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I got a very excit­ing email last night from the lovely Alex, organ­iser extrao­d­i­naire of this year’s DO Lec­tures, to say I’d been cho­sen as one of just six vol­un­teers at this year’s event.The brain child of Howie’s founder David Hieatt, it takes place 16th-19th Sep­tem­ber at the stun­ning ffor­est.

The Do lec­tures are all about get­ting a hand­ful of speak­ers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do some­thing. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about.

It’ll be hard work but I’m a great fan of DO and so excited to be part of it. To find out more and watch last year’s talks visit the site. Maybe see you there in September!

This book is a must for any­one that is reg­u­larly online or wants to get more from the web. Easy to under­stand, engag­ing and infi­nitely prac­ti­cal you will take some­thing from it, regard­less of your level of experience.

It gives you a guide to the core ele­ments of your ‘web shadow’ or online pres­ence. As well as how to pro­tect your­self or loved ones from the more neg­a­tive aspects of being online, it shows you how you can use the inter­net to cre­ate con­nec­tions, vis­i­bil­ity and opportunities.

Bro­ken down into chap­ters that are easy to dip in and out of, it includes prac­ti­cal guides to blog­ging and using social net­works, includ­ing the big three: Face­book, LinkedIn and Twitter.

I’d lend you my copy but not done with it so you’ll have to go here if you want one. Or visit the author’s site http://www.antonymayfield.com/webshadows/ for more info.

N.B. Should men­tion, I know and like the author Antony May­field (hav­ing worked together in a pre­vi­ous life) but promise no cash or cake has been exchanged for a pos­i­tive review. If I hadn’t liked the book I just wouldn’t have told any­one about it. Except maybe Antony. From across a room.

Last week I had the hon­our to pre­view the film shorts pro­duced by Light­house in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the BBC Film Net­work. I don’t say hon­our lightly, despite my PR ten­den­cies. Each of the four shorts that were selected were each truly inspiring:

• Turn­ing: The tale of Robert who receives three beau­ti­ful bro­ken old birds in his mother’s sit­ting room on his 6th birth­day. ’ A mem­ory of an after­noon with tea and cake, lace pink slips and a tale of an emperor with no skin. ’ Visu­ally stun­ning, cre­ative and charm­ingly eccen­tric, I rather liked this story of the world through the eyes of an imag­i­na­tive small boy. (Dir: Karni & Saul)
• Wish 143: Fif­teen year old David only has months to live so is offered a wish from the Dream­scape Char­ity. He doesn’t want to meet a foot­baller or go to Dis­ney­land; what David wants is to lose his vir­gin­ity.  Out­stand­ing per­for­mances by lead Samual Hol­land and Jim Carter make this a truly mov­ing short that feels much longer, in a good way! Poignant and funny and heart­break­ing and joy­ous. I loved this film. (Dir: Ian Barnes)
• Munro: A dis­as­trous father & son camp­ing trip in the Scot­tish High­lands spi­rals as hid­den secrets start to sur­face. Stun­ning land­scapes and an out­stand­ing final line makes this a rugged gem. (Dir: Michael Keillor)
• Con­ver­sa­tion Piece: Star­ring Celia Imrie and John Hen­shaw this delight­fully quirky 5 minute piece is set to the music of jazz cor­netist Rex Stew­art as Jean tries to dis­cover how a cher­ished vase gets a chip in it. (Dir: Joe Tunmer)

With­out turn­ing into some gush­ing luvee, we all know I have it in me, I was truly taken aback by the level of tal­ent on dis­play. I got to be there as a trustee of Light­house but ulti­mately I thor­oughly enjoyed the expe­ri­ence as a viewer.

The films will be shown at var­i­ous fes­ti­vals and will go on to the BBC Film Net­work site so keep an eye out.