I was invited to keynote at the IADIS multi conference in the really tough summer environment that is Carvoeiro (a quaint Portugese coastal town & limestone cliff’d seascape on the Algarve). The conference (at the Tivoli Hotel image below) has many strands overlapping probably due to over 1300 submitted papers looking at a massive range of topics. I have linked to each of the main strands below that were excellently edited by Prof. Katherine Blashki, Prof. Pedro Isaías & others. Most of the papers are typically academic (meaning theoretical or retrospective), but a few gems some were ‘zeitgeist practical/industrial’ and some needed a good deal of focus, kick-up the proverbial.

TiVoli Portugal

I was lead keynoting for a few strands, namely Telecommunications, Networks and Systems 2009, Informatics 2009 and the main conference Game and Entertainment Technologies 2009. It was a tall order to bridge these areas so I tried to encapsulate a few of my own current practical strands as well as ‘thinks’ at how play is truly everywhere, already escaped the bounds of the screen but the real focus was about the many new forms being created organically inside social media networks. (This slideshare is annotated – albeit in a slightly jetlagged haze and so only scrape the surface of the key messages!). The talk was well received and nice to see terms like ‘transocialmedia’ being used in discussion in later sessions. Also interesting to see a Strategy Analytics report using the term ‘Social Virtual Worlds’ I coined a couple of years ago in a report linked here and in my presentation below.

Laurel Papworth is keynoting at the moment of writing and there is more info on her blog here. She will be putting up her slideshare too shortly and will add a link.

Below a small sample of 5 images on my new workhorse photo machine (the Canon 5D MkII & trusty 15mm lens!)  from a Portugal set of 200+ on my flickr account here

Carvoeiro, Algarve, Portugal 46

Carvoeiro, Algarve, Portugal 123

Alte Town and Algarve Dancers 44

Carvoeiro, Algarve, Portugal 69

Carvoeiro, Algarve, Portugal 67