Xerxes Atlas Blog

I have just come back from NetHui, a gathering of people who are interested in the future of the Internet in New Zealand. It's been pretty good - for me the people there are probably a bit more interesting than the topics although I am certainly learning things! Cudos to InternetNZ for making it accessible (read cheap tickets) to everyone.

There's been one person I've been looking forward to meeting ever since I heard he was going to be there: Lawrence Lessig - the father of Creative Commons. Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand held a meetup this evening I got to hear of a number of projects and organisations that could be a good fit with this project. I had no idea that MusicHype was started in New Zealand for example. I just met the Chairman who lives in Wellington. I didn't get to chat to the guy from People in Your Neighbourhood, but he's done similar things in years gone by in terms of collaborative music creation backed by the British Council.

But Lawrence Lessig was the highlight. He's a pleasant and encouraging and unassuming man that takes an interest in projects no matter how small. His little spectacles top him off as a professor. This guy just ooses intelligence. He seemed genuinely interested in the wikimusical project, writing the URL in his iPhone for later. He then went on to tweet about it to his 150,000+ followers. Awesome.

Really looking forward to his keynote tomorrow morning.

As promised here is the promo video.  The idea was that we would try and get some $$ for the project. We didn't get much but as it turned out we didn't need it anyway as Hudson Gavin Martin kindly donated their time to create for us the 'input contracts' which can be pretty confusing. Special thanks to Naveena Charles, Sam Kunze and Alanagh Griffin for their time and effort!

It's with great pleasure that I introduce to you Georgia Wood one of our other directors. Although she wouldn't like to admit it, Georgia is an expert on Musical Theatre - which is a great skill to have if you're trying to produce a musical. We always visit Takapuna beach for meetings, so here we are again with Rangitoto Island as our backdrop. Click here for Georgia Wood's Biography blurb.

We're incorporated but there's someone else wanting to do an open-source musical now too! The race is on! OK - so this is ALOT different from all the other vlogs.. I got this style idea from www.whatyououghttoknow.com. What do you think? Can I pull it off?

Bridget is challenged to use Xerxes Atlas as a PhD topic and Jade talks to Elliot Bledsoe from Creative Commons Australia - he suggests not using the non-commercial licence as we'll get what we want anyway.

I talk briefly about the Ashira meeting (another musical in Auckland based on the same story), Creative Commons Australia to do a case study on us and how the buzz is starting, people around the world are already starting to notice.

Our first vlog on our journey with creating the world's first opensource musical . Jade Wood talks about the successful information sessions, technical research and the appointment of the initial board of directors; Bridget Marsh, Chad Carter, Georgia Wood and Jade Wood.