Perfect Path

Finally got round to uploading my muxtape. All are taken either from vinyl or from tape. None have been digitally remastered or messed about with in any way.

You won’t like it. I’ve spent my whole life thinking that sooner or later I’ll get into whatever music everyone else is into. Just realising though that it ain’t going to happen. This is the stuff that’s usually going round in my head when I’m talking to you, just so as you know….

Here’s some hand scrawled sleeve notes:

Temperance Seven - Chili Bom Bom
Must get a cardboard megaphone for busking with, although I suppose I’d have to attach it with elastic around the back of my head or something. Sometimes when I’m feeling very sick, my singing along to this morphs into a Jake Thackray impersonation. Wrong, but strangely right.

Benny Goodman - Ain’tcha Glad
I don’t know what it is about this one, I think it’s the corny lyric - “life is just a melody, in perfect harmony…” and singing style. Plus some hot Goodman hickory stick.

Ella Fitzgerald - Lady Be Good
Bang, into the fifties for the most modern sounding one on the tape! This is from a whole album of Ella doing be-bop scat numbers, some are a bit weird, but I like the bounce in this one.

Ray Foxley - Fudge No Rice
I miss Raymond a lot and this is my favourite of his compositions. He gave me enormous encouragement when I was a kid to get into the music. The last time I saw him before he died was at The 100 Club in about 2001 and he asked me if I was still singing. I said no, I wasn’t and he looked so disappointed and said “What a bloody waste.” I’m trying to make it up to him now.

Billie Holiday - Dream of Life
Life *is* sublime.

Bing Crosby - You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby
This is more polished than his earliest Rhythm Boys crooning, but swings along beautifully and I love the verse.

Bessie Smith - After You’ve Gone
Knockout raw blues power in a Tin Pan Alley song (another lovely verse).

Zenith Hot Stompers - Someday Sweetheart
This is the band my dad played with for many years, but this was recorded many years before he joined them. 1966 to be precise - Tony Pipkin’s on trumpet with some belting tuba from Phil Matthews.

Me with Michael Law - When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful
The last time I was in a recording studio, probably 1988, which makes me feel ancient - one of the tracks on a demo tape. Really should do some more, I’m glad I’m singing again, but when I busk I do have to sing loudly - it’s much nicer when you can get right up close and whisper.

My personal heady mix of pride, stubbornness and avoidance combine to make this a difficult thing to write, but I need some pretty specific help over the next week.

I have to move out of my flat by next Sunday 18th May. I have a couple of options on where I can stay after that but none of them are ideal or sustainable for longer than a couple of weeks tops. I also have very little in liquid assets, which is why I’m not able to just walk into an estate agents and plop 10 weeks rent on the table for anywhere I like. Another bit of background is that I also don’t drive and don’t own a car.

So. In the coming week:

I need someone with a van to help take my bed from Pimlico to Wimbledon for storage. The double mattress of course is the largest part, but apart from that the headboard is 1.4m x 1.4m so I’m guessing most people carriers won’t be up to it, but am willing to be proved wrong.

More manageably, I need help getting all my worldly goods (in boxes) from Pimlico to my ex-wife’s place in Epsom where I can store stuff in the attic.

And I need somewhere to live for little or no rent while I get back on my feet financially.

People are kindly helping with getting work and cash flowing, but I expect it to take quite a bit more than a couple of weeks.

e-mail, phone & twitter are all great ways of getting hold of me.

btw - my chin is up, I am still breathing, and smiling, just in need of practical assistance

Update: Thanks for all the messages of love & support. You all rock. Am piecing together a plan from the various bits of help offered. I’ve had two people offer cars & driving, someone who’ll hire a van if I can find a driver and two offers of places to stay through the last week in May. Very grateful…

Oh yes and some careers advice from Adrian Phillips… thanks Ade

Breakfast and conversation again yesterday, courtesy of OneAlfredPlace and Steve Moore I love the way that Steve keeps playing with different formats. This one involved three cool people (coincidentally all members of my twitterstream) Jeremy, Kevin & Matt from Penguin, The Guardian and Channel 4 respectively, all talking about what happens next in their worlds, ably steered by Rebecca Caroe. As Matt disarmingly pointed out, when you ask people in the vanguard of change what the future will be like, it’s not surprising that they describe a scenario in which there are really cool jobs for people like them. But as I feel part of the same vanguard, I’m not going to disagree with what they were saying. The common thread for me was that they all see their jobs as doing away with technology dependent descriptions of what they do (sell books, paper, TV programmes) towards being in the market for ideas and stories. I wanted to ask to what extent they saw themselves as competition for each other, or more properly for our attention.

Mark has captured the nugget in what Matt said about some current C4 research on teenage net use.

“Seems one girl the researchers were following was hanging out online doing amongst other things a spot of the hi-speed Instant Messaging that only the young can really manage for any length of time.

She had sorted all her contacts into 6-7 or seven groups - schoolfriends, family etc but also “bitches” “wankers” and so on. What was striking though was the way in which she switched contacts between the groups in real time. Even if the members of her different social networks remained mostly consistent over the short term, their roles were in constant flux. And those are just the small set of folk she is in regular contact with regularly…”

Read the whole thing for Mark’s point on this (as well as some bonus Tommy Cooper) but what struck me was how it fits with what I’ve been saying about compartmentalisation - that the way we dealt with having larger numbers of acquaintances than 150 was to split them up (at least in our heads) and make sure they never came into contact with each other (except when we wanted them all to share something with us - weddings - or where we were no longer in control - funerals - both of which, especially with the addition of alcohol can become explosive situations). I see a lot of people struggling with the problem that online social networks make compartmentalism more difficult. It seems to me that the solution here though is a creative third way - keep the idea of compartments, but treat them much more dynamically.

As usual, I feel I’ve taken hundreds of words to say something very simple and obvious. Sorry.

There’s nothing like an extended period of underemployment to get you thinking about who you are, what you’ve done and what you want to do. I also recognise that I’ve met an awful lot of new (to me) people in the last year or so, many of whom aren’t intimately acquainted with what I’ve done. Many of these people have come to me via the Tuttle Club/Social Media Café and I know they’d love to help me get more work, so especially for them, this is the story so far.

I started out in the theatre, training at the Guildford School of Acting and spending the next couple of years in traditional actors’ roles - behind bars, on building sites and temping - oh and an audition and show here and there

The lure of tech called me aside and I got into databases, data analysis and what we then called “programming” - what’s a developer? This led me back into education and a degree in Computing & IT at Surrey University.

My industrial placement was at the Audit Commission, which I joined after graduation working in research, information and, latterly, knowledge management. By the end I was responsible for the redesign and rebuild of the intranet and internet sites, focusing on a common information architecture between the two and working with people to set up offline Knowledge Networks across organisational boundaries.

Since then I’m been working as an independent consultant specialising in how people in organisations communicate with each other and with their stakeholders, particularly how the might do that using internet technologies. Around the same time I was introduced to blogging and which extended for me over the years into photo-sharing, audio and video work - check through the archives here to see some of the high- and low-lights.

In the last few years my focus and interest has become refined in the use of social media and I’m now mostly interested in how online interaction can help build offline relationships and vice versa. I’ve done this in a range of assignments as consultant, trainer, facilitator, mentor and content producer.

I’ve become adept at helping people understand how social media and online social networking can be used in their personal and organisational context. As a near obsessive early adopter (I was one of London’s first podcasters in 2004), I have a strong understanding of how social technology and the network effect come together as a powerful tool for organisation and productivity. What I have that is unusual is an ability to translate what I and my friends have been doing for years into something that makes sense in your world/

So I’m now looking for more opportunities, specifically in training, mentoring and consulting for individuals and small teams, preferably within medium to large organisations (500+ employees) especially those interested in using a combination of social media to achieve a specific business benefit.

I should be in bed, but no, I’m sitting up, singing and playing my ukulele like a fool.

One of those brain dump things where I want to write more than 140 characters but not enough for a “proper” post, whatever *that* is.

The not-so-obvious sign that twitter’s about to go mainstream is that the really smart people are so bored with it they are messing with the concept. This week has seen Hugh making the ultimate sacrifice and fairly swift resurrection. It’s also seen Andrew Baron trying to sell his account & followers on e-Bay (although he’s now deleted the auction) These are the kinds of one-offs that can’t be replicated, but hopefully will inspire some more interesting activity - Mark, how do you describe this sort of copying behaviour?

At the same time, it is becoming more and more like the playground with bullies and victims finding each other very easily. It’s a good job there are some grown-ups keeping things sensible. pfffft!

We’re trying to get the next couple of months of the Tuttle prototype settled with sponsorship - £300-£500 gets you fame and geek gratitude for a week, but on the basis that it’s often easier to raise a lot of money than just a little - you could book say the first (or second, or third…) Friday of the next three months for £1500. Helen’s done some work on polishing the value proposition for sponsors - go take a look and if you or your clients would like to play, you know where I am.

The Tuttle Breakfast next Wednesday sold out in a matter of days and now has a waiting list of 13 people. We’ll do more. Post your ideas for sessions on the wiki - we’ve already loads - I particularly like Mike & Mecca’s suggestions that we need to break out of the echo chamber - I’m hoping that Wednesday will fulfill some of that.

I went to MeasurementCamp last week - I’m still feeling uneasy about it. I just know that with hindsight if I was back where I was 12 years ago, with hindsight I wouldn’t have put so much effort into measuring public services. Or maybe I would, but would try to find ways of balancing the hard and the soft better. Social Media metrics enable and encourage gaming in place of authenticity but when you say it like that it sounds awful pompous and spoilsporty.

I still need more work and somewhere to live from 18th May. Shortest paragraph - greatest headspace. HALP pls kthxbye.

I’ve been talking to the nice people at Wrapid on the corner of D’Arblay & Brewer Street about doing some social media stuff - they’re not quite ready for the full-on Lloyd treatment, but they just shared this promo with me and I thought I’d pass it on to you.

So if you’re in Soho before April 15th and up for something to munch on, take this voucher along to the store and you can get a lovely fresh wrap with a choice of exotic fillings for £2.99 - which is, I’m helpfully told, up to £1.26 (just less than a third) off.

It has something to do with I Love Soho - though what that is - beyond a big bundle of Flash, I’m not entirely sure myself yet.

Oh, and they seem to be infinitely replicable, so do pass them on…

Let me know, if you go for it, what you think of the grub.

I got confirmation from my Landlord that my lease will not be renewed. So I have 60 days (until 18th May) to find somewhere else to live. It wasn’t altogether surprising - the local grapevine has been buzzing with tales of 20% rent increases where leases have been renewed, so even if they’d made an offer, it’s unlikely I’d have been able to afford it.

So time to move on. I don’t really know where I want to go. Partly, because I’d really like to stay here. The financial benefits of Dolphin Square are that heating, water and basic cable TV are included in the rent and because it’s Westminster, the council tax is very low (about £50 per month) so that makes it difficult to make direct comparisons - I’m clearly going to get a’spreadsheetin’. I’ve been very lucky to have such a great place with the view of the river. I’d love to stay in Pimlico or elsewhere in SW1 but perhaps I can’t afford it, if rents here are going squiffy, maybe it’s part of a bigger picture.

At the moment, I think the bottom line of my requirements are a one-bedroom unfurnished flat within zone 1 or 2 and trying to keep the rent under £250 per week. I honestly feel much more of a west end boy than an east-ender but maybe it’s time for me to do something different. Getting really different and moving right out of the South-East of England is not going to happen until my kids are that bit older.

So HALP! pls k.thxbye etc. - I’m not sure of the best way to start looking as I kind of walked into this place two years ago - if you know of anywhere that might suit or can suggest good agents/sites (other than gumtree and craigslist) to look at, you know how to get hold of me.

I’m doing a workshop intro to social media for a client at the end of the month and they just sent me through a draft agenda - mine is just one in a series that they’re doing at a two-day staff event. On the agenda mine is entitled “Libraries gave us power” I had no idea what this was a reference to, so I asked and was told that they’d given all the workshops names from song lyrics (mine was apparently from the Manic Street Preachers or some similar popular beat combo - perhaps they think I’m Welsh?) Anyway they also asked if I had a lyric that I’d prefer and so, of course, rather than thinking it through for myself, I asked my outsourced brain, aka my twittermates, to come up with suggestions for me.

They did not let me down.

benayers @lloyddavis anything by 50 Cent. Check out thisis50.com and you'll see why. His ppl utilize social media in a big way. (See buddylube.com) about 1 hour ago from web reply to benayers

Whatleydude @Lloyddavis - Jailhouse Rock? Something from Hotel California? How about 'I remember when rock was young...' ? about 1 hour ago from txt reply to Whatleydude

stml @lloyddavis "With a little help from my friends?" about 1 hour ago from web reply to stml

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis" My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundations, and I know that I should let go, but I can't." Kate Nash about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

Ronna @LloydDavis Wouldn't a euk number be most 'authentic'? about 1 hour ago from web reply to Ronna

lewiswebb @lloyddavis How about McFly's "it's all about you"? about 1 hour ago from web reply to lewiswebb

billt @LloydDavis Paranoid Android? about 1 hour ago from twhirl reply to billt

johndodds @LloydDavis he's too sexy for his shirt? about 1 hour ago from web reply to johndodds

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "Up, down, turn around Please don't let me hit the ground Tonight I think I'll walk alone I'll find my soul as I go home" NewOrd about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "I'm your only friend I'm not your only friend But I'm a little glowing friend But really I'm not actually your friend But I am" about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis " Ihave a secret to tell From my electrical well It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells" about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

emmalwallace @lloyddavis "My connection ain't thick, dick" De La Soul may be a little risqué? about 1 hour ago from twhirl reply to emmalwallace

giagia @lloyddavis Bridge Over Troubled Water? about 1 hour ago from web reply to giagia

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "yup yup rabbit yup yup yup rabbit rabbit bunny jabber yup rabbit bunny yup yup" Chas & Dave about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "You know the rules and so do I A full commitment's what's I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy" anon ha! about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

JofArnold @LloydDavis - Big it up Digg-stylee by coming on to Dare by the Gorillaz: http://tinyurl.com/y55pdv Get the crowd standing on their seats! about 1 hour ago from web reply to JofArnold

TigersHungry @lloyddavis I would like to throw in my 2 cents and second the chas and dave selection. about 1 hour ago from twitterrific reply to TigersHungry

jopkins @lloyddavis go for "the one and only" and power fist to it 44 minutes ago from web reply to jopkins

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "Boom! shake-shake-shake the room Boom! shake-shake-shake the room" 42 minutes ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

Ajpegg @LloydDavis bebo-pa-loola, perhaps? 42 minutes ago from web reply to ajpegg

Rebeccacaroe @lloyddavies "I'm the one that you want" - an oldie but a goodie [like you and me]

billt @LloydDavis because we're watching you - sometimes it isn't paranoia! 38 minutes ago from twhirl reply to billt

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "Nervous you need a drink tired you need a lift you feel on the brink maybe you need new tits" - Social Life - Iggy Pop 38 minutes ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

audio @LloydDavis You could go for "Simply The Best", but it's all a bit David Brent! 37 minutes ago from web reply to audio

jopkins @lloyddavis elevation/U2 is a favourite for motivational ppt numbers 33 minutes ago from web reply to jopkins

dungeekin @lloyddavis: cheesy, but how about from "We Are the World" - 'When we stand together as one'... 33 minutes ago from web reply to dungeekin

dungeekin @lloyddavis: Or: "Everybody's talking at me, I don't hear a word they're saying" 32 minutes ago from web reply to dungeekin

dungeekin @lloyddavis: ''Let's Work Together" - full lyrics here: http://tinyurl.com/2v5m4n 31 minutes ago from web reply to dungeekin

audio @LloydDavis don't be silly, that's just not a good idea. 31 minutes ago from web reply to audio

Ronna @LloydDavis I don't know, there's a certain degree of analogy with 'When I'm cleaning windows', and it would be memorable and wake people up 30 minutes ago from web reply to Ronna

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray But then nature didn't make him that way" Blur 30 minutes ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

emilicon @LloydDavis Option: 'If you make sure you're connected, the writing's on the wall' from 'Connected' Stereo MCs¿ 29 minutes ago from txt reply to emilicon

londonfilmgeek @LloydDavis "Pussy pussy pussy pussy pussy pussy walk" Iggy pop again 26 minutes ago from twitterrific reply to londonfilmgeek

mike_ohara @lloyddavis "come on over to myspace, hey you, we're havin a party..." 26 minutes ago from web reply to mike_ohara

solobasssteve @LloydDavis if you're going for an inspirational future-web talk, you could try 'talking about a revolution'... 25 minutes ago from twitterrific reply to solobasssteve

JofArnold @LloydDavis - can't you imagine auditors strolling on to Dare? I can - it'd be awesome! 19 minutes ago from web reply to JofArnold

dungeekin @lloyddavis: Cool - I'm still thinking about possibilities, watch this space. 19 minutes ago from web reply to dungeekin

Suw @LloydDavis: Just get him to play the Flumps music. That should set the tone properly. 13 minutes ago from twhirl reply to Suw

emilicon @LloydDavis Oh right, I don't know, I don't watch TV so really not with the program on adverts, thankfully. 12 minutes ago from web reply to emilicon

johndodds @LloydDavis "Beyond our normal boring stuff" is the perfect title. 5 minutes ago from web reply to johndodds

Dungeekin @lloyddavis: Eureka! The Co-Operation Song from Sesame Street! http://tinyurl.com/2jacpj 2 minutes ago from web reply to dungeekin

Phew! I think some people got confused some way in and thought we were looking for music to play, but that’s the way these conversations go. So I think I’ll go with @stml’s suggestion which I’ll expand a little to “I get by with a little help from my friends” thanks James, I owe you one! But there are some other great suggestions in there - I’d love to try “Rabbit” and “Paranoid Android” might have been particularly appropriate for this audience if not the subject matter.

Thank you everybody for contributing - another twitter crowd-sourcing legend for the books.

Thayer asked for some tips on getting video from the HG10 in suitable form for uploading to YouTube or Blip.tv

Please do not take this as a definitive way of doing things - I AM FREQUENTLY WRONG! - However, it seems to have worked for me so far, though I had to bodge around for a bit, so there may well be better, easier ways to do it, so please let me know if you find them. Oh and I’m doing it on a PC running XP - iMovie doubtlessly cleans your shoes for you while it’s speedily encoding and compressing.

First off, I installed all of the software that came with the camera - I can’t remember what all of it was, but basically I chucked everything at it.

Then this is what I do. You get files off the camera in .mts format. I start up the Corel Ulead DVD Movie Factory and create a new project. Since we’re just going to export to another type of file I don’t think it matters whether you go for a DVD project or a AVCHD project so just choose whichever one you think goes best with your eyes.

Click on the Add Video Files icon (film strip) at the top left hand corner. Choose a file and then click on the Export Selected Clips icon about half way down. (You can process more than one clip at a time by the way - if you’ve got a bunch to do)

I choose Customize…

In the file save as dialog that comes up I give it a name and change the type to .avi.

Then click on Options. I scale the frame size down to 720 x 540 on the General Tab and on the AVI tab I choose the DivX Codec with standard settings.

Then click Save. Close down Movie Factory. Fire up Windows Movie Maker or your favourite video editing program and import the .avi file for editing. With these settings the .avi is about one-third the size of the .mts file.

You may find that different codecs with different settings give you better results but having stumbled over something that works well enough, I’m not going to start messing around.