If you and others from your organization have already registered for Øredev 2012, you are all in for a treat.

This year’s opening speaker is well-renowned editor and speaker David Rowan. David will be discussing insights gained throughout his career as the editor of UK edition of WIRED magazine, meeting and interviewing many of those who have shaped the world we live in today.

David Rowan will point out rebels who shaped our community and make a forecast of the rebels of the future. He’s talk is called “Software won - so what now?” Here is an excerpt:

Software is eating the world. You are the emperors and are cutting through and reinventing industries one by one. Let's think what comes next. What should your minds and skills be focused on now - in order to solve bigger, more meaningful problems that beset us? How can you lead the world into an era of abundance, of iterative trouble-shooting, of optimal management of our resources - in order to generate the greatest happiness for the greatest number? 

David Rowan also writes the monthly “Digital Life” column in GQ magazine, and the “Tech Traveller” column in Condé Nast Traveller, in which he documents his encounters with the innovative people he meets at events such as TEDGlobal, DLD, Stream and Google Zeitgeist.

We are very happy to announce David Rowan as the opening Keynote of Øredev 2012.

Jim McCarthy will be presenting the keynote "Culture Hacking and the coming era of Magnificence" on Wednesday evening of the conference. 

We asked him to elaborate on culture hacking and he and his wife Michele, (and colleague) were kind enough to oblige. You can find out much more about the McCarthys at their website http://www.mccarthyshow.com/

Culture Hacking: The Magnificent Destiny of Software and the People Who Use It
By Jim and Michele McCarthy

1
The era of designed culture begins now. 
What is a culture?
A culture both describes and shapes a group. It is made up of a set of elements:  shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices.  And more.  Any group who lives according to a unique set of these elements has a culture. Corporations, civic groups, and even families have their own cultures.
There are millions, maybe billions, of cultures.
How do things stand with cultures now?
Cultures are something you more or less inherit.  You walk into them and take your best guess about how they work. There is no way to opt in or out.
Cultures are made up of a jumble of attitudes and practices along with a concoction of rules, mores, and taboos. Typically, none of it is written down. There are no references, guides, or even explicit rules for the cultures in which you live. At the extremes, there may be laws, or formal corporate policies. Someone might help you. Otherwise, you are on your own. It’s anybody’s game.
Whether or not a given culture is comfortable to live in, productive for the people who work in it, or helpful or rewarding in any way for anyone at all is pretty much an accident of fate.
 
2
In 1996, we began experimenting with team cultures in a way that would change things. 
To address the specific problem of self-destructive behaviors within teams in corporations, we created and repeated an experiment. Our experiment requires that a group of people do the following over a period of four or five days:
Form an aligned teamCreate a state of shared visionDesign, implement and deliver a great product.In this environment, we found we could rapidly develop and deploy new cultural elements as they were discovered and/or created. Every innovation was repeatedly tested by many teams in different situations.
We have been iterating the same experiment for the last 16 years.

3
We assessed  the results of the ongoing experiments in two ways. We looked for correlations between experimental elements and the state of that team’s end product.We examined the effects of cultural elements on individual team members:what they felt was their most significant learning or collaborative experiencetheir immediate sense of personal gainwhether or not any gains persisted into their post-experiment life.Using these rough measures, we determined which innovations were most effective and which could be discarded.  The new knowledge from each experiment was recorded and passed on to succeeding teams as their starting point.
We continued to experiment in our own teamwork laboratory. We also began trying out the most successful practices in everyday corporate settings. As it turns out, we were also unconsciously inventing the process of incrementally creating cultures.
 

At Øredev 2011, Alexis Ohanian gave the kick off keynote.  Well known and respected for his activism in protecting the freedom of the information superhighway, Alexis has been crowned "Mayor of the Internet" by Forbes Magazine. He is publishing a book, "Without Your Permission- How the 21st Century will be made not managed" -for release in the Fall of 2013. And more recently, President Obama found time to stop by and and answer questions on reddit, co-founded by Ohanian in 2005. We say 'Kudos Alexis!' You can see his keynote h ere.  A growing host of other excellent video selections from the Øredev library are available as well. All downloadable and sharable. Follow Alexis at @alexisohanian and learn more by visiting his site alexisohanian.com

Hosting such an illustrious and rising star gives us a happy feeling and a terrific souvenir. What kind of souvenirs will we create this year to look back on in the next? That's always an exciting facet of constructing an annual event. You get one chance to perform, and without a doubt, everyone contributes and magic moments are spontaneously styled, to be carried away in our collective hearts and hard drives . We will be featuring different contributors to the conference in upcoming newsletters. If there is something or someone you would like highlighted, please contact kathy.compton@oredev.org. Visit our speaker list, http://oredev.org/2012/speakers for a kickstart on ideas. As we said, we love to give back. And to look back. But the absolute best is looking ahead!

We are very much looking forward to 2012 keynote, Reginald Braithwaite, deliver on The Thursday of the conference, with his talk entitled  “The Rebellion Imperative”, introducing three essential tactics when disrupting entrenched institutions.
 
Recently Reginald published a candid piece “What I’ve learned about learning”, containing observations on his learning process. Reading it may very well stir up one’s owns thoughts on the journey towards acquiring new knowledge. Check it out below.

Follow him @raganwald and find out more about this interested and interesting Øredev contributer on his website- http://braythwayt.com/ 

What I've Learned About Learning

I have a rather glaring life-long weakness, a behaviour that has tripped me up many times. You would think that I would have noticed it and corrected my behaviour in my teens or twenties, but no, it has persisted. While I am much better at correcting myself, it is extremely persistent and requires constant vigilance to suppress. Read more...

http://raganwald.posterous.com/what-ive-learned-about-learning