From Thursday I’m off to UK tour visiting friends around England’s, ending up far North, and after New years Eve returning back to pack for States. I won’t be checking my email regularly, but will be here and there online. My mobile will be on, I receive and send tweet DM’s regularly, and wherever wifi allows me to be present – I’ll be networked. You can check my schedule on Dopplr (if you’re a friend and using it, let me know), and of course – my Twitter stream updates. I’ll bring with me lot of eBooks and literature to read, some of those are good old paper books that I’m looking forward to hold and read.

Also, I’m ready for Science Online conference on the east coast, USA this/next January, to meet again wonderful folks from all over the globe, interact and collaborate. I miss my friends and colleagues, so I’m looking forward to see you all very soon. If you didn’t signed up for the Friday morning workshop I’m giving on social media tools and services, please do register. The only requirement is to bring yourself and laptop.

Next year will be super-excited and challenging for me in every field, as the 2009. was absolutely wonderful bringing lot of great events, people, awards, places I’ve been living/working, and the great adventures. I’m looking forward to 2010, hoping to be even better, as the same I wish to all of you who are reading these words. In the next year, I’ll be writing for different media too, so you’ll read me on other places on Web. It will be challenging both for work and PhD research, dissertation and other activities, I don’t know where I’ll be next. All I know that I’d need to get disciplined and make some time during the year for myself and my personal life as 2009. was insanely working fun mixture of random nature escapades.

I may post in the mid-0f-travel adventure more of my thoughts or announcements, so stay tuned.

For those who are not familiar with the rock music in the 90’s, Rage Against the Machine is American alternative, rock, punk band, notable for revolutionary and political lyrics. If you grew up in the post-communist under sanctions country such as Serbia (former Yugoslavia), you’d probably heard for their popular song “Killing in the name” released in 1992. This song was explained as “a howling, expletive-driven tirade against the ills of American society”, but also it marked the music, political, social scene in Serbia in that period. Why am I writing about RATM and not  about new and so waited Massive Attack LP?

For those who do not live in UK, or do not watch TV (moi included!), there’s a TV reality competition show called X Factor (equivalent to American Idol or Talent), where one of the most unexpected turn outs and victories of this decade happened: RATM’s “Killing in the Name” beat out X Factor’s winner Joe McElderry’s “The Climb”, and became the U.K.’s Christmas Number One single.

This all happened thanks to social network site Facebook, campaign in the form of a group, launched by Jon Morter, a 35-year-old part-time dj and logistics expert from Essex, and his wife Tracy, as they had become jaded by the inevitable annual rise of Cowell’s judge newest pop star to the top of the charts and were determined to stop it, using the power of social networking and obviously a humor.

Facebook group gathered almost 1 million people and the band’s single sold 500,000 downloads gaining Christmas no.1 charts. Some interesting BBC chart analysis show how in short time (only a week of Internet campagne) this single won the charts. Beside Facebook activism, British comedian Peter Serafinowicz urged his 268,000-plus Twitter followers to join this campaign, as later on RATM’s guitarist Tom Morello twittered on this historic event.

The power of social Web created not only the public sphere in political, economic and global context after all, but is also influencing the music business industry where corruption’s time is coming to an end. I’m looking forward to see these kind of activities and campaigns in governmental sector where some policy and political issues can be changed on better if majority learn network and media literacy. It’s interesting video – interview of RATM’s leader Zack De La Rocha with Noam Chomsky. Here’s the video of BBC’s interview with RATM and their live performance.

Wikipedia says that nomad is a Greek word νομάδες, nomádes, meaning “those who let pasture herds”, denoting communities of people who move from  one place to another, in other words a practice of continual movement with no fixed settlement. This rough definition implies to early communities of hunter-gatherers in Tibet or Siberia, but in industrial and information society it is a metaphor for aimless wandering, vagabonding from place to place. Modern nomads are high tech creators, frequent miles flyer’s, restless minds who have chosen nomadic way of life with no permanent residence, but rather moving from place to place. Either for work, education or personal reasons.

I didn’t think about this on deeper level, always took for granted when people would say: ah you’re world traveller, global nomad, as labeling in this context doesn’t mean much to me. And last night I had chat with an old colleague and friend residing in Amsterdam who recently returned from San Diego, California (one of the places I used to live) sharing the photos from the conference and time on the cliffs, as I was reminiscenting warm sunny winter Californian days from my studio in cold and foggy Oxford, when he said that we travellers, nomads never get bored. Which made me think: have I, by often travelling and changing place of living, working, studying, actually created in my subconsciousness denial not to be bored so I’d run for adventure, excitement, upgrading my knowledge and practice in work, meet new people, collaborate, search without the search, helping out where needed, being everywhere and nowhere? I assume a bit of all stated. And some more.

Which reminded me on one of my favourite novels – Baltasar and Blimunda, epic novel by Jose Saramago, where intuitive Blimunda who can see inside people, wanders for years for the search of millions of human “will” and together with soldier Baltasar in a quest of helping Bartolomeu, a renegade priest, to construct a flying machine. It all happens during inquisition time, in 18th century Portugal. We are living in 21st century where collaboration form of gathering inner “will” and building a flying machine is changed for gathering data and creating other forms of innovative endeavours where technomading is without the borders (even if it requires physical visa forms or paper) and individuum is free to move more than ever.

That provisory freedom may look for someone from aside as a great adventure, free spiritualism, carefreeness, but after years and years of global nomading, it becomes, in political, economical under threat to-become-insane-society, an urge to find a place or settle somewhere what would one call a base or a home. This apres nomading time was noticed even at our ancestors. Internet has gathered us into global tribe where many do practice global nomading online, but what about us who spend nights in hotels, waiting at the airports, celebrating important events in the air or conferences, out from family or friends?

I will return to this over and over, and maybe start writing somewhere my global travel notes (as I was suggested many times by my friends and family) and share them with you. This December and January is pretty full of travels and conferences [Englands, USA, Englands,  France?], everything is open. What is for sure is that I’m looking forward to sail the calm seas in the next period, looking for my future base. Encouraging news for the people in my country is visa-free system from December 19th, and is a reason plus for nomading around Europe, and beyond.

For those in UK, don’t miss this weeks’ OII forum on Relationships and the Internet, that will take place this Friday, 4 December at 10am, followed by the public panel at 4pm. The forum will gather researchers in the fields of social networking, online dating, practitioners from a growing and international relationship industry and policy-makers concerned with consumer protection and media literacy in a digital age. Taken from the background to the forum:

Research on the role of the Internet in meeting new people is an increasingly vital area of inquiry, and is illustrated by a burgeoning literature on such topics as online dating. However, the Internet may shape many other aspects of relationships beyond introducing individuals, such as in undermining or maintaining ongoing relationships, from courtship to marriage.

This forum will look at the state of the art of academic research on relationships and the Internet and how this research informs research on the social aspects of the Internet in general, such as issues of trust and identity. Cross-national and cross-cultural aspects will be addressed in ways that can illuminate general cross-cultural trends and responses shaping use of the Internet in building and maintaining relationships. The forum will draw out the connections between this research and such emerging issues of policy and practice as involved in efforts to foster a digital economy in Europe.

More about the speakers and the panel here.