Enthusiastic Amateurs and Overcoming Institutional Inertia

I was very pleased but also slightly embarrassed when Dave Pattern invited me to speak at the Mashed Library UK 2009 event (also known as ‘Mash Oop North‘). Pleased because this event, which is building on the success of the  first event which took place at Birkbeck College in November 2008, reflects the interests I have in this area and will provide an opportunity to learn from some of the people (such as Tony Hirst, Mike Ellis and Dave Pattern) who are actively engaged in significant development activities. But embarrassed because I’ve been asked to speak to an audience who would, I suspect, prefer to listen to and talk to the gurus of mashup developments!

Dave convinced me, however, that as there appear to be a significant number of participants at the event who don’t regard themselves as mainstream developers, but rather as ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ that there is a role to play in exploring how the learning which will take place at the event can be exploited.

So I will be giving a talk and inviting discussion on the topic of “Enthusiastic Amateurs and Overcoming Institutional Inertia“.  This session will take place on Tuesday 7 July 2009. My slides are embedded below (and are also available on Slideshare). If you have any thoughts on this subject, especially if you regard yourself as an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ yourself I’d welcome your comments. Of you may wish to participate in the Twitter back channel, using the hastag “#mashlib09”.