You’re going to want to be in Bergen on November 10-12 this year. We’re hosting a conference that is going to be such fun: Digital og sosial. Yes, it’s about social technologies, but more importantly, you get to experience social technologies through workshops, wikis, chats, blogs and lots of opportunities for hands on enjoyment. Read the program for yourself – oh, well, if you don’t read Norwegian, you’ll want this page.

Closest to my heart is the section on electronic literature, on the afternoon and evening of the 11th, which is the first event organised by ELINOR. This part of the conference is free, too! We have Scott Rettberg, founder of the Electronic Literature Organisation and prize-winning author of electronic works, who’ll be talking about The Network Novel. Lisbeth Klastrup, current leader of DiAC at the IT University in Copenhagen, will be speaking about electronic literature in Scandinavia. After that we’ll be doing open space-based workshops. Open space technology is a way of running self-organising conferences that Seb told Liz and me about this summer. Liz has collected links about it, and I even read the book, and though I’m not quite ready to do a full three days of it (though maybe someday?) I think three hours will be a wonderful start. Finally, after people have found themselves some dinner, we’ll have a party with readings and an open bar and a bit of finger food, if there’s money left in the budget.

The conference as a whole is going to be great too. Quite apart from the e-lit goodness, there’ll be inspiring talks by luminaries including Howard Rheingold, Torill Mortensen and Cory Doctorow. There’ll be workshops where you can learn to use wikis and blogs and you can write collaborative fictions and learn about Creative Commons licences in Norwegian and the Norwegian part of the Wikipedia and hear about a location based narrative project in Bergen and even more. We’ll blog and wiki and chat digitally throughout the conference, really seeing how that digital layer can enhance and excite a physical gather. It’s going to be fun!

You’ll need to sign up by October 11. It costs 1500 kroner, which is a great deal: it includes two dinners, three lunches and lots of coffee in addition to the intellectual and social sustenance. If you just want to come to the electronic literature afternoon, that’s free, but you’ll still need to sign up. See you there!