On the UK not being the centre of the Universe. Anymore. Or yet.

Tom Coates has this week bemoaned on plasticbag (Is the UK falling behind?) the lack of UK presence at a recent flurry of conferences. Tom questions not only the UK's lack of presence in hosting such events, but also whether the UK is falling behind in talking about and developing the kind of things that are talked about at such places. Whle Tom was referring spcifically to blogger affairs, his argument could be equally applied to other areas of 'emerging technologies' in the broadest sense. Lots of stuff seems to be happening elsewhere...

True? I have the impression that the UK is fine at academic affairs (the annual Human-Computer Interaction fest takes place at Bath this year; the Digital World Wireless World conference is now an established annual event at the University of Surrey, focusing on phones and mobile technologies; Applications of Anthropology at Loughborough University this spring drew an international panel of speakers including Genevieve Bell of Intel, who's been conducting fieldwork in household kitchens in China; there are university workshops and similar the length and breadth the the country drawing both speakers and attendees from across Europe and beyond).

Then there is of course also the other end of the spectrum: 'Internet Universe 2003', 'Mobile Marketing Rip-off 2004' and all the rest of that ilk, massive commercial events dominated by major vendors flogging dead horses, and top (expense-wise) consultancies with preposterous names (Wednesday? Introspecture?) that remind me of those medicine-man sideshows you'd get at travelling circuses in days gone by ("Roll up, roll up! See how we'll sort out your ailing corporation! What miracles we can perform! Watch! No sleight of hand, my friend! See how before your very eyes the Elephant Man becomes Kylie Minogue!, How PDAs magically increase your productivity by 50%. Roll up, roll up!"). These take place all over, including here.

I sense that things may about to change. While there are many small groups around town focusing on specific areas - communities, taxonomy, information architecture, trust models, blogging, experience design, user experience, wi-fi, and so on - see my events list for some examples - there's now a growing sense that we can and should create a conference bringing together experts, boffins and pundits from a whole range of fields, that can compete with the likes of the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Not an ETCon immitator, but an original affair, drawing on UK strengths (perhaps with a European focus). Nor a forum purely for academics, or for consultancy bores to waffle on. but a place where interested people can listen to interesting people, and a dialogue can be established.

Discussions have been taking place on the UK Blogger list (Yahoo: ukbloggers-discuss). While some people would like to see a small-scale blogging affair - more a bloggers' convention than a major conference - others on the list are more in favour of a wider-rangng event to compete in the international arena, an event with a future. Which probably means not restricting things to a particular technology or behaviour.

There's going to be a planning meeting on 31 May in central London, which is open to all and will hopefully be a forum for many bright ideas. Write to Mo Morgan at 'conference at weblogs.co.uk' (with appropriate conversion) if you're interested in getting involved, or feel you have something to contribute, with name, location and contribution outline...Or join the debate on UK Blogger.