This past January, PSFK held a Good Ideas Salon in London bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity. For our mobile section, PSFK’s Piers Fawkes moderated a panel that included Dan Hon (Six To Start), Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Matt Jones (Dopplr) and Jonathan MacDonald (Ogilvy) on how the everpresense of mobile is unveiling new, exciting ways for us to explore, work, and play.

The panel laid the groundwork by emphasizing that mobile development is about people, not technology, and the intersection of these two will be increasingly-defined by applications and tools that are uniquely combined by people to suit their individual needs and desires – not provided from a single, global source.

The other key take away from this panel was the distinction between place and location. Brought up by Dopplr’s Matt Jones, he explains that computers and phones are great at ‘location,’ but we describe where we are as ‘place’ – where culture meets location.

On April 2, 2009, PSFK will be hosting our 8th PSFK Conference in NYC. For tickets or more information, please visit www.psfkconferencenyc.com

At PSFK’s Good Ideas Salon in London, Simon Waldman, head of digital at the Guardian, rounded out the day with a great discussion on the future of journalism and how the Guardian is adapting to a rapidly changing industry.

In his talk (which you can watch in full below), Simon presents ways the Guardian has transformed with the upheaval of old media models, choosing to embrace new approaches to storytelling, community building, and information gathering and sharing. Simon argues that the foundations of traditional media have been falling apart for years; the idea of centralized control of information started fading long before the so-called “death of newspapers”. The traditional means of news dissemination has been a system waiting for change – and now, publications like the Guardian are getting wise or getting whooped.

Particularly interesting is Simon’s discussion of ‘database journalism’, an emerging field of reportage in which journalists and publications openly share the data from which they build their stories. Simon explains that “journalists collect data all the time”, and that those bits of information could be published and accessed by readers in a constantly growing database of facts, stories, and information. A link to a relevant database could be included at the end of every story, not only allowing for transparency and accountability on the part of the publishers, but allowing the readers to be a part of the process.

But not only is it important to ‘share all you know‘, says Simon – publishers must also realize the importance of letting go. Information moves between channels faster now than ever. Simon argues that by embracing the free-flow of their product across mediums, publications can find ways of using their omnipresence to reach their audience in new, intelligent (and perhaps more meaningful) ways.

You can read more audience responses to Simon’s talk here. For more inspiration, join us at PSFK Conference NYC on April 2.

This past January PSFK held Good Ideas Salon in London, bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity. As part of the day of inspirational ideas, Colin Nightingale, Creative Producer of Punchdrunk and Founder of Gideon Reeling, introduced the audience to a new form of meaningful storytelling. By creating platforms for individuals to participate in their own entertainment, his storytelling design allows users to be part of the story as spectators, performers, and directors.

Colin summarizes his work as part theater experience, part art installation, and part night out. Elements that Colin incorporates include the freedom to explore, design through detail and sensory involvement. The work that Colin and his teams at Punchdrunk and Gideon Reeling produce demonstrate different ways to create engaging, interactive works.

This past January PSFK held Good Ideas Salon in London, bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity. The last panel of the day focused on Good Ideas Through Collaboration, where Colin Nagy (PSFK / Attention) moderated a talk between Pat Connor (BBC), Jeremy Ettinghausen (Penguin), Sophie Howarth (The School of Life), and Simon Waldman (The Guardian).

While the idea of collaboration is nothing new, the way we use it are still being developed and reinterpreted. Jeremy Ettinghausen noted that collaboration is relatively new in relation to corporations, who are currently struggling with the concept and may be afraid of outsiders. While people are already comfortable collaborating and working together on things they’re passionate about, the concept of collaboration is dawning on corporations and the media.

Collaborators drive innovation through their ability and willingness to share and cultivate ideas, and through third party tools, anyone can find a way to do what they want to do. But, Simon Waldman argued, successful collaboration is really about the ideas, not the technology.

While the collaborative process has its obvious merits, there is always the possibility of exploitation. The panel shared its advice for best practices, such as distinguishing between users creating for the benefit of other users and users creating to benefit a corporation.

This past January, PSFK hosted the Good Ideas Salon London. For our Good Ideas in Design session, long time PSFK contributor Amanda Gore led an eclectic panel, including Cameron Leslie, founder of the Fabric and Matter nightclubs, Coralie Bickford-Smith, designer of amazing book covers for Penguin books, Kate Moross, creative extraordinaire, and Nicolas Roope, founder of Poke and Hulger in a conversation on how design can-and must- weave a story between an audience and a product, service, and brand.

The panel spoke quite extensively about the creative process and there seemed to be a general consensus amongst the panelist that playfulness and experimentation are crucial to good design. A well designed product should reflect a designers commitment to the product – and by creating appealing products, designers have the ability to build authentic relationship with their communities.

This past January, PSFK brought together our favorite innovators and thought leaders for our Good Ideas Salon London. There, Christian Nold, artist, designer and educator famous for his Biomapping project, discussed how design can create systems of trust within communities.

Picking up where the design panel left off, Christian elaborated on how new, performative and embodied approaches to engaging our surroundings and those around us can create powerful change and how designers can leverage technology to develop social relations through democratic procedures.

Coupled with a background in fine art, Christian describes the various ethnographic techniques he employs to find out what the real issues are, and then how he works closes with communities to provide solutions. They key he explains, is working with people so that when they walk away, they feel like they were really heard – inadvertently building a relationship of trust.

The March Salon will be held on Thursday 19 March from 6pm. Online guest lists are also available in the GIS groups at HubCulture.com.  Tickets are £30 or 210Ven (Hub Culture’s private digital currency) purchased via Eventbrite or HubCulture.com