Bloody hell, it’s great to be back to normality after being away on a pain management course, being swamped in pitch-related madness, a couple of days off by the sea, and then back into more pitch madness.

Hence blog hiatus.

And overflowing inbox.

So lots of things I’d ordinarily have blogged about are a bit, well, old hat.

NESTA Innovation Edge

[photo courtesy of ]

Like seeing Tim Berners-Lee, Bob Geldof, Charles Leadbeater, Sam Pitroda and Gordon Brown (yes, that Gordon Brown) speak at the NESTA Innovation Edge Conference, as well as catching up with Neil, who’s already blogged the day.

Tim Berners-Lee was utterly awe-inspiring (the phrase “that’s why I invented the web” was a particular standout) and his discussion of his Web Science research initiative absolutely fascinating - the central point being that it’s not about technology in and of itself, it’s human behaviour enabled and facilitated by technology:

The web really has to be thought of not as a system of connections between computers, or even as links between web pages, but really as humanity connected.

[ See the rest of the session on Web Science at NESTA ]

The World’s First Internet Balloon Race

Or the World’s First Internet Balloon Race (as others have already observed).

Beautifully executed, it deftly brings the joy of the real-life balloon race into the digital space, encouraging participation by offering all manner of elegant widgets and applications to users - and best of all, engaging site owners as partners in the whole event.

It’s not just viral, social, web 2.0, or whatever other buzz words will no doubt be attached when describing it. It’s bloody genius. And utterly delightful.

Naked Anonymous

Or Untitled Anonymous, the recent anonymous art exhibition put on by Naked, featuring pieces submitted by employees from across the agency (including an exceptionally underwhelming entry from yours truly)

Conceived by the always-fabulous Kyle and Hass, it was a fantastic experiment and experience, and fantastic to see everyone from all different disciplines get involved. In their own words:

We wanted to see how well creativity would function when it has to speak for itself, stripped naked of everything but the expression – no title, no statement, no background.

So we briefed everyone who works at Naked London (the strategists, the creatives, the founding partners, even the cleaning lady) to create a piece of original art to be shown in an exclusive, one-night-only exhibition.

The twist was that every piece of art would be shown anonymously and without a title (this would all be revealed in a special online gallery the following week).

Phase two of the project has just gone live and the creators, titles, statements and inspirations have all been revealed.

You simply click on the work to discover the information.

So, just a few of the things I would have blogged, but, er, didn’t.

Normal service should now resume - back to your regularly scheduled programming…