Cory Doctorow’s latest book Little Brother has just hit The New York Times best seller list, no small feat for a book that is available online for free. I got the chance to meet Cory a few weeks back in London, sounds like he has a lot of great projects in the works which I’m already looking forward to. In the meantime, check out this reading from his latest - you know you’re doing well when your publishers are putting you up in hotels with bottled oxygen in the minibar. Congrats Cory!

There are way too many dumb dances in hip hop right now, but this is not one of those. Great track and one of the coolest vids I’ve seen in a while.

Picture by Tukanuk

Been a crazy few weeks on the road promoting the book – hence the neglecting of the blog. The beginning of the month saw the UK launch, spent a hectic ten days in London, but we got some incredible coverage. As well as making The Guide’s front cover, the following weekend The Guardian picked Pirate’s as book of the week. It was also featured in The Independent, thelondonpaper, The Telegraph, Vice, Dazed & Confused, and I was at the BBC doing various radio interviews for what seemed like an entire week. As well some great press, I got the chance to speak at the RSA and the London School of Economics among other places, where I met and was introduced by the incredibly smart Mr Peter Jenner.

After that it was off to Surf Summit 11 in Mexico, by far one of the coolest events I’ve ever attended, check out TransWorld’s coverage here. I gave the closing keynote speech on day one, but more importantly, I learned to surf, and have been checking out real estate in Southern California ever since. Then it was on to Chicago for the Illinois Institute of Tehnology design conference, which was really interesting – met some really cool people including former director of Xerox Parc John Seely Brown. Unfortunately I had to skip Mesh08 in Toronto because of a problem with my green card which meant I had to return to the states to get everything ironed out, which was really frustrating, but thankfully is now sorted.

Over here in the states and around the world the press is still coming in thick and fast. Pirate’s got a great review on ArsTechnica (who were recently bought by Conde Nast, and should be bookmarked immediately if you’re not familiar with them). I was also interviewed by The Toronto Star, La Repubblica in Italy, Folha de S. Paulo in Brazil, and some journalists in other countries too, but it’s all a bit of a blur. So what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping things moving over here, but I’m back on the ground in NYC and the slackness ends today.

The new Wedia social network we’ve been working on these past six months is almost ready. We’ve been extremely fortunate to have an amazing web team work on turning Wedia into a space where non-profits, journalists, filmmakers and everyone else can connect to make meaningful media. You can check out the under construction page here to get a sense of what the new site will look like. Right now the map is linked to a fairly random news feed, but once we launch, non-profits will be able to locate journalists and film crews around the globe using the map, and the news they generate will also appear there.

We are expecting to have the real site up in about 4-6 weeks. We are looking for people and organizations interested in creating a profile and providing content for the launch. So, if you’re a non-profit and have video or photos about the work your organization does, get in touch. If you’re a filmmaker, a journalist (print or photo) or just a concerned citizen who wants to report about under-reported social justice, humanitarian or environmental news, or want to contribute in any other way, please contact myself or email emily[at]wedia.tv

The book was this month’s “must read” in Arena Magazine, which has long been one of the smartest men’s titles in the UK. Out now at a good newsagent near you (but only if you live in the UK, or by Universal News on Broadway in NYC).

Current TV just put up an interview I did a few months back with Brooklyn producers John Carluccio and Mark Kotlinkski - They dug up some cool slides I haven’t seen before. Mark also has a production outfit called 88 Hip Hop which does some great stuff - look for his film The Mural Kings about legendary graffiti artists TATS CRU - which is well worth checking out.

A few weeks ago I noticed this X-wing, complete with R2 unit, outside a beach-front hotel in the town of Jaco, Costa Rica. I could find no apparent reason for it being there.

It’s mounted on what looks like a small stage, but there isn’t much room around it. You can see roughly where it is on google maps here, the problem is it’s not there yet - many new buildings have gone up since this was taken, the town is developing fast.

Is is street art? An advert? Is the local theater company doing an outdoor performance of Return of the Jedi? Could it affect the country’s efforts to go carbon neutral? If anyone out there on the intertubes has more information on the X-wing, I’d love to know what it’s doing there.

So last night I’m flying back to NYC from The Medici Summit, a conference in Arizona (which was excellent - looking forward to next year already) where I did a keynote speech to some folks from Nike, IBM, Disney and several other companies about how they could benefit from piracy by acting like pirates themselves, as opposed to throwing lawsuits at them.

On the flight home, my left eyeball began to get irritated, something to do with a dodgy contact lens I think. My eye was still hurting when I woke up this this morning so I went to the doctors office. The doc told me that I somehow managed to scratch the surface of my eye. It’s going to be fine, but she gave me some eyedrops, and then told me I have to wear a patch for the next few days.

Live by the sword, die by the sword…

Only one week left to sign up at conference rate for The Medici Summit, a unique kind of event being put on by Frans Johansson, friend of The Pirate’s Dilemma and author of innovation bestseller The Medici Effect.

According to the website, “attendees will hear from successful innovators and thought leaders, but more importantly they will spend two days elbow-to-elbow interacting with our experts and practicing simple, but challenging exercises designed to generate new ideas and apply the lessons they will learn.”

Some of the experts attending include Ted Childs, who Fast Company call the “most effective diversity executive on the planet,” Jay Lenstrom, CEO of the Radiate Group - responsible for the amazing success of the SMART car introduction into the US - (they have sold over 40,000 cars without a cent in advertising), Nick Donofrio - Executive VP of Innovation and Technology at IBM and Gina Warren, Chief Diversity Officer at Nike. I’m doing the closing keynote on day one. The Medici Summit takes place March 3-4 at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, Scottsdale, Arizona. Get the full story here.