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Hi all – my friend Isabel Dewhurst-Marks , Conference Director at UNWIRED, has asked me to spread the word about WORKTECH12 which is taking place in New York on 15th/16th May….only 2 weeks time! It is being held at the wonderful TIME and LIFE building. If you can get a day or two out of the office, this is the place to be, for sure. I’m going to tell you why, below….
On the 15th (0900-12.30) there are several Masterclasses. The main Conference is on the following day, 16th May.
There are no less than 26 speakers at the Conference, many of whom are global workplace industry ‘names’, including the CEO of Cordless Group (owners of UNWIRED), Philip Ross , author and workplace strategist Cindy Froggatt , and one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Facility Planning & Management, Professor Frank Becker.
But what sets WORKTECH aside from many other events is the array of ‘non-workplace’ interesting people that Philip, Isabel and the UNWIRED team are able to amass in one place at one time!
At WORKTECH’12 this month, you will have the opportunity to hear first-hand from some of the most interesting writers of recent years, as follows:
Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other
Sherry Turkle will talk about her book Alone Together , the result of MIT technology and society specialist Turkle’s nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on interviews with hundreds of children and adults, it describes new, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude.
This is a real insight into a real world problem, that all of us have experienced in some way. With more people working (and being managed) remotely, working in global teams, it is easy to forget what I have called an analogue life – what you need as a human, which is not online.
The WORKTECH12 programme says this:
Technology proposes itself an architect of our intimacies. These days, technology offers us substitutes for direct face-to-face connection with people in a world of machine-mediated relationships on networked devices. As we instant message, e-mail, text, and Twitter, technology redraws the boundaries between intimacy and solitude.
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Science Fiction and the Future of Work
Brian David Johnson , Chief Futurist at Intel, is the author of Screen Future, described as:
a technical book about people, technology, and the economics that are shaping the evolution of entertainment. Blending social and computer sciences, the book provides a vision for what happens after convergence and what we need to do to get there
You can read more about Intel’s work and SCREEN FUTURE at this link
This is what WORKTECH12 says in introduction to Brian’s talk:
The future is not set; it is not a fixed destination in time.
The future is manufactured every day by the actions of people all over the world. As a futurist, Brian David Johnson believes it is incredibly important that we all become active participants in the future. We must ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live and work in. Where do we want to go? What should we avoid? What scares us?
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We have not even reached lunchbreak yet, in the description that I have tried to outline above!!
I am going to try my very best to get across to New York for this event, even if its a quick fly in/fly out trip….rarely do you get the chance to be amongst such a great group of workplace thinkers.
I hope you can also attend. Feel free to contact Isabel: Isabel.marks@unwired.eu.com , or +4420 8977 8920
regards, Paul
paul.carder@occupiersjournal.com / @occupiers
http://LIFEisNOTdigital.org 