Early risers' Java: Edinburgh Coffee Morning

Edinburgh Coffee Morning is not some affair for old ladies with pink rinses, rather an 8am gathering of some web 2.0 / marketing / design folk at the very grand Centotre (Assembly Rooms) this morning for some coffee and bacon ciabattas. The whole shindig has been organised on the fly by Mike and Alice at Edinburgh's DigitalAgency and is attracting around 20 of us Auld Reekie Web 2.0 types.

What's pleasantly surprising for me is that I'm on the only educator - yes, there are at least 19 others heavily into Web 2.0 also making it their business right here in Auld Reekie. It's this desire of mixing the huge and burgeoning edublogging world in Scotland with the activities and attitudes of these creatives and business people that is appealing to me. I think those in the edublogging world can sometimes think that only our world is the one that matters when, in fact, there is an undiscovered community sitting on our doorsteps.

I'm hoping that one or two might want to come to BarCampScotland to share their insights, find some new talent and maybe get a gig or two, too.

I'll blog from the breakfast, but take a look at those coming along for some groovy new blogs for your aggregator.

Update: Breakfast is over (some photos here) but I feel really energised knowing that there are so many people in just Edinburgh who understand, create and promote effective design and social media. Although we come from different sectors there are huge similarities in the way we work, the way we 'sell' ideas to those who start off not understanding, the way, as Fraser from the groovy Whitespace agency said, we have to 'educate' our 'clients' about why this all might be Good for them.

It was a brief meet and greet for which I am very grateful but I'm hoping plenty of them will come along to the BarCampScotland to start getting into some of the meat, and I'm sure we'll be having more breakfasts soon.

Comments

[Kate Farrell]

> What's pleasantly surprising for me is that I'm on the only educator

Coffee at 8am doesn't work for most Secondary educators in Edinburgh as school starts at 8.30 or 8.40 here. 1B would be causing riots if I was even a minute late.

Further or Higher educators wouldn't be along as they probably only don't start lecturing till 11am and certainly wouldn't be up at 8am.

[Kate Farrell]

Hmmmm, Typepad missed out part of my last comment. Mental note - using > brackets doesn't work. Lets try again....

(Digitkatie sits back and waits to be flames by lecturers)