S04E07: Launch Countdown
Daruma Otoshi, or as I now call it, the best game ever invented
It's impostor syndrome time: I'm writing this in between making travel bookings as I'm headed into a one week sprint of crazy things including the launch of the Trustable Technology Mark and co-hosting the annual ThingsCon conference in Rotterdam, then on to NYC for a workshop around smart cities, policy, procurement. So, impostor syndrome. How did I end up doing these things? I'm not complaining. Just don't tell anyone, will ya?
×
Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? I really appreciate any forward or shout-out to tinyletter.com/pbihr.
×
What's been going on / what I've been working on
ThingsCon & the Trustable Technology Mark
Less than a week from now, on Thursday Dec 6th, I'll get on a 6am flight to Schiphol and then on to Rotterdam to deliver the opening session of ThingsCon Rotterdam, our annual conference (new website!). There, I'll be launching the Trustable Technology Mark (also a new website!) and start media outreach as well as partner outreach for real. We're starting with a small number of invite only partners that represent some of the most interesting categories (toys, voice assistants): Those are incredibly hard categories to design for with privacy and user rights in mind. Then, on Thursday, we'll start publicly accepting applications, while in the background there's still a bunch of legal work to do to make it real by early 2019. That's the schedule as it appears today, at least. Things might still change a fair bit: This is truly a living, breathing project. If you know anyone who has a product that might benefit from the Trustmark, please do send them my way or to trustabletech.org/apply. 🙏
But whatever else you do, if you're the least bit interested in this space, do yourselves (and our local organizer team) a big favor and reserve your tickets for the event next week.
While in Rotterdam we'll also sit together with the teams from Germany, Netherlands and Belgium to discuss the next 5 years of ThingsCon. If anyone had told me five years ago that we might still be going strong so much later, I wouldn't have believed it. I kinda still don't, even though I see it with my own eyes, both in meat space and across all my digital feeds. Mind == blown.
Smart City Things in NYC
From Rotterdam I'll be headed straight for NYC (flying into JFK for the first time, I believe!) to continue the discussion around smart cities, policy, procurement. I think that smart cities are a key focal point of many threads of emerging tech, policy, and the way we defined democratic participation in the urban space. My gratitude to fellow Mozilla Fellow Meghan McDermott (see her Mozilla Fellows profile here) for kindly inviting me to this. It also nicely dovetails with recent workshops in Brussels (see the last installment) as well as another upcoming one in Oslo a few days after NYC.
Pants, pants, pants
A bit outside the regular scope of this newsletter, but as some of you might know M & I have a little side project going that revolved around super versatile pants (that's trousers for the British among you, not underwear). We teamed up with a local retailer in Berlin to stock our goods in their shop, so in Berlin you can as of now try them on even when we're not around personally: Just head on over to 360 Outdoor on Oranienstrasse to give them a try! Also, we have a travel season special going on, meaning a pair is €199 incl. VAT (down from €220), both online and in store.
×
What's next?
Trips to Rotterdam, NYC, Oslo. By the next installment I'll no doubt have plenty of stories, slide decks, links, shout-outs and other shenanigans to share.
I wish you an excellent weekend.
Yours truly,
Peter
×
Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores the impact of emerging technologies — like Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research, strategy & foresight company. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that fosters the creation of a responsible Internet of Things. In 2018, Peter is a Mozilla Fellow. He tweets at @peterbihr. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.
Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? A shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated!
×
Pictures: my own.