Spoke at geeKyoto yesterday: had a wonderful time and left feeling energised and inspired. Lots of different things to think about, a few changes I want to make to the way I live, and (hopefully) the start of some really interesting conversations: there were some really bright and talented people I felt privileged to be around. Full marks to messrs. Simpkins and Hammersley – thank you both!

I’ve got longer notes from the day that I need to digest before I put up here: broad themes that seem to stand out right now are a faith in the power of making the invisible visible (so a lot of talk about data visualisation and open data), the importance of community in effecting social change and a refreshing lack of faith in technological fixes that are unsupported by changes in behaviour. Two things that seemed to arise from a lot of people’s talks that I need to think more about: all the failures that people described (in regulating emissions, or in delivering aid or technology) seemed to be more about management and process than technology or access to data, despite this last point being a central article of faith for the conference, and I wonder if that might be a more productive (though more boring, perhaps) thing to think about. And the second was this idea of “community” – it seems to come loaded with a set of ideas about the sort of people in the community, that they’re nice people like us, whereas of course plenty of revolting people form communities as well. Minor point, really.

Anyway. My bit didn’t make anyone leave, which is my usual measure of success, but I think there were a few points that I might have offered people in a more structured and articulate way. It was a good experience to speak to a different audience, though, having spent the last couple of years talking mainly to education conferences and policy types, and I’ve got a few points to consider for the next time I talk in front of people. Learning, learning, always learning. For what it’s worth, I’ve put my slides up here if you’re interested. And I was really pleased to discover, during a vanity google, a twitter survey on a question that Ben posed afterwards, from Jemimah Knight: really interesting responses, will have to give them a bit of a mull.

So. Notes to come on speakers and ideas but short version: it’s brilliant, go to the next one.

I’m on the fifth floor of the National Library in Singapore, in a room with Ian Livingstone, Caryl Shaw, John Buchanan and a whole bunch of interesting researchers and developers, taking a break from an intensive day of thinking about a whole load of different projects – mobile games, games to help teach film language, a campus-wide ARG making use of ad-hoc bluetooth networks and a whole load of other projects. I took a break from that last sentence to talk to someone from animationxpress.com and read about the New Games Movement before going for karaoke and then coming back for a second day of talks ad conversations, including a chat with Caryl from EA about Spore, a new game she’s working on, and an introduction to ACID.

I’d meant to write everything up here as soon as it happened, but to be honest, my brain’s full. It’s been overstimulating. Which is always better than boring.

You know how it goes, you spend months sitting on your backside in the same office, staring vaguely at a point just in front of your monitor, talking to the same three people about the same three things, and then all of sudden you end up renting a flat on the other side of the world and taking more taxes than an impecunious baron bent on pursuing an unprofitable military operation overseas.

I’m sorry, that should have said “taxis”. Anyway, since I rode in from Changi I’ve managed to find a flat to live in and met everyone I’m going to be working with. It’s been quite a good introduction to Singapore, as it happens, having a reason to drive from east (where the venue that hosted ICET is) to west (where affordable condos and LSL are) every day, although it would have been nice maybe to do it without having to man our stand at the same time.

The expo/conference was good, though. I met a whole bunch of people there: some exhibitors who are doing really interesting technological things (lagless video over IP! serious!) and attendees, who were remarkable to someone from the UK for being almost entirely teaching professionals, with hard questions about the value of what we do and how our partnership with IDA would benefit them. It was refeshing, after BETT, to be spending time talking with people who actually stand in front of students, rather than people who just buy the kit, or pay for it.

And of course it was an honour to meet Permanent Secretary for Education LG(NS) Lim Chuan Poh, even if only briefly, and even if it was only to answer some questions about Racing Academy. There was a lot more media attention on the event than I think people expected, and gratifyingly we caught an item on Channel News Asia’s ticker describing the partnership between “IDA and Britain’s Futurelab”, followed later by an interview with the CEO of IDA talking about what we’ll be doing over the next two years (in which he mentioned by name one of my objectives for the next six months, so no pressure). I missed the interview, unfortunately, because I was at the

Changi Village hotel, the venue for the official conference dinner, where I met the rest of my team from the IDA, who taught me as much Singlish as they thought I could handle. For once in my dissolute life I left early, despite the easy availability of booze, recognising that the relationship between me and my new climate is something we both need to work on before it can truly be called postive.

Obviously my talk on Friday was sparsely attended and lacking in questions, it being Friday evening on the last day of the conference, but the workshop on Wednesday was really interesting, to me at least if not the participants. Two things stood out: the emphasis of teachers present on issues around addiction to games and the ethics represented by games, and the consensual, equal and I suppose just plain adult nature of the group discussions. I was expecting some kind of UK-style ego fight, where a dominant figure needs to give the rest some space, or a member who’s too cool to take part needs to be encouraged to take part, but there was nothing. Refreshing.

Obviously, the rest of the week was taken up by me staring open-mouthed at everything and thinking “but…how can everything be exactly like England and yet confuse me utterly?”

I’m off tomorrow: flying out to Singapore to go house-hunting, and to attend ICET, where I’m running a workshop on using computer games in formal education, and giving a presentation on games and learning more generally. Very exciting – first time I’ve been to Singapore, or even on a plane for more than a couple of hours, come to that. Afterwards, I’m going to see my family in Perth for two weeks. And then, after a brief administrative period in Bristol, I’m going to move out there for six months, working with the IDA and LSL.

So this is where I’m going to write down what happens.