video game to explore AI. What’s more, Tom is absolutely the guy you want on-board when you are trying to realize a non-sensical and arguably absurd idea. No one groks the absurd and meaningless as deeply as Tom, and that is why he is so damn awesome.
Anyway, all this to say I’m starting to get really excited about Reclaim Open, and I’m hoping you find the time and energy to come along for the trip.
It’s going to be a lot of fun. We are hoping that some guy called Jim might join us in our blogging adventure. Hopefully someone will know how to contact him. We heard he had a blog …
Worker bees are slowly building said Empire. Reinforcing coattails if others want to jump on!