Security, risk, crisis

I am in Trondheim at a conference about safety and risk, where I have been invited to be on a panel organised by the Research Council of Norway, who organise their own conference in conjunction with "Sikkerhetsdagene" - the security days. The topic for the panel is media, crisis and panic.

I have to admit this feels a bit out of my field, but when I arrived just in time for last night's dinner, I was greeted enthusiastically by a friend I barely had time to get to know before he left Volda, and since lost touch with, Professor Peter Burgess at PRIO, the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, subtle as ever. "Oh," he responded, "this Norwegian question, how to answer that?" It turns out that these are his people, as the research group he is leading in PRIO is concerned with security. And so it clicked into place, the talks I had noticed him doing earlier, about Security in Europe. Meeting him saved the evening for me, and reminded me why I missed him when he left Volda for other fields. Some people understand what you're talking about, you know. Which, after all, is why we go to conferences: To meet the people who understand what we're saying, and listen to the ones talking our own tribal language.

The panel I am on is quite interesting, in relation to both my teaching and my research. The session is lead by one of Norway's most interesting law and informatics scholars, who is also a science fiction author (yes, this is one of my long-time heroes) Jon Bing (he has wikipedia entries in both book- and new-Norwegian). Leading the panel debate is Eva Bratholm, a former journalist now leading the information department of Norad, Norwegian Agency of Development Cooperation. Then there's Tone Bergan from The Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning, two full professors, Tore Bjørgo and Rune Ottosen, and ... me.

*smartassed overconfident finishing remark deleted*

Games Convention Online

Despite the title, this is a convention over online games, not an online convention. Yeah, it confused me at first.

It's a grandly planned conference over online games in Europe, taking place in Leipzig. Despite having travelled extensively in Germany at one point, I never went to Leipzig, and checking the map I realised why. Most of my travels in Germany happened in the late 70-ies, early 80-ies, and my only trip into the then East-Germany happened in 1981, with a trip to Berlin, East-Berlin and Potsdam.

This is an extremely interesting part of Europe, which I have neglected visiting since travelling with children made it harder to jump on a train and roll through Europe for days on end, stopping at random places to sleep whereever there'd be a cheap hostel. Now the children travel quicker, lighter and easier than me, being the age I was when I was exploring Europe by the railway, and I am worried about not having booked hotels in advance. Who'd have thought the map of Europe would change so much, just in the time it takes a child to be born and grow into an adult?

Anyway, this isn't about Europe, it's about games. At the same time I wonder, can it not be about Europe? Or about Asia, Africa, Oceania, Australia or America, for that matter - it's all about culture, change, humanity and society.

I'll be talking in this session:

„Nutzung & Potenzial“:
In diesem Themenblock der Konferenz bilden die Nutzungsgewohnheiten, -präferenzen und -folgen auf Spielerseite sowie die damit einhergehenden Erwartungen, Chancen, Herausforderungen und Risiken den Schwerpunkt. Faktoren, die die Angebotsauswahl und Spielenutzung beeinflussen, sind ebenso relevante Themenbereiche wie aktuelle Nutzungsmodi, Genrepräferenzen, tatsächliche und potentielle Vergemeinschaftungspotenziale und Spielzeiten. Damit einhergehend sind auch Fragen exzessiver Spielenutzung zu thematisieren. Zu beachten sind die Potenziale von Online Games und Mobile Games etwa für Sozialisation und Berufsfeldkompetenzen

However, when I can, I'll sneak over to this session:

„Gesellschaft & Politik“:
Im dritten Stream sollen die gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen der steigenden Nutzung von Online und Mobile Games im Zentrum stehen. Welche Debatten in welcher Form in der Öffentlichkeit geführt, und welche Risiken und Möglichkeiten den Spielen zugeschrieben werden, können eine differenzierte Sichtweise auf das Phänomen erlauben.

Auch die regulatorischen Herausforderungen, die sich aus den Spielinhalten und -formen, der aktuellen Technologie, der Vereinbarkeit von Erlösmodellen mit dem Verbraucherschutz und den veränderten Rollen der Akteure sowie den sozialen Komponenten der Angebote ergeben, werden hier Thema sein. Zudem sollen die bisherigen Reaktionen von Gesetzgeber, Regulierungsbehörden und Politik diskutiert werden.

And if you want to see the topics in English, you'll find the program here. Me, I am taking this opportunity to start brushing up my German. It used to be much better than my English - before those two young adults were born.

Torill talking this spring

While we're talking about where I will talk this spring:

February 6th I'll be in Oslo, at a seminar organised by JoinGame, a Norwegian network promoting game research and development. I will be there on the 5th as well, but then I'll just be your regular participant.

February 19th I'll be in Trondheim, for a meeting at the Norwegian Technical University (NTNU) - no public talking (I think), but I'll meet the always wonderful Sara Brinch.

March 6th I'll be at something which it surprised me that I was invited for: Leangkollseminaret, a meeting for medical doctors and psychologists, a traditional meeting place for discussions of addiction. This year's topic explains a lot however: "From technical spirits to facebook" (Fra rødsprit til facebook). I am a little apprehensive about this, as I am trying very hard not to talk about addiction, but I still want to go here. This is my best chance to talk to the people who really know what addiction is, to learn something from them and to perhaps be able to teach something about games, too.

Blikk

"Blikk" means "gaze" in Norwegian, and while it's probably a clever acronym, I haven't tracked it down to check for what. What I do know is that it's a conference for people who work with youths and culture, it's in March this year at Utstein Kloster, and I have been invited to talk. I just accepted, a little late as I had to make some decisions first, so I assume I'll be there. I was however very happy to see that Kristine Ask and Rune Klevjer, two active games researchers, had already accepted. The topic is: Games as a cultural phenomenon. This is going to be fun.

Flickr, the MMOG

These are links and some comments for my Academic Bar Camp contribution Saturday the 11th of October.

Originally designed as a support for/part of the "Game Neverending" (According to Wikipedia), Flickr is designed by Ludicorp, a web-application group designing "playful communication" and bought by Yahoo in 2005.

TechCrunch on Game Neverending: April Fools joke or the game appearing briefly as an experiment? Note that the date is April 2nd.

Packrat on Facebook built by Alamofire.

Pictures tagged green: Dolls, self portrait, handmade postcard.

That last picture is also part of several pools, one of which is the I made it myself-pool

Notes in a picture: And a comment on Flickr policies on the same time. This is about a discussion on cencorship concerning German members on Flickr.

Uploaded video, and comment on the video subject.

Watermark on Flickr

Flickr Community rules.

Groups and softcoded rules:
Dan Hanna and his video presentation of his daily self-portraits through 17 years.
PAD - picture a day - .lollo. and her photostream.
.lollo. addressing her audience.
.lollo. aiming at her audience.

Hit, Miss or Maybe pool and group.

Erling Sivertsen, Associate professor and competent amateur photographer, with an active Flickr profile.

Polite request for behaviour in the comments field from the photographer.

Library of congress' photostream.
From their photostream - ignored group invitation.

So hip, so cool!

I was in Bergen and talked (the links) to the student community of Bergen, with VamPus, also known as Heidi Nordby Lunde. The student paper StudVest proudly proclaims that blogging will remain. "Bestå" (remain) in Norwegian means something which will last forever - that's not exactly what I said. I tried to indicate that I think it will be altered and absorbed in other technologies, but that some kind of easy written personal publishing with a similar form to current blogs will remain. But hey, doesn't sound as good, does it?

It was fun, I have, after 15 years of lecturing, finally lost my panic for talking in public, and VamPus is a pretty quick and clever lady. But I have to admit that the high point for me was to come home and check facebook and see that my daughter's friends think I am hip and cool, just like her. I mean, when students think some crazy woman old enough to be their mother is cool, either it's time for me to put on a pinstriped suit and stop dying my hair, or they are trying to impress my daughter.

Hmmm.

Anyway, message of the day: Vote smart, Vote Erla

Nordic Media Days

Bergen hosts a very nice and interesting event, an annual series of lectures and presentations which manages to mix the media professions and the media scholars in a very interesting exploration of the field. It's fairly well established, I remember being offered a job as a coordinator way back when I was finishing my masters. It's one of those jobs I regret I never took - instead I finished my University degree. Oh well.

Anyway. This year I will be in Bergen the day before it starts, talking about weblogs at the Bergent Student Union. I am quite exited about that, as the students have managed to find an interesting person for me to meet: VamPus, the Norwegian blogger who dropped her anonymity when she got into a conflict with her then-blog-client-owner (bah, bad word) over the infamous Mohammed caricatures.

So, I tried to figure out what's going on with the media days on the 9th. I check program. Nothing. I check if i can get a day pass, because the prices are stiff and I can't just shake down the department for any whim I want to have satisfied - nope, it's the whole thing or nothing.

There are some lectures there which are worth catching if I can. Arnt Maasø talks about new sound conventions in the age of YouTube. I'd really like to catch that one. Irshad Manji talks about Jihad: holy media strategies, defiitely a hot issue, particularly with the little reminder of the Mohammed Caricatures in the back of my head.

Oh well - I'll gamble that it's possible to buy a day pass at the door - or something. If not I'll look up some friends and hang out in a coffee shop in the area and look intellectually arrogant and talk about how utterly bored I'd be if I had to attend the Nordic Media Days...

Talking in Trondheim

Tomorrow I will be talking at Samfundet, one of the older student societies in Norway.

What else? I am still alive, things are happening, and The Burning Crusade is eating it's chunk of energy, energy which is hard to come by at this time of the year. In a few weeks I am going to New York for three weeks, hiding to write again, more desperate than ever, I am writing on the paper for DAC 2007 in Perth, but didn't manage to meet the deadline for the AOIR conference in Canada. Or at least I thought so until I just checked. heh, still have six days, and I have a stack of things I am working on which can be used. There's still hope...