It's an international conference that brings together 500 opinion formers, futurologists, artists, researchers and technologist to explore digital culture and the concepts and ideas being bandied about were a bit mind blowing: the future in the digital economy, identity and trust in social networks, the pervasive mobile and environment 2.0 are just some of the themes explored in various conference sessions.

It was held over three days, and I was only able to attend for one.

But what a day it was. I sat in on some pretty lofty discussions ranging from Northern tech startups to the importance of skiving to the new cultural algorithms of the semantic web.

The tech start ups session was a bit disappointing, I have to admit. Only two companies presented and one was a client, so there wasn't a lot of new information for me.

But meeting Abigail Schoneboom, the woman behind Project Skive, was a real eye opener.

Abby is a sociologist based at The City University of New York where her research focuses on 'creative resistance', looking at workers who reclaim time from the labour process so they can pursue their own intellectual and artistic projects.

Her Project Skive looks at the creative time-wasting efforts of English white-collar workers and invites people around the world to contribute stories of their own skives.

Skiving is derived from the French esquiver or 'slink away', and that just about sums it up.

Skiving can include everything from shopping online from your desk to writing a blog, akin to writing a novel.

'We thought industrialisation would give us the three-day work week, but this trend bottomed out in the 70s when we started to work more hours,' explained Abby in her presentation.

'In the 90s, employers have tried to make us work more by making it 'fun'.

'We had a masseuse in the office and played pingpong with colleagues, but the 12-hour work day had returned.'

It's Abby's contention that people skive to make their world more tolerable and a good boss knows that a skive is part of the natural workflow.

I couldn't agree more. I advise the employers I work with to not block online access to social websites such as Facebook and MSN Messenger.
The internet is like oxygen to those in today's workforce. You have to let people breath, if you want them to be productive. Block access and they'll just find a workaround anyway.

'We need to tell employees, you are allowed to do what you want; we believe in you,' said Abby. 'But, employees also need to remember that they are there to make a profit for the company.'

The half-day session on the semantic web, which enables a more intelligent way of accessing information, looked at its cultural implications.

The idea of the semantic web was conceived by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

He says it's the next step in Web evolution. Basically it's a new way of publishing data online.

On today's web, people find documents and view them through a browser; with the semantic web they'll find raw data and can use the application of their choice to read them.

'The semantic web works through relationships and meaning can be derived from these,' explained Tom Ilube, CEO of Garlik, provider of consumer privacy software.

'In this context, individuals will own their own data and will have full control over it.

'This will dramatically change search; online shopping will be transformed and closed social networks like Facebook, will have to open up to survive.'

Helen Aspell, head of digital at the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, spoke about web 2.0 and how the speed of technological change, including the semantic web, impacts society.

'Rather than banning or controlling anti-social behaviour, we must deal with it through open engagement.

'Technology creates an equal playing field, but accessibility is key.'
The final presenters of the day were Simon Cross and Ben Smith both of the BBC.

They presented a case study of their work in making www.bbc.co.uk more dynamic and social.

'The BBC has all this content, like loads of it,' they explained. 'Our job to is help people find it and use it.'

Part of this is publishing BBC content, text, video, audio and more for the semantic web.

The pair have written an ontology, a formal description of their content that is used in search, that will enable 'social discovery'.
In short, people will be able to search and share content in a whole new way.

Instead of using terms such as an actor's name to find a TV show, you'll be able to find 'comedy shows from last week that John watched'.
It's early days, but Simon and Ben have already published a significant amount of content for the semantic web.

They say that the New York Times and hulu.com are also working this way.
Tim Berners-Lee has been quoted as saying that everything we know and do with today's web is just the 'tip of the iceberg' in terms of what the semantic web will offer. Can't wait.

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Sherrilynne Starkie is the managing partner of Strive Public Relations, a strategic communications consultancy serving the Isle of Man. Visit her business blog, www.strivepr.com/notes or follow her on twitter.com/sherrilynne