Who I Got Here (Digibury May 2013)

Editor's Notes

1. Hi, I’m Sam Hutchings. By day I’m a copywriter, but what I’m going to talk about has very little to do with words. I don’t wish to impart any learnings, I’m here to tell a story. A story that begins with a chance meeting in 2007, takes a slight detour to St Louis, and ends in a Pub in Canterbury as I talk to a few dozen people.
2. It’s the story of how someone who had never head of St Louis, ended up taking this picture of its famous Arch. I had never been to America before. I’d never taken a picture of a giant arch before.
3. It’s the story of Marshall Haas (^This Guy^). A story of a friendship based on a Tweet saying “You spelt this wrong”. A friendship that allowed me to travel to St Louis.
4. It’s a story about the Internet, and coincidence. Quite fitting that whilst in St Louis, it so happened the Internet 2012 Bus Tour was passing through town. An evening talk about internet copyright ensued,
5. and so did an evening in the pub with Alexis Ohanian of Reddit and HIpmunk fame.
6. And it all began in 2007. I was in secondary school, and was getting annoyed with the current crop of gaming and technology blogs (This was before The Verge was even a twinkle in it’s founder’s eye). It seemed wrong to me that the items that got the best reviews, often had their advertising all over the site as well. It seemed weird that nobody was truly focussing on the Young and Student market, despite their higher likelihood to play video games, and be obsessed with tech. I started my own blog ( www.bitcolumns.com ), and went on the search for a Co-Founder, and designer, to help with the site. I put out an advert, and James Deer replied. We went to work on the new site, and I started to become connected to his network of friends.
7. A network that grew and grew, and currently includes a couple of hundred people. I’ve taken a selection of 12 of my closest followers and a few randoms. Feel free to follow them, I’m sure they’ll love it. Each of these people are in quite different places, working on slightly different things. Some are known throughout the internet, one is a TV presenter, they are all connected to me.
8. And it turns out they are all connected to each other. They form quite a web, a web I assume will get more complicated after this talk goes public. This network does extend outwards, and it does get quite weird the connections you see as you include more people. 6 degrees of separation is long gone, it’s about 3-4 on Twitter.
9. If you want to follow these people, here’re their Twitter handles again. They’re all truly interesting people, and awesome people to know.
10. It turns out that my followers and I have a lot of friends in common. I’m starting to think that I influence Jason Bradbury’s friend choices, as he shares the most. Whilst it’s true that some of these common friends are celebrities, a lot of them aren’t. The majority are normal people, working day to day on the web, or in industries completely unrelated. We’re all from different places. The above web represents London, Kent, Lancashire, Glasgow, St Louis (soon to be Canada), San Francisco, and more. It spans a wide range of ages, and interests. It just seems that we have at least a couple of things in common.
11. But let’s get to the heart of this talk, the inspiration behind it. I’ve highlighted 3 of the people on my web in a very Digibury colour. Myself, @marshal and @i4_1. Why have I done this? Let’s see, on the next slide.
12. It seems that the 3 of use are all interconnected. I got to know Marshall in 2011, when he was looking for a copywriter for a couple of his projects. I’ve worked with him on tonnes since, and we’re incredibly good friends. It turns out that Simon used to run a gaming blog, about 3 or 4 years ago. It also turns out that Marshall was one of his most active users, and they had known each other from this. A few months ago, I tweeted Marshall, to then get an @reply from Simon asking if we knew each other. This started thoughts in my head that have led to the talk you’re reading today. A journey that has inspired others to think of the connections in their communities, and how they’ve occurred.
13. For those of you who want to know, these are the tools I used to create this talk (which was much funnier, and slightly longer, in the flesh, I assure you). You can literally lose hours to Twiangulate, trying to look at all the connections and possibilities your Twitter network brings. Popplet is how I created the web diagrams, and it’s a really easy way to map out things.
14. I couldn’t help but hijack the end of my own talk, to help my friend Shane. He’s going to be walking a 100 or so miles of the Great Wall of China in August, to raise money for the Make-A-Wish foundation. A foundation that grants the wishes of children with terminal illnesses, it’s a very worthy cause. I ask that if you’ve liked my ramblings, that you donate what you can to this cause. It’s incredibly worthwhile.