Cian O’Donovan

KeepFakingIt.com is Cian’s website. He lives in London, England. His Twitter bio states: Twestival . social action . media . political ecology . coproduction of science . london . rockandroll . 10:10 . stuffedowls . do all my own stunts . Ee-k-er! It’s not wrong, that sums it up and is probably more succinct than his LinkedIn profile.

Cian abhors abstraction. He thinks we should be able to see what we get in life and where it comes from. That applies to lots of things such as our food, clothes, energy and financial products. Yeah sucker, what’s your pension invested in huh? Luckily, we have lots of ways of removing these abstractions from our lives and Cian has been lucky enough to be involved in some of them. It has taken him a while but finally he has come out as a campaigner and activist. That’s what he does.

Right now Cian is working with some amazing people on Twestival Local 2011. He sits on the global management team directing digital communications traffic. Ultimately that means incubating online relationships (ya know, on Facebook, Twitter etc.) and pushing them offline to affect real local change in towns and cities the world over. Can you think of a more exciting job in 2011, he can’t. Check out the most recent blogs for updates on how all this is going.

He thinks you need to sign up to 10:10. He would say that, he spent 2010 on their dime a big way. Here’s why. Cian ran the social media operations for 10:10 as well as playing a big role in planning and managing 10:10:10, the world’s biggest ever day of positive climate action.  10:10:10 was pretty amazing, thousands of people in communities big and small doing real world carbon cutting, check the photos for a flavour. The Findhorn residents installing their new community woodchip boiler still brings a tear to Cian’s eyes. Should anybody be in any doubt that climate change mitigation strategies can be fun, inclusive and community building, check Findhorn out, life-affirming stuff.

Cian worked broadcasting (running new media teams) for some time and totally brought this experience to the table at COP15 in Copenhagen. The climate change conference was an all out disaster, Cian though did his best working with the StupidShow team on a nightly report from the conference centre. Watch some of the video they produced here.

Not convinced? Cian is also currently looking into socio technical transitions and locating the transformative opportunity of technological regimes. In other words, how do communities, scientists, politicians, business and civil society interact with technology to affect and co-produce change. He has started this process by examining how Ireland was electrified. No really, it’s fascinating.

Cian has a pet stuffed owl called Jayo In The Box and yes, he does perform all his own stunts.

Want to get in touch with Cian? Track him down on twitter.com/cian. Totally Facebook him. Mail him: mail@cianodonovan.com.

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Note: Cian likes to write about himself in the third person, he hopes that’s ok.