Slides, surgeries, Sky and startups

What did I get up to in the opening months of 2011? Well, this:

February saw me head over to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where (among other things) I explored Google's rather fantastic stand and rode on its slide...

I also helped out at Movement, a social media surgery event for musicians in Manchester, giving advice on moving on from Myspace to newer tools. The next one's on 19 April, so sign up if you want to come along.

In March I went along to a Sky News preview event for its iPad app. With about 30 seconds' notice I interviewed Political Editor Adam Boulton. The lack of notice led meant I couldn't prepare any hardball questions for him, but next time he's getting a grilling :)

I also helped out with Manchester Twestival (not as much as I'd have liked to if I'd have had more free time, to be honest). The event raised £1850 for local charity Wood Street Mission.

Then just this week, I stepped in to cover the Techonomy3 conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. I wrote up a full report over at The Next Web, but it was great to experience another side of the country from the conflict depicted regularly on the news. I found an exciting, inspiring community of technology entrepreneurs doing great work.

Speaking of which, I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet of late about the lack of high-profile technology startups in Manchester. My recent post about it at The Next Web stirred up some interesting debate both on and off the site, and that's something I hope will continue over the coming months.