Touring… a bit

As the summer gets *really* hot, I though I’d let you know that we’ve got some special Tuttle things coming up.

Firstly, our lovely hosts at the ICA have some paying guests on a couple of Fridays this month and so we’re being accommodated just down the road at Inn The Park This goes for tomorrow, 3rd July and the 24th. We did it last week and it was great.

Inevitably, the rumour mongers have started questioning our relationship with the ICA – well, move along, nothing to see here, we’re still all madly in love.

In addition, they are offering a special Tuttle membership of £30 for the year which gets you reductions on tickets, a discount in the bar and advance notice of cool stuff happening there. I think it’s a great way of saying thank you to them (remember too that they’re a charity themselves) for giving us a chunk of Central London real estate for free every week. All you have to do is go to the front desk and ask to join and say you want the Tuttle Club offer.

And.

[UPDATE: Sorry, this one didn’t work out after all – we’ll be at the ICA as usual on Friday 10th ] On Friday 10th July we’re going to do Tuttle over at Channel 4 with a special guest – Manuel Castells author of The Rise of the Network Society – who has been influencing thinking about the social dynamics of the web for as long as we’ve had a web. More details on that soon – I expect we’ll have to be a bit more formal about an attendance list 🙂

With all of this to-ing and fro-ing I’d strongly suggest keeping an eye on a twitter search for #tuttle or at least to check before coming down to see exactly where we are.

Which reminds me that I’ve still done nothing about the tuttlebot – gaah!

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Imagini sponsorship this week

This Friday, 17th April, we’ll be sponsored by Imagini both for general coffee drinking (Thanks Imagini!) but also with an opportunity for 6 people to get involved more directly with what they’re doing.

To explain:

“The basis on the session on Friday will be focused on the alpha launch of the VisualDNA Shop. These are widget-based ‘shops’ that sit on a blog and take visitors through a short quiz with picture-based answers. The answers build a VisualDNA profile, which is used to create personalised suggestions for items to be purchased. It’s a revenue generator for the blogger, and can be tailored to suit the focus of the site.

The objective would be to invite blog owners from various verticals (aligning with our travel, photography, entertainment and mobile VDNA Shops) to build a VDNA Shop and start using during the session. Each blog owner will be guided by someone at Imagini who will have a laptop to work from.”

If you want to take part (there will be a small reward to say thank you) then sign up on the special list on the wiki page this week.

As well as this little bolt-on, which will be happening downstairs, I’m sure there’ll be someone from Imagini up in the bar to give people a briefer look at the new features if they’re interested.

Thanks to Sonia Pignorel from Imagini and Vikki Chowney from Six Degrees for helping set this up.

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Some Housekeeping

I’ve been checking in with the folk at the ICA about how things are going from their point of view and the general picture is “Hoorah for us!” Thank you for being so well-behaved, lovely and interesting. I’m having discussions over the next few days that I’m hoping will result in being able to announce a whole other bunch of cool things to do there.

Having up to 70 people in the bar on a Friday is clearly a good thing for them and I’d like us to be able to keep it going with goodwill. One of the reasons we meet somewhere like this, rather than just camping out in some cafe or other is to avoid pissing people off, but however welcome and lovely we are, the bar is a commercial enterprise and so there are a couple of niggles with the caterers that we can easily deal with.

Firstly, generous bunch that we are, we’ve recently gotten into the habit of folk bringing along donuts and cakes. Obviously, we all love to celebrate the birthdays of our special members, but it would be appreciated if we didn’t bring stuff in from outside. They’re very happy to put stuff on for us specially if we ask in advance and they’re looking at what pastries & cakes can be on sale from this week on. I’m inclined to say that if we have a sponsor, perhaps we should include something for such sweet things and that I will let the caterers (and you) know ahead of time. And if you’ve something to celebrate and want me to arrange some confectionery to share with the throng, let me know.

Secondly you’ll have noticed me at midday encouraging you to buy some lunch or move away from the upper bar to let luncheoners in. The caterers are seeing a little dip in their Friday lunch covers. I’m interested to know why more people don’t buy their lunch there and I think there’s an opportunity for us to influence things to our mutual benefit. My first impressions are that it’s likely to be either about the cost or about the content of the menu.

So please do let me know, in the comments, by twitter DM or otherwise whether you’d be more interested in lunch on Fridays if there were a special deal for Tuttlers or if you have looked at the menu and have some suggestions for how it could be more engaging to you.

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Standing room only…

Definitely the busiest tuttle so far – we had nearly 70 people signed up on the wiki and although they didn’t all make it, the numbers were swelled by many more who hadn’t said they’d come.

For the first time, for those who still have no idea what happens at a tuttle, I did what I’ve meant to do for ages, I wandered around with my recorder and captured reactions from some of the folk. Mike doesn’t like it being called podcasting, as you’ll hear, so welcome to Tuttle Radio.

This is also for those lovely Lawsons who are clearly pining for something tuttlish.

Download (13MB)

(cross-posted from Perfect Path)

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A Tuttle Solstice Treat

Eeep!!!! For the Friday Tuttle on 19th December, our friends at the ICA are giving us a special gift of a screening of our favourite movie: Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”!

It will start promptly at 10.15 so we should be done by 1pm in time for some lunch (don’t worry, we’ll be going for the original cut, not the “happy ending” US version…). I‘ll have put up a sign-up list on the wiki to keep an eye on how many are planning to come. I’d be surprised if we reach the capacity of the cinema (185) but I’ve given up trying to predict these things.

If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.

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Phase II

Mike and I have been joking in public about “phase 2” for some time and I’m really glad we can stop joking about it and say “Yes! It’s a Go! Go! Go!”

Here’s the simple version: From Friday 10th October, the Tuttle Club will hold it’s Friday meetups at the ICA in The Mall instead of the Coach & Horses.

Of course there’s a more complicated version too:

1. More space – when we push above 40 people, the Coach can be very tight and uncomfortable. There are a couple of separate spaces we can use in the ICA cafe and capacity for up to 200. Which bloody well better be enough.

2. It’s still a little bit secret. The place doesn’t open properly normally until 11am and we’ve been given special permission to go in at 10am. So admission will be through the “back door” in Carlton House Terrace, maintaining the grand Tuttle tradition of entering in a manner that feels a little bit special and naughty.

3. It gives us a foot in the door to do all sorts of other events at the intersection of contemporary art and social media (an intersection which is HUGE). Yes my lovelies, this could well also include some evening events for those poor souls who are brutally chained to a desk every Friday morning. But don’t worry, slack-fans, it could also mean more morning stuff too 🙂 For example, having got his Meet Harrison Ford merital badge earlier this year in Cannes, Mike is now setting his sights on the Dennis Hopper firestarter badge.

4. The wifi is strong and just works and I’m guessing that there’s someone whose job it is to ensure that it stays that way.

5. It will be slightly further to walk for those in Soho (but really, no really Allix, not much) Here’s a map of the route from the Coach and Horses though I can’t for the life of me understand why it sends you all the way over to Regent Street. See me if you want a short cut. Also see me if you want to have a race to decide once and for all who is right about this. (Hint: it’s me, me I tell you).

6. On the other hand it will be nearer for those who come from Westminster or Victoria. Anyone with an office, say, overlooking St James’s Park will no doubt be pleased.

7. The proximity of the venue to the Palaces of Buckingham, St James and Westminster has caused a few raised eyebrows – are we selling out our bohemian roots? Not at all. I love that we’re doing something anarchic and subversive in a Regency House a few hundred yards up the road from Her Madge. The ICA is deeply bohemian.

8. The bar is equally well set up for tea as for coffee and from midday, I believe they are licensed to sell the native beverage known as bee-urr.

Huge credit for getting this whole thing off the ground goes to the combined forces of @sizemore and @whatleydude who have acted as lloyd-pushers, string-pullers and lubricators extraordinaire. James Scroggs, man of vision (who ancient tuttlers will remember brought us the Spinvox Future of Voice bolt-on) is the dude on the ICA board who is encouraging them to make us so welcome.

I do also want to heartily thank Alastair and his staff at the Coach for their hospitality over the last few months. He took a punt on this weird bunch of (mostly penniless) geeks continuing to turn up regularly when we really had not much more than a twinkle in our eyes. I’d urge you to continue to use the Coach for free wifi and good food and beer whenever you’re in the West End, singalong on Wednesdays and jazz on Tuesdays plus a new comedy club and of course remember that Alastair has the two upstairs rooms for hire during the day as well as for lunches and a damn fine dinner service for private parties.

Photo Credit: futureshape on Flickr cc:by

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