Last week (April 25^th -26^th) I attended the first of JISC’s Users and Innovation strand events in London. The event was run by George Roberts and a team from Brookes University. There are just over 100 people in the ‘Emerge’ community (http://emerge.elgg.org/) within the strand and they are by no means the normal JISC crowd.

The whole format was very encouraging with Lawrie Phipps and JISC approaching the ‘new stuff’ that is happening on the web with an open mind. The focus was as much cultural as it was technical and it was one the very few days I have attended where the technology really didn’t come first. The main theme was that of community both online and offline. I can see that the members of ‘Emerge’ will find common themes around the provision of social spaces, the use of immersive environments and many others. It will be interesting to see how the community evolves as the process of putting bids together starts.

I hope that this new format works for JISC and that the individual members of Emerge will benefit from being part of what could become a really useful community. As far as I’m concerned it has got off to a great start.