Last day of Gnomedex

Phil Torrone's phone,
originally uploaded by The Kitten's Toe.

So it is the final day of Gnomedex, and we have had a lot of fun talking to all sorts of passionate people. After struggling with the wifi bottleneck, I have finally posted some pictures on Flickr. Everyone's Gnomedex pictures can be found here.

Very moving and insightful talk from Julie Leung who talked about blogging her family life. She talked about the decision she made to protect the identity of her children online by never showing their faces in her photos.

Although she felt restricted at first, she negotiated it and found what she posted was a lot more creative in many other ways. Sometimes we all too easily think we should do things the way we are used to and forget that often the best of what humans produce can come from struggle, or difference.

She also talked about the shifting and blurring boundaries between public and private space and the way being online opens up different sides to your "self" - and narrating those different sides.

These sides are often dormant deep within us until a channel opens up that lets them breathe. We are not linear beings with one side to us.

Humans are constantly playing out different personlities depending on what space - virtual and physical - they inhabit at any particular time.

That's why I will always be online. I was pleased to hear Julie's voice because it echoed what I tried to bang on about in my PhD way back when.