I’m on the train from New York City to Boston, after participating in the Names Not Numbers conference on 20 and 21 June. Editorial Intelligence, under the energetic leadership of founder Julia Hobsbawm, has organized these events in the UK for some time, and this was her first event in the US. Most of the largely fascinating sessions focused on individualism in a mass age, looking mainly from the perspectives of the media, business, politics and arts, in the US and UK.
Julia invited me to speak about the “Internet and Power” — a talk made better through the expert facilitation of Derek Wyatt, whose credits range from being a Member of Parliament to Internet visionary. To complement other sessions, I focused on the potential power of the Web in the developing world — where that power is needed most. My goal was that people would leave understanding more about the Web on which much of their creative and business work relies, and that that they must become actively engaged to ensure that the Web is free, open and empowering to everyone on the planet.
