Hi all,

Council
http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/
started at a table with Usman Haque (check his smelly floors and artistic architecture projects at www.haque.co.uk<http://www.haque.co.uk/>), Régine Debatty (check her blog we make money not art) and Christian Nold (who thought up the word 'Council', check his Biomapping.net<http://Biomapping.net/> or softhook.com<http://softhook.com/> i, I think it was in Nottingham in a really nice pub. Robin Hood territory! :)

I come from Literature, hypertext and Interactive Arts. Touring that circuit at the end of nineties and beginning of the 2000's (Transmediale, ISEAA, Futuresonic, DEAF, RIXC events on 'Mixed Reality', I realised we had to build a shell for artists in this field as they would be eaten by industry - paying them peanuts for the work then for example on accelerometers in phones (check Jussi Angesleva) and Doors of Perception 7 on Flow (where I was Flow editor). In Rixc in 2002 or 2003 I realised we had to build a Mixed Reality Corporation. Karmen Franinovic was there and we both agreed that was necessary.

So we set up was Council, built for influencing policy and being a kind of newspaper for IoT, doing good. Number 2 on Google in most countries when googling for 'internet of things'.

Now we set up Internet of People. We had a very good meeting in Amsterdam with the business developers Lorna Goulden, Alexandra Deschamps Sonsino and Martin Spindler. We went back to the roots. Why did I want this? For the past ten years I wanted it as a shell for work for artists, designers, coders and the meaningful development of IoT. I wanted an outfit to bundle our presence and increase our visibility.

We therefore decided to start as a mix of a recruitment agency bringing clients and expertise together & eventually providing design and consulting services for projects.

We discussed a five year plan to begin with a limited number of clearly defined packages such as: talks, workshops, scans and forecasting - with a proposal to develop tools for these packages developed by and available to all members, and to build the foundation for #IoT. Depending on the response from the market, we would eventually develop other services such as supporting in-house research and innovation around #IoT, but the aim is primarily to find work for our members and to help organisations understand the potential, opportunities and threats of #IoT for their business. Profits, if any, will go to a Fund that will in the future be available to invest in our vision for internally initiated #iot projects which we can scope out when the time is right - these form part of the developments discussed for the latter end of the 5 year+ plan.

This agency will be based on paper in the UK directed by Alex, Martin, Lorna and me. We will set up a management team that will handle sales, client relations and matchmaking with the members, payment and follow up.

Membership will be offered at a one time fee and like any agency, a fee is added to the contract between a member and a client to cover expenses. (exact percent TBD)

Members will get access to the work pool, best practices, tool-kit, shared use cases and extended network as well being connected to the brand and identity of the agency - one goal will be to develop a strong, reputable and internationally recognised brand. The role of the members in building this position is crucial and they will also be able to provide input into the ongoing development of the vision and strategy of the group.

Building up this structure and getting started will take three months.

Greetings, Rob