The main theme this year Connect with your world is well mirrored in the schedule and you find sessions on PHP, SQL and ESS but, again, Filemaker Go is the talk of the day. With Filemaker Go on an iPhone or iPad you can reach your Filemaker solutions from any place but the office. That makes sense. I bought an iPad and I am impressed. It’s way better than I expected it to be. In Sweden you have to wait until fall to get a piece but when it comes it will be a big hit. I am Sure!

I attended a very scary session called File Maintenance and recovery: tools and Best Practices. The speaker was Alexei Folger and she was awesome. Really bad stuff can happen with files but there are some good techniques and strategies to prevent a disaster. But it was a bit creapy to here in a theatrical voice ”…and then you are in big trouble!”

Devcon is an International conference with developers from different parts of the world but the typical attendee is American, actually. At least you can say it’s an Anglo Saxon world. I have seen or talked to people from Britain, Australia and New Zeaand but not from the Latin world or Asia. There is a lot of attendees from Japan.

Its´s striking how big Filemaker is in the US. I learnt that Filemaker is used in schools, universities, really big coorporations and in govermental offices. On a high percentage.

Tonight we enjoyed a dinner at the USS Midway in the San Diego Harbor. The ship was on duty as late as in the Dessert Storm. Dinner was served on the actual flight deck and during the Californian sunset we listening to live music zipping a drink or could hear docents telling stories how it was once up on the time… One of the best moments so far.

This morning I finally got my suitcase from the airport. It was lost in Frankfurt during the stop over and I had to buy new clothes every day while waiting for the trunk to arrive to my hotel. The downtown hotel, by the way, is something extra. Its very old with an interior like those in a horror movie but with a very helpful staff.

To morrow is my last day in San Diego!

Written by Christian Stensöta

Christian Stensöta is a colleague at Nätverkstan in charge of database and Filemaker solutions for the cultural and civil society field. He is visiting the Filemaker Development Conference 2010 in San Diego, USA, August 15-18.

Devcon:
http://www.filemaker.com/developers/devcon/

Filemaker Go:
http://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-go/for-ipad/

Horton Grand Hotel:
http://www.hortongrand.com/

On four giant screens we could see the a thin and charismatic man given us the facts: the numbers are great, the future is bright. A big Wheel in the Sky. The speaker was the president of Filemaker Corporation Dominique Goupilon in his keynote speech. A fairly short but intense opening speech was followed by appearances of the company´s engineers. One after the other they went on stage to describe new features and the crowd was ecstatic!

Chief engineer Andrew LeCates made some entertaining presentation of FilemakerGo, a new and promising product on the IOS platform. Filemaker on iPhone and iPad. This is the most interesting aspect of Filemaker for the moment and I am going to attend every session on that topic during the conference.

The opening session was over and time to party. Live music, food and drinks and lot of networking. Tomorrow agenda is packed with sessions from 8 in the morning until 10 in the evening and I can hardly wait…

Written by Christian Stensöta

Christian Stensöta is a colleague at Nätverkstan in charge of database and Filemaker solutions for the cultural and civil society field. He is visiting the Filemaker Development Conference 2010 in San Diego, USA, August 15-18.

Have a look at: http://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-go/for-ipad/

He himself prefers to resemble himself with a lawyer in public service: one who publishes documents and let citizens themselves consider the content.

The interest of Assange and Wikileaks is huge, not least thanks to the sensational revelations of 90.000 documents around the war in Afghanistan. It is a paradox that a lot is mysterious both around Assange’s person and Wikileaks. Assange states that the organization only has five full-time and around 20-40 project-based employees. In addition around ten– perhaps hundred thousands people work voluntarily for the organization.

Undoubtedly Wikileaks represent a new phase, not only in the history of journalism but also in actual public life. The question is how long the operation can go on in protection of (not least Swedish) Principles of Public Access? There is no doubt many states as well as security and intelligence agencies which would like to see Wikileaks close down. Will established media jealously guard their information monopoly and submit to mudslinging Wikileaks, or will they let themselves get inspired and cooperate? What position will citizens, civil society and their organizations take?

Wikileaks raises a lot of exciting and fundamental questions. We hope to be able to discuss these with Julian Assange in a big seminar coming up in Göteborg shortly.

So keep eyes open!

Written by Mikael Löfgren

Mikael Löfgren is journalist and cultural critic, and also colleague at Nätverkstan. Translation from Swedish by Lotta Lekvall. Read former posts on digitization, public sphere and IPR here,  here and here.

Using art in city development raises questions of the role of the artist. What is your role as an artist? Can the result of a social process be called art? Jeanne Van Heeswijk, one of the artists in the project, was matched to work with Stavanger Hospital. They did a TV-soap, directed and performed by the staff at the hospital. The artist’s role was mainly to role the wheel chairs, taking care of ad hoc practical matters.

Nicholas Bourriaud puts forward in his essay Ustabile Forbindelser (Unstable Relations) in the book describing the Stavanger projects, a change in this relational and social art. A change that was set to the specific date 9/11. After the attack on the twin towers, he reasons that the art went from relational to more radical.

Within the EU, the discussions are going warm on how to make cities and regions more creative. In the Green Paper on the potential of the cultural and creative industries put forward this spring, ideas and incentives are put forward on how to do. One suggestion is: Read this book.

“Nabologashemmeligheter. Kunsten som byprosess ” (forlagetpress.no), edited by Jan Inge Reilstad. Look into Koro, Public Art in Norway. And for more ideas on city development and art look here.

The European network Encatc has, together with Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths University of London and Nätverkstan in Göteborg, prepared a response. Download it here:encatc-response-to-eu-green-paper .

Read this former post from the European Forum of Cultural Industries in Barcelona on March 29-30 2010.

He was only a young boy during the war, aware of the crises, but not closely affected by it. Although everyone knows someone who was hurt or killed, he tells me, as we drive up the coast along the beautiful scenery of the Adriatic Sea towards Krka National Park. We want to see the waterfalls and the nature in the park that we heard so much about. But it’s inevitable to think about the war driving this way.

Krka is very close to the city of Knin, during the war a Serbian area and part of the (internationally) unrecognised Kingdom of Serbian Krajina, and also held by it’s own Serbian leaders Babic´and Martic´, both sentenced for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. On August 5, 1995, Croatian troops took over the area in forms described as pure massacre and ethnic cleansing of the area. This was only one of several such stories, horrors committed by all parties in this very cruel war. Trying to understand the conflict is difficult. One question is pondering the head, as we drive along peaceful and summer warm roads, and after reading pages after pages of what happened: How is it possible that we only fifteen to twenty years ago had such a horrific war in Europe – how could it happen?

Croatian journalist Slavenca Drakulic´wrote the Balkan Express during the war. It’s a set of small personal essays and reflections of what it does to you as a human being, to your senses in the every day life of a war. How it affects you and changes you in ways you could never foresee or understand.

But now it’s different, Darijan Markotic tells me optimistically. Tourism is the future of Croatia, with a coastline starting from Dubrovnik in the south all the way to the region of Istra and the boarders of Slovenia in north, with small villages, tourist places, boat-life and swimming in the clear waters of the Adriatic Sea. He started his business some years ago and it goes slow, he thinks. Bureaucracy around starting a business is time-consuming, it’s heavy with the investments in the beginning, and then of course – the customers have to find you. The tourists have to come.

The book Lonely Planet Croatia states that around twenty percent of GDP comes from tourism. Tourism has changed Croatia, people tell me. Before the rich people lived behind the hills, away from the coastline, which during centuries have been taken over by different conquerors and settlers. Only the poor lived by the Sea. Now it’s the other way around. Rich people by the sea, poorer in the olive-tree covered landscape behind the hills. It is by the beautiful coast the hopes for a prosperous future lies.

Read more posts on tourism here.

Workshops are combined with lectures and examples of artists finding their way to live on what they do. One of the latter is the amazing guitar duo Gothenburg Combo. David Hansson and Thomas Hansy met during at the Academy of Music and Drama in Göteborg where they studied classical music, started up a band and is now touring the world playing acoustic guitar – one of the hardest instruments to try to make a career of, we are told.

They started during the education by setting up scheduled jams every Friday. No excuses were allowed to skip these sessions. No matter how you felt, if a nail was broken (they use their nails when playing), family reasons or whatsoever were reasons enough to cancel a session. You showed up and delivered something. The thought was simple: In working life you have to deliver. This was a good schooling into what that means.

They say that there is no miracle formula to reach success. It’s about delivering the best you can at every session. To work hard. Traditional marketing has not worked, they found, it’s difficult to plan and do a market strategy. Instead other things has shown important, such as networking and always work on reaching high artistic quality. A collection of many small steps in a mixture has been a way to work and, it showed a way to success. A mixture of sending material to possible partners and concert arrangers and playing at large and small concerts around the world. One example of how they work is on the tours around the world where their motto is to always come prepared, so they do not, like many other artists, have sit and practice in the hotel room into the last minute before the concert. They use the time to network, meet possible new contacts, jam with other artists for inspiration or just connecting with other musicians.

“It’s all or nothing.”

“We have created an urge for our music.”

The Summer Academy “The Art of living on Art” is a ten week university course for professionals within the artistic professions. Read more here.

Cultural Innovation / Arvin Lodayan at HDK 1 from The Karnataka/WestSweden project on Vimeo.

Cultural Innovation / Arvin Lodayan at HDK 2 from The Karnataka/WestSweden project on Vimeo.

Cultural Innovation / Arvin Lodayan at HDK 3 from The Karnataka/WestSweden project on Vimeo.

Cultural Innovation / Arvin Lodayan at HDK 4 from The Karnataka/WestSweden project on Vimeo.

Göteborg is at the moment full of researchers, thinkers, professors and artists from all the world. Everyday an interesting talk is going on, the coming weekend will be full of music events with musicians travelling to Göteborg to perform. The event is part of the Clandestino Festival. The talks part of the cooperation Clandestino Talks:: Border Reverb, the last being a cooperation between Clandestino Festival in Göteborg, Goldsmiths University in London and Interarts in Berlin.

The festival is run by Bwana Club, a group of cultural producers, djs, and authors who through different forms like seminars, exhibitions, and actions aim to work across borders and with specific aim of democracy in the globalized world.

Below a talk by Spivak at University of California, Santa Barbara found on youtube.

Artists moved in, gradually the status of the area grew. Today it has been renovated with apartments and shopping area. It has kept the small-scale feeling and in every corner and street you find them; the energetic people designing clothes, selling craft, running second hand stores, hat designers, architects, coffee shops and others.

For Centre Dansaert Centrum it was an attractive place to have an incubator. It’s an attractive spot, but too expensive for newly started initiatives. In the old storage building with origins back to 1870s, offices and space were created to host small and newly started companies. Today they have around fifty entrepreneurs in the building.

To get a place you introduce your project or idea to Fabien Lambert. You apply on an already existing idea or project. You pay one set amount per month and everything is included: Rent, advice and support on business plan and development, electricity and other related costs. There are eight incubators in the region, financed publicly by Ville de Bruxelles and Region Bruxelles-Capitale and of course the competition between the incubators and funding is there.

Two enthusiastic entrepreneurs and one gallerist meet us; one musician running the music company Cypres; one of the owners, Benoît Vancauwenbergh, of a fairly new communication agency 6+1; and the man behind the small gallery specialized on African artists, Nomad Gallery.

The visit was part of a joint meeting between Eurocities and Encatc in Brussels 1-2 of June 2010. Read about other incubators under the category “Incubators” on this site.