One of the inspiring things about watching the Steve Lawson journey over the years is how the solo musician combines what would normally be so many different roles… MD, marketing manager /PR manager, sales manager, operations director, producer and so on… That kind of multi-skilling is the future for the business workforce, and you are pioneering it here.

Social Media is enabling a dynamic form of business and learning and knowledge creation that hasn’t been possible before. We aren’t so much living in the information age now, as living in an age where we can access the information, and now (with social media) the people behind it.

It almost feels like 1990 again for me. A sense of a new phase, a tipping point. I look back and remember that no-one knew how it would work out at that point. I also remember that half a decade later, in 1995, I was still speaking at conferences explaining what this “Internet network of networks” thing was, and being told it would never work out or make any commercial impact.

It all feels strangely familiar, in a very nice and exciting way.

great to meet you this morning – hope you enjoyed the SMC, and that the festival went well – talk soon!

The problem I have is that so many of those doing “innovative” and “exciting” things, unless either a) self-promoting or b) providing useful information are glorified spammers, filling Facebook/Twitter/etc with advertising based “viral marketing” shite or are completely self-absorbed people who blog about their boring lives and make controversial or mysterious statements just to increase their advertising revenue.

To me, the jewels of the Web 2.0 crown are things like Wikipedia where people are contributing useful information that is of value to others and not the countless blogs (yours not included in this) of ego-masturbation and deliberate controversy.

But it’s certainly true that I’ve picked up loads of ideas from what you’ve done since – you were on Jaiku before me, switched to Twitter before me, were Podcasting before me, Vlogging before me… ) Good stuff!

Among other ideas – you said – “get a myspace page”.

So I did. It was late 2005 and I didn’t even have a myspace page. how pathetic.

I’m playing piano and banjo with a singer called Jont on Radio 2 this morning (8:15am!), and if all goes to plan I’ll make it to the SMC for 10:00, before heading off to the Small World Festival in Kent. I think I might have a few things to discuss… ;o)

Very interesting series of articles, Steve. I look forward to meeting you.