#PdDigital15 – conversation and collaboration

People Driven Digital Health and Wellbeing #PdDigital15 seemed like a long way away for a very long time. Then all of a sudden it was very near and there was ever such a lot to do to make it happen… It took place on evening of 13 May and the day of 14 May in Leeds at the Open Data Institute. We’ll be uploading lots of content from the day over the next few weeks, but in the meantime you can find a short clip of Shirley Ayres speaking at our launch here. You can also find transcripts of talks given by Anne Cooper and Mark Brown and a blog post from Shirley Ayres.  #PdDigital15 generated so much content!

When Anne Cooper, myself and others created #PdDigital15 it was very simply borne out of a desire to stimulate and amplify ground-up digital innovation which we wanted to see more of. In an age of digital, a lot of events seem very staid and analogue – barely impacted upon by the emergent and conversational connections afforded by online social networks – we wanted to create something different. You can find out a bit more about our thinking here.

Catherine Howe co-facilitated the event with me and she has shared a few reflections here which include useful tips to anyone wanting to convene an event which majors on participation and collaboration. We were taken aback by the amount of interest in the event and it suggests to us that there is a real thirst to collaborate on this topic.

One of the main limitations of any event is the fact that it is just an event – a one off activity that takes place outside of one’s everyday context and which can easily be lost and forgotten back in the hurly burly of everyday life. We wanted to give the event some extra life beyond the conversations.

The reason behind setting a question ‘how can we unleash people-driven digital innovation in health and wellbeing?’ was to create a frame for the day that we could condense into a tangible mark in a white paper. We will be sharing the paper with Tim Kelsey and NHS England. The reason we created a small innovation fund, that participants could apply to progress their conversations, was to see if that was a way to nudge ideas and collaborations forward. We wanted the day to be about emergence and new collaborations.

Here are a few pieces of feedback from #PdDigital15 that I’m proud to share:

I just wanted to say thank you so much for all the time, effort and beautiful creative energy and thought you put into THE event. It was one of the very best I have ever attended!

Thanks so much for such a fab day. I may have to move to be closer to Leeds!