Technology on Trial is about questioning our digital age and making sure we have all the facts in context while we do it. Death is not a cheery topic but as inevitable as… well you know the phrase, death and taxes.

This is the first visit to this trial. It is to make us think and initiate conversation. It is the fundemantals of social media. What will you leave behind? What does it mean for your business?

• We are the first people in history to create vast online records of our lives. How much of it will endure when we are gone?
   
• Future historians will want to study the birth of the web using our digital trails – but how will they make sense of it all?
   
• How can we keep digital bequests safe without poking our noses where they’re not wanted?

(Questions from Forever Online: Your digital legacy by Sumit Paul-Choudhury)

Details of our ‘local legal bod’ to be anounced next week.

January Dossier

1. Solicitors confront online estate fraud by Jonathan Rayner

The Law Gazette - 19/10/2011

Fraudsters are increasingly targeting the estates of the deceased for valuable internet-hosted assets such as online bank accounts, private client lawyers have warned…

2. Leaving a digital legacy by Gillian Tett

Financial Times - 7/10/11

Jacques Mechelany, formerly a high-flying French banker, has thought a lot about death and the human legacy. One reason is that he has travelled so manically in planes that he felt impelled to update his will regularly. But also, a few years ago he inherited some stunning photo albums. They contained photos of his ancestors dating back to 1870 – but Mechelany was frustrated by how hard it was to find any personal details about them.

3. Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul by Sumit Paul-Choudhury

New Scientist - 2/5/11

We are creating digital legacies for ourselves every day - even, increasingly, every minute. More than a quarter of a million Facebook users will die this year alone. The information about ourselves that we record online is the sum of our relationships, interests and beliefs. It’s who we are. Hans-Peter Brondmo, head of social software and services at Nokia in San Francisco, calls this collection of data our “digital soul”.

4. Facebook forever? Death and the legacy by Benjamin Cohen

Sharing our lives on social networks is now commonplace, but what happens when we are gone? Channel 4 News finds people are thinking more carefully about their digital legacy.

Channel 4 News - 16/10/11

Further Reading:

Forever Online: Your digital legacy by Sumit Paul-Choudhury

Your photos, status updates and tweets will fascinate future historians. Will these online remains last forever? In this special report, newscientist.com editor Sumit Paul-Choudhury – for whom these are not idle questions – reports on life, loss, memory and forgetting in the internet age.

New Scientist - archived special various dates

Technology on Trial is about questioning our digital age and making sure we have all the facts in context while we do it. Death is not a cheery topic but as inevitable as… well you know the phrase, death and taxes.

This is the first visit to this trial. It is to make us think and initiate conversation. It is the fundemantals of social media. What will you leave behind? What does it mean for your business?

• We are the first people in history to create vast online records of our lives. How much of it will endure when we are gone?
   
• Future historians will want to study the birth of the web using our digital trails – but how will they make sense of it all?
   
• How can we keep digital bequests safe without poking our noses where they’re not wanted?

(Questions from Forever Online: Your digital legacy by Sumit Paul-Choudhury)

Details of our ‘local legal bod’ to be anounced next week.

January Dossier

1. Solicitors confront online estate fraud by Jonathan Rayner

The Law Gazette - 19/10/2011

Fraudsters are increasingly targeting the estates of the deceased for valuable internet-hosted assets such as online bank accounts, private client lawyers have warned…

2. Leaving a digital legacy by Gillian Tett

Financial Times - 7/10/11

Jacques Mechelany, formerly a high-flying French banker, has thought a lot about death and the human legacy. One reason is that he has travelled so manically in planes that he felt impelled to update his will regularly. But also, a few years ago he inherited some stunning photo albums. They contained photos of his ancestors dating back to 1870 – but Mechelany was frustrated by how hard it was to find any personal details about them.

3. Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul by Sumit Paul-Choudhury

New Scientist - 2/5/11

We are creating digital legacies for ourselves every day - even, increasingly, every minute. More than a quarter of a million Facebook users will die this year alone. The information about ourselves that we record online is the sum of our relationships, interests and beliefs. It’s who we are. Hans-Peter Brondmo, head of social software and services at Nokia in San Francisco, calls this collection of data our “digital soul”.

4. Facebook forever? Death and the legacy by Benjamin Cohen

Sharing our lives on social networks is now commonplace, but what happens when we are gone? Channel 4 News finds people are thinking more carefully about their digital legacy.

Channel 4 News - 16/10/11

Further Reading:

Forever Online: Your digital legacy by Sumit Paul-Choudhury

Your photos, status updates and tweets will fascinate future historians. Will these online remains last forever? In this special report, newscientist.com editor Sumit Paul-Choudhury – for whom these are not idle questions – reports on life, loss, memory and forgetting in the internet age.

New Scientist - archived special various dates

This month Rother Dowson’s John Buchanan has submitted a dossier of documents for us to objectively put Social Media in the Work Place… on Trial. Who has got in to trouble, lost their jobs and the circumstances leading to thier demise with come under scrutiny.

Those unfamiliar with the Tech on Trial concept, a ‘local legal bod’ (until march 2012 that is someone from RotheraDowson) provides insight and balances debate surrounding the technology topic on trial. October’s topic is Social Media in the Work Place.

A ‘digital dossier’ ( a collection of web links) defines the scope of the discussions giving specific cases and reports from the media and from the legal industry chosen by the month’s ‘local legal bod’. As I said in the opening, October is John Buchanan.

We meet in the cafe of Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice at 9.30am having had the opportunity to read the documents cited for illustration. 9.45am The ‘local legal bod’, this month, John will take 10 minutes to explain why he chose the articles and offer some perspective on the topic which is the months on trial subject. From 9.55am we all then Drink our beverages or choice, eat cakes and scran while being outrages at technology, wowed by it, daunted and best of all with a ‘legal bod’ to hand enlightened and refrained from hysteria and conspiracy! All finishes at 11.30am.

The Date: Friday 28th Octorber

Time: 9.30 - 11.30 am

The Venue: The Galleries of Justice, High Pavement, Nottingham

The Digital Dossier:

• They were sacked for surfing the internet at work … now sisters win £7,600 damages
  Published on Friday 6 February 2009
  soctsman.com
• Email Can Lead to Time Wastage
  Human Resources News - Person Conduct Category
• Managing Ownership of Social Media Through Confidentiality, Non-Disclosure and Other Employment Agreements
  Jun 23, 2011
  Teresa Thompson and Norah Olson BluvshteinnetWorkedLawyers.com 
• Abusive Facebook comments led to pub shift manager’s dismissal
  Preece v JD Wetherspoons plc ET/2104806/10
  ExpertHR.co.uk
  Date added: 31 March 2011
• We all love our social media – but be careful!
  Posted on September 16, 2011
  blog.networkmarketingjobs.com
  By Jonathan Hirst

See the full gallery on Posterous

I was so please to hear stories that people attending technology on trial had come along to help them understand there own position on there recent encounters. 

[View the story “Technology on Trial - 30/9/11 - The Verdict” on Storify]