Well, here I am, on the other side of the world, recovering from jet lag and getting ready to present on my research into visualizing social form at Utah University. Thanks to Robert Gehl for hosting me and providing this opportunity. I’m excited to be presenting on this work and believe that I’m making progress on the ideas and bringing them to a viable and focused project that can be done. Here’s the slide deck on my talk. In this presentation I’ll unpack the conceptual model informing my approach on how to transform social intelligence into 3D data. From this point, I then launch into discussing the focus of data visualization upon searching for signatures of social disruption. As I note, these signatures can indicate ambivalent, malicious or resistance/refusal practices that speak to tipping points of social change. The two case studies I discuss are my research into the community surrounding cryptocurrencies and then my second case study into cyber libertarians which is informed by previous research into the community surrounding the Silk Road cryptomarket. It’s nice to have the headspace and opportunity to do a retrospective look at my previous work leading to this point and then consider where to from here. Under the teaching grind of this year, time and space to do this has been difficult to come by. After this talk, I head to AoIR for more digital fun and games. This will be a highlight and great food for my intellectual and creative spirit. On my way, I will present a more focused discussion of the cryptocurrency community research and my work with social media analysis of cryptocurrency related discussion. If you stumble across this blog and are in Montreal, do come to this presentation! Here’s the blurb discussing the focus of this talk. Thanks to Fenwick McKelvey at Concordia for hosting me!

At AoIR I’ll be participating in a round table discussion on research agendas for the dark net, entitled the Association of Darknet Researchers. While this is going to be great, the whole program at the conference is looking awesome. It is wonderful to finally get to attend this conference and be a part of it. I am anticipating moving my thinking to the next level after all the wonderful stimulating research and people I will be amongst. Putting faces, personalities and whole people to the work I’ve been engaging with for years now is truly a good thing. There’s nothing like being in the same place and connecting through practice (and beer) to cement insights and get a real sense of where a person is coming from. New ideas to come into the fray. Never having been to SLC and Montreal before is also an incentive. Place also brings context.

On the down side, this is my first extended trip away from my new pup. He’s well cared for but, well, a piece of me stays with him and I know this is his first real separation experience. For my older dog, well he is resilient and is living it large at his grandma’s and ruling the roost. So while I miss him, I KNOW that he’s all good and rocking this thing called life. For me, well it’s 11 sleeps to go.

The time out and soul food of travel and creative enrichment is good for me, so I deal and know I’ll appreciate my life on the everyday level so much more for getting some distance from it. As one does. And so on with trix it is. Next stop, NYC and a whole lot of non academic shenanigans for a weekend. That’s good too!