Original post: http://matt.me63.com/2011/09/16/the-pace-of-change/

After you’ve watched it, why not read more about Murray and the Good Engines newspaper that I made to go with my talk, or relive some of the other Interesting North presentations.

It’s a tale of green sand and subterfuge, of how one of the biggest names of the industrial revolution tried to stop a competitor in his tracks…

… also the slides are on Slideshare …

… the original blogpost: How to get ahead in business the Boulton and Watt way…

… and some context: 1794: A Small Story.

You can see more five-minute videos from my fellow-presenters on the Bettakultcha blog, and book your place for Bettakultcha 2 on Tuesday 27 April.

I discovered that a pocket projector has many uses…

1. Buy groceries on the fridge

2. Turn your ceiling into a planetarium

3. Customise your t-shirt

4. Twitter-enable a teapot

5. Make a newspaper like in Harry Potter

It was fun making these. I think little projectors are going to be huge.

In “Television may be the gin of the information age, but that doesn’t mean the web is pure water” I questioned Clay’s contention that the web unlocks a cognitive surplus previously wasted on one-way television viewing.

In “Erm, excuse me, but I think Everybody was here all along” I challenged the title of Clay’s book: surely it was the media that was late to everybody’s party, rather than the other way round.

So when David Cushman on Faster Future gave his readers the chance to ask questions for a video interview of Clay I put in my twopenceworth (as with everything here, in a personal capacity that does not necessarily represent the opinions, strategies or positions of my employer):

I’d like to know why Clay chose the title “Here Comes Everybody”? I rather thought that everybody was here all along, in that communicating and self-organising have been characteristics of human society for thousands of years. Is technology really changing people’s behaviour, or simply making existing behaviour more visible in the online space?

Thanks to David for asking my question, and to Clay for answering it so eloquently. Here’s the video…

(and David’s accompanying blog post)

Do I buy the answer? I’m not sure, though I’m pleased to see Clay’s focus on people, not technology as the driving factor. ”I’m not a technical determinist…. it’s the novelty of scale, ” he says.

Make sure to watch right to the end for another gem. I love the idea that things can now happen globally on a much smaller scale than ever before, as well as at large scale in the mighty networked crowd.

Other episodes of David Cushman’s Clay Shirky interview here, here, here and here.

So I’m on the train home after a day in London and my phone beeps.

It’s a video message of Fabian riding his bike without stabilisers.

“I don’t know who I’m most proud of,” I tell Caroline later, “him for riding a bike or you for sending a video message.”

“Don’t patronise me,” says Caroline.

Dragon!

Originally uploaded by mattedgar.

Fabian and I had a lot of fun making these videos. With apologies to Aardman Animations…