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| joy garnett, by joy garnett |
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Being at the iSummit is a bit like sitting inside a blizzard of shooting stars of ideas and struggling not to blink. What does that mean? Well, you find yourself on a bus with two publishing experts, discussing the viability of setting up print-on-demand (the experts call it just-in-time printing) facilities in South Africa, and how they would link with the commercial publishers (and marvelling how they could allow anyone to become a book publisher). If you think publishing is old-fashioned and not a big deal since we will all be reading on our phones and laptops soon, think again. In South Africa a very small minority of people has access to the Internet and the skills to use it. The bus arrives at the old town, and you sit down outside the keynote hall to catch your breath. Next you know, you find yourself listening to a conversation on how best to name your children to make it near impossible to store their personal information in databases. Possibilities discussed included naming your first son John John John John John John and the second one John John John John John John John (and calling them 6 and 7); using a sql exploit string (something a database will choke on) as the middle name; using apostrophes (O'Brian) or hyphens (O-Brian) or all of the above. Joh'n Joh'n Joh'n Joh'n select * from foo bla; O'O'O'O'Brian. It's fun listening, but it's also a geeky (clever playful) way of dealing with the very serious issue of privacy and protection of personal data. It's just more interesting if you think about how to find freedom within the systems that are being built, than wearing a suite and going to lots of meetings with policy-makers (which is also important!). Anyway, trying not to blink ....
tags: south africa other names ideas publishing summit07
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