I’ve had a great evening.
I’ve not long returned from the Birmingham Social Media Surgery held as part of Blog Action Day 08. If you’re reading this there’s a fair chance that sentence makes sense to you. If not, it was a chance for folk from community and voluntary groups to sit down with some soi-disant social media ‘experts’ and get some free advice.
Nick Booth posted in advance of the event here but the reality must have far exceeded his expectations. I arrived 15 minutes late to find the scene in the pic above - several people crowded round each ‘expert’ with some serious learning going on (on both sides).
It really was great. I spoke to some people about sharing calendars, how to sort out hosting, what Wordpress is and how blogs could be used to support film making projects. I hope my advice was helpful; I certainly learned a lot about how to pass this sort of information on and apply it to the concerns of those trying to make a difference.
Anyway, as mentioned it was scheduled as part of Blog Action Day. The object of BAD08 itself is to get as many bloggers as possible talking about poverty and raise awareness/start a conversation/etc and so on.
I wouldn’t say I’ve got anything groundbreaking to put offer besides my own experience of this evening. Instead, I’d like to highlight a post Cat Bray has written called Blog Action Day: Shelter, a conversation. Essentially it’s an IM chat she had with her fella about charities, in the course of the which she said:
i think one of the most effective things charities can do is tell you where your money is going, or better, show you
Which is just what I (and several others) have spent the evening telling community/voluntary orgs to use social media to do via blogs, video, podcasts, etc.
Hopefully we’ll get the chance to do the same again sometime soon.
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 2:14 am
Great post, Thank you for sharing, I myself wrote about it here: http://www.guruofsales.com/general/427/fight-poverty-its-blog-action-day-today and got a huge respond from readers and other bloggers. Would you please honor us and share your thoughts by leaving a comment on our post? I am trying to come up with something new tomorrow and I will include and encourage readers to visit your blog back so we can all unite to fight poverty.
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 7:08 am
indeed. for me, transparency is a huge plus when it comes time to choose a charity or organization.
for my part, i turn to sites like freerice (rice donation), kiva (microfinance), and goodsearch (donation per search), as ways to help alleviate poverty online. i also put up their banners on my blog.
saw this post via the blog action day site. it’s great that you’re participating.
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Chris, meet Ellie, if you aren’t already acquainted.
on Oct 27th, 2008 at 10:58 am
How are you?, Give something to help the hungry people from Africa and India,
I created this blog about this subject:
at http://tinyurl.com/6p6lb8
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
[...] (that is not a form of transport), we really must do it again, which of course we will. Chris Unitt “certainly learned a lot about how to pass this sort of information on and apply it to the [...]
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
[...] (that is not a form of transport), we really must do it again, which of course we will. Chris Unitt “certainly learned a lot about how to pass this sort of information on and apply it to the [...]