Thomas Scovell
since 1977.

On May 19, 2009 I gave a 5 minute presso at a Webstock Mini evening along with 14 other fine folk.

Having only 5 minutes I decided to forgo slides altogether and go for a quick slice of delight, insight and impact. Or at least, that was the plan. In thinking about a topic beforehand I noticed it was Hip Hop Appreciation week the week of the event which was too timely given my fondness for the genre and using it as a metaphor.

So I decided to examine the art of the remix from the position that it isn’t a recent phenomenon but one that had roots, pop-culturally, in hip hop. Hence, “we didn’t invent the remix”. The “we” being the web 2.0 crowd attending. I then briefly sought to (tongue-firmly in cheek) eek out some lessons about branding that one could learn from hip hop.

I presented as a spoken-word poem, with some backing beats played from a ghetto blaster, a 5 minute countdown clock around my neck (ala Flava Flav), and with record sleeves to hold up as my talking points.