Twestival Home

Mark Lovett, also known as @GlobalPatriot web/twitter, yesterday saw a recent result of his inspirational deeds in the Music for Medicine concert series, where he inspired (@NkpgTwestival participant!) Anders Sporring (@cityrat59) and a dedicated team to set up http://concertsforchange.nu - with its first event yesterday, also together with 12for12k initiative. A concert supporting Doctors Without Borders. You can read more about the background here. And reports from the concert yesterday with a bambuser live stream here.

In one of the densities of the conversation and action related to and unifying initiatives like Twestival, Concerts for Change, 12for12k can be summarized “Social Media for Social Change”. A subject that engaged Mark Lovett to set up a suggestion for a panel for SxSW event next year, 2010. What he brought to this panel suggestion was some brilliant questions, that we radically and prompt import for our Café Hangout Sunday - as expressed by Mark in the suggested panel:

“We know that social media has wired the globe for friend lists, business connections, and supporting social causes, but can it do more? Can social media create a permanent shift in global consciousness, one that will change the way we all think and live?

1. Social media campaigns have benefited millions through charitable donations, but can these campaigns change how people think and act in the long term?
2. With the ease of promoting social causes across multiple social media platforms, how do we avoid inundating the public with requests and diluting the intended effect?
3. Is today’s implementation of social media sufficient to cause a shift in consciousness, or will broader adoption in the developing world be required first?
4. Are all social media platforms equally effective in causing change, or does one platform hold an advantage?
5. Are the various platforms battling for mindshare, or can they be synergistic and actually cause change to occur at a faster pace?
6. With so many great causes and people using social media for good, is it time to create a single body that everyone can work under to maximize awareness and create long-term change for charities and support?
7. Thoughtful arguments have been made that social media may actually be dehumanizing and lead to the “end of empathy”. Is that theory true, and if so, how can we avoid it?
8. We witnessed a change in consciousness due to the civil rights marches, how can social media replicate that effect?
9. Do certain types of causes – hunger, poverty, equal rights – benefit more than others from the use of social media?
10. What sort of new social media platform would be more effective is causing a change in consciousness throughout the world?

I always love the kind of questions that set your spirit on fire.

These are of that kind.

What’s your input?

Come on Sunday at 16.00!

Yesterday saw disclosing the Conversation Café, part one of our Twestival, with our three conversation starters and presenters Thomas Bjelkeman, Anna Lindberg and Thomas Selig, from 16 to 19.

Beyond the conversation, we get even more chilled out, and see a soundtrack of the conversation evolve through our two guest DJ’s A2R and Dunn. They are in the loop of establishing this year’s new club concept from NEMCOM (Norrköping Electronic Music Community), called “Klubb FLO” (Club FLO in English).

The Cultural Norrköping - grassroot and high end

Norrköping is a city filled with alot of “grassroot’s culture” initiatives, sometimes emerging to three day festivals representing the front-end of the multitude of expressions coming with the new tools and approaches in the digitalized society like New Media Meeting and whole cultural nights (“Kulturnatten”). At the less “grassroot” part, we also have a Symphony Orchestra, SON, and our own regional theatre Östgötateatern, the biggest county theatre in Sweden.

But in the grassroot part, we have club concepts and promotors like pop and rock Republik and hard rocking the Crash, bands and constellations like Sirqus Alfon, Slagsmålsklubben and Den Svenska Björnstammen, and record studios and labels like Grammofon. Further on, we have the arty film and media producers Sitcom Collective, the summer outdoor movie association and Fall film festival organizers Flimmer, the art association Kifin and the jazz/blues/folk music association Crescendo. Truly a vibrant and pluralistic cultural environment in Norrköping, to say the least.

NEMCOM - and an exclusive preview of the new club concept FLO

When choosing cultural event to include in our session, it only felt natural for us to cooperate with NEMCOM, since I am active in many dimensions in the cultural association (lastly a part of the DJ/Act/Artist lineup committee arranging electronic picnics “PomPom i Parken”, and DJing numerous times on the events, and now a part in arranging the new club concept).

We welcome the two driving musical forces behind the up-and-coming club concept Klubb FLO - Alex Wigforss and Jimmy Landby, and their blend of ambient-to-skanking dubstep, eventually moving over to the rougher and tougher creativity ride of drum’n'bass, jungle and UK garage. They go by the artist names

A2R and Dunn

Entering the booth at 19:00, they provide a joint set to make the further conversations soundtracked, where we move from a Conversation Café to the more loose mingle and breakup of the convo sessions flowing into a DJ Café with these guys on the deck! The format will be similar to “Sunday Dessert” taking place first and last Sundays, and arranged by NEMCOM. In that sense, this becomes a bonus “Sunday Dessert”, the Twestival Special Feature!

Find Dunn captured live from this summer playing a sweaty one hour dubstep set linked below, when PomPom was broadcasted on Bambuser.

This is an exclusive preview of the new NEMCOM club concept, disclosed soon is a première date and club venue for the real deal!

Dunn and A2R, from left to right - residents and main promotors for the new dubstep club Klubb FLO in Norrköping. Photo credentials: Christian 'Gandhi' Elmberg

Dunn Live from PomPom in the Park from July 18, 2009 - captured and broadcasted by Bambuser. His set starts at 2:15 into the five hour stream. Lineup for the whole day in “comments” section.

UPDATE (17:30 CEST, SEPT10): FLO Logos firstly published to The World!

Today, all speakers were (re)confirmed, and we also managed to converse what everyone would contribute to a conversation with some convergence and also a bit of divergence in the topics. Looking upon all the topics that were introduced separately, in real time (well almost, some 15 minutes delay to the max ;), tweet by tweet today, and with that also the shortest intro of a speaker possible - a Twitter handle - they seem to be complimentary and hold a promise of a very interesting exchange!

I present it here in an overview of the first part of the Twestival program, the Conversation Café, where I will blog each topic / speaker separately and in more detail over the coming days in the countdown towards Sunday! Tonight the Event Avatar was also finished, that also will get some Real Life treatment in the postering main street - “Västgötabacken” - with all the public event billboards number one. Expect some picshare when up, as well!

We begin the program with a presentation of the charity in focus; the co-founder of Akvo.org - Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson (@bjelekman), with one bias in sustainability, and one other in ICT and social media - and now unifies these strands of action into one through the water and sanitation innovation and project platform Akvo, with 101 (now, with us, 102!) partners making all the talk on the “global water issue” into walk. Akvo makes it easier to match-make field partners and funding sources, and supportive forces.

He brings this into his luggage, and asks us:

‘What is Akvo.org? + How do we make Akvo easier to dive in to?’

The second speaker - or rather conversation starter - for the day is Anna Lindberg, a very proactive journalist-walking-strongly-in-social-media-land (@annalindberg), formerly a TV host for regional talk-show Eftersnack and now a paper journalist (entertainment/culture) on “Corren”, the local newspaper in Linköping, Östgöta Correspondenten.

She asks us, on behalf of her employer:

‘On our way towards dialogue-oriented journalism: What can Corren.se do for you?’

Thomas Selig, the third speaker, is a strong social media Persona (@selig), who holds a one-liner, in his own mind dearly and proudly, attributed to him as something standing out in his “CV” - “one of the most hated bloggers in Sweden” (by TV4), due to his crusades towards the new-populist right and growing tendencies of racism in Sweden. He dedicates his professional routes to help not-for-profits and charities and other world improvement organizations with ICT (read: websites and blogs with a strong social media connection) and some legal assistance through the company Penseo, with a heart firmly set in Open Source and now also Social Media proficiency.

He brings us a wrapping up note collection on the power coming with the outreach and world change possibilities of the Social Web carried by the Internet, where the final conversation beyond this kicks off with his speak:

“Remote Groundswell: Think Global, Talk Global”

–

With that, we end the presentation of the “Conversation Café” part of our Twestival. In next blog posts to come, the “cultural” part of the event will be blogged: the DJ Café starting at 19.00, with our Guest DJs …T. B. A. - Tuesday! We will also feature the specific Akvo project we have chosen to support with our fund-raising - and why. Beyond that, a closer look at our speakers separately, before the week is over, and we all meet up on Sunday!

Donor’s Tickets are released Tuesday afternoon Wednesday - September 9, 9.09 (yes, 09.09.09 at 09.09) - the time is has been Tweeted!

Be sure to follow the blog evolvement the coming days, and see you on Sunday, 16.00, on Trädgårdsgatan 37 and Kulturhuset!

/Anders Abrahamsson, @sliceonline, moderator and Twestival Host