About

OPEN 09 takes place in November 2009 in Preston, Lancashire. The city will be the venue for a series of ‘Turtles’, ‘barcamps’, ‘mash-ups’ and ‘relaxacons’.

OPEN 09 is a facilitated, participant-driven event centred around creativity, innovation and its future. Once again, the medium becomes the message as OPEN 09 abandons many of the aspects of a conventional conference such as high fees and sponsored presentations, and replaces them with a more dynamic platform where creativity is evident in the form as well as the content.

The intention is to influence policy that affects all aspects of decision making in digital and creative areas through open dialogue. If you have an opinion make it visible through OPEN 09. If you can’t make it to the event, you can still participate before OPEN 09 by defining its themes and content.

OPEN 09 harnesses the power of backchannel social media by inviting those who use it to demonstrate its effectiveness through the creation, promotion and dissemination of a series of events which include seminars with world class speakers, master-classes, workshops and networking events. And in the true spirit of backchannel social media, the form and content of the sessions will be decided by the delegates.

In short, OPEN 09 is all about harnessing the potential power of digital social media apps for both communication and community building.