Blog Action Day: Making the link
Posted: October 15th, 2008 | Author: Chris | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: birmingham social media surgery, blog action day, cat bray, nick booth | 6 Comments »
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.
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.
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.
Chris, meet Ellie, if you aren’t already acquainted.
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
[...] (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 [...]
[...] (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 [...]