Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Mary McKenna's posterous

ramblings of a constant roamer

Filed under: Belfast

Conversation isn't dead after all...

Lyra_with_fifteen

Dave Briggs & I were in Belfast last Wednesday.  We had a few meetings planned but a couple of hours downtime in the middle of the day.  I decided to place an open invite on Twitter & the Digital Circle Ning site for people to come along & join us in a “conversation” between 12 & 2pm.  It sounds a bit vain but I thought it would be a good way for Dave to meet some people in Belfast in an informal way that wasn’t either at a conference, at a formal meeting or in the pub in the evening.  Learning Pool is based in Northern Ireland but Dave works from home in the East Midlands of England so I also thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce him to a few people that I know.  We weren’t sure whether anyone would show up.  I’d pitched it a bit like a mini-Tuttle club (anyone can go along to the regular Friday morning Tuttle club in London’s Centre for Creative Collaboration run by the rather fabulous Lloyd Davis & Brian Condon (more info about Lloyd & what he does in one of my very early blogs) – so there was no agenda and no formal topics (although we’d floated social media, public sector and anything you want to know about starting up in business – as I guess those are our specialisms).

We held our “event” in the rather grand Linen Hall Library in the centre of Belfast – it seemed a fitting venue for a Conversation & there’s was a cafe so we avoided any library “shushing”.

It ended up being rather good fun & some people did indeed swing by – a mix of small business owners, tech entrepreneurs and consultants – and conversation flowed for the entire two hours.  There’s Newsrupt’s Lyra McKee pictured above and as you can see, the fifteens in the Linen Hall cafe are pretty impressive too.

Colin Mitchell & I (he’s @pixelpage on Twitter) had some banter later on via Twitter & concluded this would be an ideal way to introduce a visitor to your town or city to a few interesting people.  Dave said he’d come away with an impression that Belfast was very friendly and had a lively start-up community.  As always, interested in your views.

Purple Haze...

Jimi_hendrix

Living in Northern Ireland, from time to time I come across someone that was at the legendary Jimi Hendrix gig in Belfast - and they always have a story to tell.  That night, 27 November 1967, was Jimi’s 25th birthday and the word on the street goes that a pretty girl from Bangor was selected by Jimi’s people to be his “companion” after the show.

Like most people, I don’t know a great deal about Jimi Hendrix beyond what everyone knows - Purple Haze & Voodoo Chile (popular tracks on the White Swan jukebox in Doncaster when I was at school), the fact that he died young and in London, that he was left-handed and that he played a famous gig at Woodstock.

A couple of years back when I was passing through Seattle, I visited the Music Hall of Fame – housed within a remarkable building created by the fabulous Frank Gehry.  If truth be known, my real motive in going there was to inspect the vast collection of sci-fi memorabilia collected by “rich as Croesus” Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen.  Impressive it was too - even including Captain Kirk’s Star Trek chair.  But despite my science fiction interest, by far the most enjoyable hour I spent there was wandering through a collection of Jimi Hendrix articles – especially the postcards he sent to his father when he was in the army, his flamboyant 1960s clothes & psychedelic stage outfits displayed in glass cabinets, his famous guitars and most moving of all, the lyrics of some of his most famous songs scribbled on the reverse of restaurant menus or on hotel stationery.

Writing this today has got me thinking about the legacy that each of us leaves behind – what will yours be?

 

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