Tinkerers, thinkers, hackers, technologists or curious people by nature can find something of their interest on the several talks and workshops. Here’s a preview:

• 5 PARA A MEIA-NOITE, RTP2: how the first cross-platform show in Portugal made us re-think it all
  Bruno Lima Santos
• about starting a coworking space
  Christoph Fahle
• Branding Today
  Andrea Vascellari
• Deconstructing DIY
  Elmine Wijnia
• Grappling the “Zhou Dynasty” in emerging markets
  Kushtrim Xhakli
• Guerilla Tactics for Developers
  Wolfgang Wopperer
• Hack Your Way to Being a Recognized Expert
  Morgan Brown
• Open Source Hardware – Of Makers and Tinkerers
  Jan Krutisch
• SHiFT to Sustainable Prosperity
  Ken Nunes
• Stop thinking, its bad for ya.
  Fred Oliveira
• The birth of a company-wide wiki
  Joaquim Baptista
• Work like the Network: Six ways organizations are fundamentally reorganizing since the advent of the Internet
  Lane Becker

The 2 day event is more than a tech conference: it’s about how technology can be used to be achieve a positive change in society. The casual setting is a great chance to meet other people and learn about new things. Better yet, not only learn, but Do It Yourself.

Come and meet us in Lisbon next Friday an Saturday, as tickets are still available !

Disclaimer: i’m a  symbolic last minute helper of the fantastic team organizing the event.

Oops … seems the exit train station is Oeiras. Google Maps, don’t be evil.

Fired up and ready to OFFF ? If you’re packing your stuff and looking for a way around Lisbon, look no further. Here’s a snack size post with all you need to know to enjoy your time in Lisbon and find your way to the festival.

Lisbon

The city of seven hills, the Frisco of Europe, with the yellow trams and the iconic bridge, it’s asking you to be discovered with their hospitality and unforgettable gastronomy (try the fish).
Start at St Jorge’s Castle and go downhill to Alfama’s historic district, or explore Belem and the two World Heritage buildings: Jeronimo’s Monastery and Belem’s Tower.

Photo by Pedro Moura Pinheiro

When you’re done with monuments, get ready for a bit of shopping at the commercial district near Restauradores and take a ride on Santa Justa Lift to Carmo, one of the landmarks of Abril’s peaceful revolution. You can then rest for a while at Brasileira or walk a bit further to see the sunset at Graça. Now ready for the nightlife, head to Bairro Alto district, where you can eat on the more traditional Fado houses or have a go at the several ethnic restaurants, getting strengths for the non-stop movida (well, until 3am at least). For those still standing, time for a few clubs at Cais do Sodré or dance until the day dawns at Lux.

If you’re looking where to stay, there’s plenty to choose from, with accommodation for all budgets, starting with Hotel Açores to the hostels of 2 close friends: Lisbon Calling and Albergo Odisseo (I did the website of the last one a few years ago :). You could try any of these, and even if all booked, they’ll point you other good choices.

How to get there

Now that you got acquainted with Lisbon and the hangover from last night at Bairro Alto is long gone, time to OFFF.
The easiest way is by subway taking the green line all the way to the end (even if you’re commuting from the blue line), reaching Cais do Sodré station.

Photo by ghostboy

Get to the street level and buy a ticket to Oeiras, on the train leaving to Cascais (PDF timetable).
Now don’t you get distracted with the seaside scenery and forget to get out on time.

If you’re driving there, take N6 (Avenida Marginal) and exit in Oeiras (at the right side of the beach). On the roundabout a few meters ahead turn left and then right all the way up to Fundição de Oeiras, right across the train station.

View OFFF 2009 / Oeiras.Portugal in a larger map

Hope to meet you there on Thursday.

Missing the OFFF Festival posts lately?  It’s time with some fresh OFFF news, then:

• Amit Pitaru and James Paterson are in. Some experimental trippin’ expected.
• If there was an A-list for digital creators, if would probably be at OFFF: Paula Scher, U.V.A (United Visual Artists), Robert L. Peters, Chris Milk, Grey London, Stefan Sagmeister, Digital Kitchen, PES, Joshua Davis, Hillman Curtis, Neville Brody, Eva Vermandel, Kyle Cooper, etc, etc,
• Loopita rolls a customized venue for Raster-Noton, the german experimental music label.
• Nerdference panel is premiering, with a lot of D.I.Y. technologies, from open software and hardware, control surfaces, Arduino, tangible interfaces, the works. It’s evolution baby.

So, what’s your excuse to haven’t yet booked your flight to sunny (beach is within walk distance) Lisbon?

P.S.: There’s a open slot for sponsors, a great chance for companies working in creative business to be amongst a creative crowd of +3k and showcase your services.

The event website, focuses on the stories behind interaction design projects, their concepts and the production process behind many interaction design and digital companies.
Forthcoming events on the 23rd Feb 2009 at Utrecht and on the 12th Mar in London, but you can also watch past talks online and follow them on twitter.

Founded on 2007 by Chris O’Shea, Joel Gethin Lewis and Andreas Müller, it has now over 20 past talks, from United Visual Artists to the co-founder of the Arduino Project.

Kyle Cooper, UVA (United Visual Artists), Multitouch Barcelona, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher (Pentagram), Renascent, James Paterson (Presstube), Digital Kitchen, Joshua Davis, Karsten Schmidt (Toxi & PostSpectacular), Universal Everything, Aaron Koblin, Hillman Curtis, Si Scott Studio, Chris Milk, Kozyndan, Jason Bruges Studio, Ivan Franco, Neubau Berlin, This Is Pacifica, Alva, R2, Musa Worklab, Robert L. Peters, Suprb and Eva Vermandel are lined up for Roots with more to come the next few months.

The new venue is really close to the beach and will offer better conditions, with lots of space for artists who want to show their work at the catalogue. The Swedish digital media school, Hyperisland will be around (though not as part of their World Tour) for a special workshop and a 2 hours lecture.

Personally, it will be the chance to finally meet the men who inspired me to work in interactive, Mr. Hillman “MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible)” Curtis. Almost 10 years since his first Shockwave Flash animation for Macromedia, it will be a great year to discuss the state of digital creativity with him and the other great speakers.

Photo by sushi-sunday under a CC license

Starting next January, i’ll be posting profiles on the artists and projects, with a few selected interviews so you can get a feel of what to expect at the festival and help you to choose which talks to attend.

Grab your tickets before they’re gone and visit Portugal next year. Besides the great weather and delicious food, we’ll also have a wicked digital culture festival.

We’re almost there: the 2nd edition of Shift – Social and Human Ideas for Technology is taking place the next 15th to 17 October.

Having attended the 1st one – and loving it – i’m expecting the same amount of enthusiasm and interesting discussions on how technology is shaping society and our daily lifes.

The event is organized by close friends Bruno and Pedro (at non-profit), with 60 speakers during the 3 days, at Parque das Nacoes FIL (Lisbon). The subjects in discussion include: Education, History, Genetics, Economics, Accessibility, Usability, Mobile Technologies, Open Source, Transportation, Energy, Architecture and Art. Quite a treat, eh?

With confirmed speakers like Andy Budd, August de los Reyes, Julian Bleeker, Leonel Moura, Manuel Lima, Stowe Boyd and Tara Hunt, it shows how Portugal is becoming a great place for tech/digital conferences, after OFFF‘s success the past May.

I’ve just registered but hurry up and get one the last available tickets. Shift !

Illustration by me :)

The tweetup takes place this Wednesday at 7:00 pm, right downtown at the HardRock Cafe, just in case we have beer scalability issues.

Downtime is no excuse to miss it.

12:00

Entering the afternoon with several directors from Boolab, a motion studio, and an almost oficial partner of Psyop.

13:00

Adobe misses their talk. Missing evangelizing opportunities like this one brings no good karma. Chris, of Crashmedia, Canada, is filling their shoes.

14:00

Oh great, porn ! The Shai project, with compliments by Agence7seven.

16:30

Onesize, Gmunk and Minivegas answer how creativity and technology shape motion graphics. Minivegas showed a impressive software to create generative station ID’s, based on live footage. And also, more penis.

Gmunk debunks motion-fx houses, claiming they don’t know shit about design. The discussion goes into the domain of pushing interactivity (live data, user input) into motion graphics.

18:00

Group 94 is now on stage with a behind-the-scenes of their web design work. They applied a panorama transition of Jeronimos Monastery to their Nokia project.

Awesome.

19:00

Devoid of yesterday premieres the event titles. Lots of fish. I’ll post it as soon as it’s available.

20:30

Fallon talking about the power of ideas.

Ideas are leaps of imagination … with commercial consequences.

Of course they showed Cadbury’s gorilla. Which is just a stunt by a production company (Glass and a half full) whose goal is to deliver joy.
Digital makes ideas more useful and involving.

Ok. we’re done. As the conference organizers just confirmed, see you next year at OFFF 2009 Lisbon !

12:00-12:30

50Done & friends is presenting. For those who don’t know yet 50Done & friends is a project of Rui Vieira ( currently Creative Director at Fullsix Portugal) to do out of the box projects in the areas of digital creation and communication they work with real clients but in a diferent way of communication. Rui presents the Body and Soul, a project for Nokia that showcases beautiful models (one component shows the body , the other a more emotional soul) .

Ingrediente X – A motion design showcase.

Carlos Matias – Dialectica shows his creative work applied on t-shirts and shoes, and some of the illustrations shown here at the venue.

Pedro Pinto, a 3d motion designer at Fullsix with some sample work.

13:00

Karlssonwilker with a weird piece: a spoken portfolio, on audio tape.

14:00

Regine is on stage, sharing how We-Make.-oney-Not-Art evolved and reflecting on emerging art and the relation with technology. Right next to her, Andy Cameron, now creative director at Fabrica, talking about his work and what interactive media means. They both hate Second Life, and finish their talk with a discussion on the challenges of nem media art.

16:00

Hellokimori is now on stage.

17:00

A great panel on information visualization. Quite more useful than the usual showcase that we’ve seen today.

18:00

FakePilot rolling his impressive ground of work. Feels a lot like Chris Cunningham.

19:20

Now a Interaction Deigin Panel, starting with the folks from naninka. Beats me why the organization decided to this “panels” when no interaction with the audience kicks in. Surprised to find out that Nanika was involved in the BBC radio (below).

20:00 -21:00

After some astonishing works by Alex Trochut, we’re ending with Hi-Res.