I’m pleased to announce that I’m going to be speaking at Web Directions South, in Sydney in October of this year.

My talk is called What Things Are:

If we’re going to talk about an Internet of Things, we should probably talk about what we mean when we say “thing”.

So often, when we talk about the “internet of things” it brings to mind images of consumer white goods with Ethernet sockets or Wifi antennas: thermostats; weighing scales; the apocryphal Internet Fridge.

But that’s a narrow way of thinking that’s perhaps unhelpful: whatever you may think of the term, an “Internet of Things” should embrace the diversity of Thingness.

So what happens when you think about the diversity of things that might be on the internet, and how they might behave? What about Things that people don’t necessarily own, but borrow, share, or inhabit? Through projects that connected bikes, bridges, and a whole city to the network, let’s think about What Things Are – and what they might be.

It’s a longer riff on A Lamppost Is A Thing Too, and is probably the final outing for that train of thought. I’m greatly looking forward to it – it’s a cracking lineup – and I’m flattered that WDS invited me. See you in Sydney in a few months!