1. Brighton Tuttle Club – coworking for Brighton startups

    The Brighton Tuttle Club is changing.

    As of tomorrow I’ll be focusing the weekly coworking meet on local startups, making a time for them to get together and work in the same space, meet each other, maybe collaborate, or help each other out.

    Brighton Tuttle

    So if you’re a startup, or you’ve got something you want to try and build, come along and say hi.

    We meet upstairs at Cafe Delice (map) at 10am every Friday and tend to go on most of the day (but starting early is best!). We’re a small but very welcoming group, with varying levels of experience, and are all at different stages in the lives of our projects.

    Signup on Upcoming.org.

    There’s also a mailing list for chat between meets, once you’ve been along you’ll get an invite to join that too :)


  2. Brighton conference season – idea

    This is an idea that’s been knocking about in my head for the last few years, a festival of festivals, and I’ve mentioned it during that time to several organisers..


    Used with permission, Thanks lomokev!

    In Brighton there is a lot of event activity at the end of each year, here’s a list:

    And other regular, smaller events, all year round, such as:

    So how about joining them together, informally at first, under one umbrella group of events, a festival of festivals if you will! A month (or 2?) of events and activities, strung together, collaborating on parts, and going beyond the normal boundaries. It’s when fringes blur into each other that things get really interesting.

    Ok so the dates are a little far apart for some of those events, but others are so close together that maybe other events will appear in between. We’re way off having a single ticket for everything, but a single banner could be achievable.

    I can imagine creating an atmosphere of creativity and learning, mixed with music and relaxation, not to mention the meeting people and spending real time exploring ideas in between events, not being rushed, or leaving town the next day..

    So would this be a good idea? Would we risk dilution? or would it raise the profile of the events and the city?

    What do you think?

    (Oh, and any events I missed that would fit in well?)

    UPDATE:
    Here’s some more groups that meet regularly.. I’m sure they could organise something during the festival too :)

    Brighton Bloggers, Freelancers Farm, Girl Geek Dinners, UX Brighton, Geek Wine Thing, Brighton Flickr, Open Coffee Sussex, Likemind, Skillswap, Sussex Geek Dinners, Brighton Illustrators, Brighton Vine, Freelance Journalists…

    What else is going on in art, music, film or literature that the geeks don’t know about? I’ll add to the list. This is also relevant to Amplified09 too, which will be a one day meeting during this period, of all these groups and networks.

    UPDATE 2:
    Two other music festivals to add to Beachdown are Loop and The Great Escape, I don’t think they’ll move from the summer, but maybe they could all collaborate on a weekend in September? :)


  3. Show & Tuttle

    During the eGovernment hack day, RewiredState, a bunch of us were taking a break downstairs at the Skiff, where the projector was set up.

    rewired state at the skiff, brighton

    Brian and I started showing the others in the room the QR Code project we had been working on, and so started a few hours of browsing the internet, discovering things and showing each other cool stuff we’d found, or saved earlier.

    Brian demos QR Codes

    Yeah maybe we did also just watch a view videos, or geek over various map mashups, but we all came away with a feeling that the format worked really well, even though it hadn’t been planned.

    The guys upstairs finishing their project came down and joined us, and so we wrapped up and went to the pub. We all learned something, shared something, and felt just a bit inspired.

    So I’ve decided to organise a similar session.. 27th March from 5pm, at the Skiff, sign up here. There is no agenda, and no pressure to show anything, just come and hang out and see where the browsing and conversation takes us.. I’ll also add a wiki page for each of these meets, where we can list all the things we browsed and add some notes.

    Sign up here.

    We’ve very kindly got a small sponsorship for beer and projector hire, which has covered half the cost. If you want to chuck in a fiver (or more!) that’d be appreciated, there’s nothing like beer karma for geeks :) Click here to make a donation. Thx! And hope to see you there.

    P.s. Tuttle coworking is meeting weekly, upstairs at the Sanctuary (map), at 10am on Fridays. All are welcome, go signup on Upcoming here.

    P.p.s. Almost forgot to thank the guys at the Skiff for letting us use the room! Thanks :)


  4. The Brighton Social Media Cafe

    Since I attended the my first London Social Media Cafe (also referred to as the Tuttle club after Harry Tuttle) I wanted to recreate the atmosphere and environment at an event here in Brighton.

    Tuttle, from Sizemore photo by Sizemore

    The room, while small, was crowded with people. Some old friends, and many that hadn’t attended before. All caught up in the excitement of being around people with genuinely interesting backgrounds and experiences. The conversation was loud and enthusiastic, if you know me then you’ll know that I thrive in that :)

    So now I’m ready to announce that the Brighton branch will be starting on Saturday the 16th of August, at 11am, upstairs at the Quadrant.

    What is it?
    The Social Media Cafe, or Tuttle Club, is a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, and to plot, scheme, and share.. emphasis on open and interesting conversating!

    Who should come?
    If you’re interested in the future of media, how we organise, share, produce and enjoy it, then come along. If you’re an artist, film maker, geek, musician, designer, writer, photographer, or anything close or related, then come along. If you want to meet like minds, come along.

    With the help of sponsors (which we welcome more of!) the coffee is free, and there should be some breakfast snacks to get us going. There’s free wifi, so bring your laptops if you need to get some work done or want to show off what you’ve been to..

    I’m really looking forward to seeing you there!

    Update: We have our first sponsor, local social media agency Nixon McInnes. Cheers guys!