We Are Team Rubber

On Friday afternoon I headed down to Bristol eOffice to the first Bristol Knowledge Unconference.

I’d never been to an “unconference” before, and found the format quite unusual, essentially a fifteen minute talk, followed by small group discussions at your tables before asking the speaker questions.

“The Fragmentation of Knowledge in the Brain” - Derek Smith

The other unusual feature of the conference was that until we turned up we had no idea what most of the talks were going to be about.

The talks were great, ranging from the BBC News website, to the Open Shakespeare project. The two I probably found the most interesting though were the talk by Derek Smith of the University of Wales Institute Cardiff on the way in which the brain stores semantic knowledge and relates that to syntax, and the “on-the-day” Steve Loughran of HP Labs who’s working on Hadoop (readers may remember the high resolution buhddabrot that I posted a few months ago, which I rendered on a hadoop cluster). It was great to be able to ask some questions about Hadoop, especially since I had to miss the Hadoop conference in London a few weeks ago.

Steve Loughran Shows how he’s using Hadoop over anonamous bluetooth logs to show the council how many people regularly use local footpaths.

The Bristol region is ranked in the top five in Europe for high tech and research businesses. (Wikipedia)

Nice piece about Bristol on TechCrunch UK: Silicon Avon - startups doing it ‘Bristol fashion’

Bristol Open Coffee ran again this week, with a nice number of people for free-ranging conversation. Things we kicked around included:

• eBay -> will it be there in ten years? What about vertical auction sites? Is everyone just using Amazon?
• Mobile applications -> how to get the location data at low cost.
• Vouchers -> Why does Orange Wednesdays work, and why do other mobile voucher schemes seem like too much hassle? Orange invested significantly in their scheme; they made redemption easy for retailers and customers; they supported it with well-funded advertising (we pitched on some).
• Twitter and viral voucher or referral schemes.

Next Bristol Open Coffee: September 9th 2008. Thanks to Starbucks, Park Street for hosting.

As we all count the days until the ribbon is cut on Cabot Circus, Harvey Nicols have unveiled an adorable series of print ads featuring the Aardman creations dressed in designer attire from the department store.

Though it won’t convince me to splash out on an Alexander McQueen dress or Christian Louboutin shoes as modelled by Lady Tottington, having the well-loved Bristolian duo Wallace & Gromit front the campaign for the upmarket chain is definitely going to prove popular with consumers and their children.

I’ve always been a big fan of human powered transport but I’ve recently switched my allegiances from my trusty skateboard to a shiny bike. I always used to think the skateboard ruled all as I carved down hills and smugly strolled up steep hills saving embarrassing sweaty arrivals at work and pubs.

Then I tried a mate’s bike and realised that:

1. I can get everywhere so much quicker (rain or shine) on a bike;
2. Bristol is great for cycling
3. you can get the Government to pay for some of your new bike.

Point 1 is clearly obvious as there are many restrictions on skateboarding, and walking is just slow and boring.

Point 2 is more currently relevant.  Bristol was voted the first cycling city in the UK recently by the all-knowing government, giving us some money to spend on making cycling better around the city and some essential feel good points.

But what can £100m buy you in the drive to improve cycling in a whole city?  Well maybe one of these cycle lifts would encourage some people to cycle, but they would probably stop soon after the lift or their bike broke down.  Instead, Bristol have asked the public what they think we should do.  A novel and inspired idea I feel and it looks like the growing consensus is “more cycle lanes” for all; another few debates there I think.

If anyone feels inspired to get a bike then point 3 is almost certainly relevant.  Already, three members of the Team Rubber family have used and (lawfully) abused the cyclescheme offering that the government has allowed.  It’s brilliant, you get a beautiful bike plus accessories at about 40% cheaper than in the shop, and you can pay it off monthly.  Just don’t fall off….

Got sent some links through from our arch-nemeses ‘Bristol Sifty’ with some pics of them on Flickr competing in the Bristol Media football tournament.

So I went in search on the Bristol Media Flickr pool of photos for some of our warriors.  Fortunately there were no professionally taken team photos for Kirk to ruin, but there were some others:

We posed.

We played.

We got supported.

…and we didn’t get through.  It was a big sack of fun though.

Nick Sturge at Set Squared passed on this interesting blog post from David Manners about high-tech business in Bristol.

Going down to Bristol these days is to get a taste of what it must have been like to live in 19th century England when the railways were being built.

There’s a proliferation of new companies. Everyone in the West Country is talking about so-and-so’s new start-up, or what so-and-so might be planning for his next start-up.

That fits with my experience, and we’ve found Bristol’s a great place to build things like The Viral Ad Network. There are creative, inventive, hard-working people here, strong networks (iShed, Open Coffee, Bristol Media), and nice places to meet. It’s good to be part of something.

Charlie Cooper, a member of our multi-talented seeding squad also happens to be the UK Female Number 1 Rubiks Cube Solver extraordinaire.

Team Rubber Has Got Talent!

We employed a phone as a stopwatch to fend off speeding up/doctoring accusations!

Watch this and other quality video genius on our Rubber Republic Viral YouTube Channel

Following a lengthly stroll to Team Rubber Towers this morning - pondering why I didn’t have some sort of hairdryer to ride to work (to preserve both leg effort and precious breakfast minutes) - I finally arrived at our front door ready to embark on a new day of web embellishment.

Much to my own bemusement, upon entering the building, I was ushered straight back out by an orgy of joyous faces and skipping new media types. Before I could consider the reason for this commotion, my unborn question’s answer had already been hatched…

Before me stood a truck, with what could only be described the result of a sordid entanglement between a Moped, a Tonka truck and a rollerskate strapped to its back…The day had finally come, Mr Andy Parkhouse’s Tuk Tuk had arrived! (Want more info on the Tuk Tuk? read this article!)

Amazingly, the delivery man lifted the truck straight off the ramp and onto the street!

I prefer to call it Roller-Ped. So do you probably…

Andy took the beast for a ride almost immediately, and shot around the streets of Bristol like an action figure in a rollerskate. Sadly, the Tuk Tuk suffered from some technical issues on Tyndalls Park Road. Luckily however, Matt was on hand with his bicycle repair kit and the know-how to get Roller-Ped back on her three feet.

Check the picture for proof…Roller-Ped pulled a wheelie on Lower Park row, achieving some ’sick air’. In 50 years time, a little blue placard will hang on this street, announcing the spot of Roller-Ped’s first voyage/wheelie on British concrete.

Long live Roller-Ped.

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Update by Andy

Ian, I’ve told you, *it’s a truck* not a tuk-tuk

@ Ric Hurst: the truck is a 400cc diesel Bajaj Hidec, from Sanjay at Tuk Tuk UK. It’s the only one in the country as far as I know. Cost was getting on for £4k including VAT & Delivery.

Insurance is about £250 from Adrian Flux, but would be more if I put a logo on the truck or commute in it. I don’t know the MPG, but it cost me £5.63 to fill up the tank. Four speeds and reverse, turns on a speck of a dust, top speed seems to be around 40mph.