Birmingham’s social media goodness

I’ve found it quite interesting seeing what sorts of social media scenes are  in other cities/towns around the country. Especially as things are maturing to the point where there’s a bit of cross-pollination and influence going on and Amplified looks to be tying everything together. From what I’ve seen London, Manchester, Leeds and others all have slightly different approaches to shifting online relationships offline.

Here in Birmingham we’ve got something for pretty much everyone (as long as you don’t mind leaving the house):

• the Bloggers meets have been going for a year now with their sociable, slightly booze-sodden atmosphere.
• under Joanna Geary‘s auspices the Birmingham Social Media Cafe is growing stronger, with an ever-growing list of professionals turning up to meet and chat with peers about how social media feeds into their day jobs
• Likemind‘s breakfast club is attracting some social media-types, although the focus of the meet-ups is on general chatting/networking irrespective of business
• Pete Ashton‘s free, weekly social media drop-in surgeries have been a success

We’ve got BrumTwestival coming up as well as the first Amplified Midlands. There’s also Multipack, the Birmingham Linux User and Midlands Mac User Groups. I don’t doubt there are others I’m not aware of too.

It’s great to see people coming together in all these ways.

Even better, however, are the examples of people from these communities (and beyond) volunteering their time and knowledge make some sort of positive difference. Here are just two of those examples:

Big City Talk

Birmingham City Council are looking to develop a ‘city centre masterplan’ to guide the city’s development. The good news is they’re asking for as much input from the public as possible. The bad news is that the way they’ve inplemented the consultation online is very poor.

So, with little fuss but plenty of hard work, a few good people who are passionate about this consultation working properly have produced a companion website to help generate discussion.

It’s working too – with some good suggestions and a little debate around the issues too. The consultation closes on Friday 6 February 2009. If you live in Birmingham then this will affect you so go have a look and please chuck at least one idea into the mix.

Social Media Surgeries for Voluntary Organisations

Organised by Nick Booth with a group of ‘surgeons‘ donating their time, these sessions are aimed at people who simply don’t have the time or budget to invest in finding out how technology can help them. They’re great events and I was disappointed to miss last nights one because it feels good to use social media for something more than ‘just’ profit or play.

It looks like last night was another success and I’m looking forward to making it to the next one.

For a flavour of the events, Nick took this video to get a little feedback from the ‘patients’:

While Pete Ashton’s video provides a glance around all the groups hard at work:

Social Media Surgery for Voluntary Organisations from Pete Ashton on Vimeo.

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Blog Action Day: Making the link

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.

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