Last week I arrived in the UK for some business and pleasure. Julian Bond at Ecademy had also heard I was coming over, so arranged for me to present at their monthly London meeting. I combined two of my favorite current topics. What's your Skype strategy? and What's your presence strategy? It was a fun evening. I was up before Cory Doctorow, a wonderful speaker. Before the event we traded notes with Penny Power, who told me the real story of how Ecademy was founded. Cory's EFF presentation was also so relevant to all us going forward. The abuse of powers around the recording industry are likely to be nothing when compared with telephony as the full disruptive power of VoIP hits. It was interested to see the parallels and to consider what strategies are required so "users" - people in the streets really get it and care. My talk asked "What's your presence strategy?

After the session we had a very yacky dinner with Thomas and Penny, along with Julian Bond and Andrew Widley. Thomas kept priming the pump and both Julian and I fed it with Skype possibilities. By the time he dropped me off I know I had really wound him up. The results were clear the next day. Thomas started a SkypeClub at Ecademy. I think quite a few from the session joined. [Ed. 281 as of 7 June] Why? I believe I found the stories that enabled those that were there to see we weren't talking about telephony anymore. That we were talking about more efficient ways to do business, to add value to conversations and still appreciate a social side.

If you are not familiar with Ecademy it is one of the oldest business networking sites. With members around the world they are concentrated in Britain. There have been 88 London monthly meeting and they now run in many more centers.

Thanks again Thomas and Penny for making we feel so welcome. I'll link to the video when available.