Podnosh

TYGA is a youth group in Balsall Heath in Birmingham which began with fun and conversation and yet in just over a year has raised thousands for charity through a 500 mile bike ride, travelled to Pakistan to help with earthquake relief and started a regular street clean-up in their own neighbourhood. Sue Beardsmore talks to Kamran Fazil about the next steps for TYGA – a structured leadership programme for young people.

We also want to wish 120 students from Queensbridge School good luck this week with their day on the streets of Balsall Heath in Birmingham, meeting different neighbours and helping clean up the neighbourhood. It’s all part of an extension of their citizenship teaching in collaboration with the Balsall Heath Forum.

Links

TYGA The Young Generation’s Association

Birmingham Community Empowerment Network (supports the podcast)

Written pdf giving more information and contact details for TYGA

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Mike Overton has fought for years to prevent developers building homes on an old waste tip and clap pit in Erdington in Birmingham, UK. He talks to Emma Lewis of b:cen about the site and why protecting it matters so much to him. Also in the programme a thanks to listeners in Belgrade and Birmingham who mentioned our programmes on their blogs and more information of the Podminions, a podcast channel run by pupils at Kings Norton Boys School. To comment please leave you thoughts here.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Josh Hart at mademedia (a Birmingham based web agency) alerted me to a potent combination of community, marketing and technology.

Josh is exercising more because of a heady cocktail of connections. Two brands – Nike and Apple; two desirable products – the right running shoes and the right mp3 player; the internet and music al tastes; personal achievement and support for celebrity sponsored charities.

Here’s how it works…

Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago podnosh and b:cen were able to offer some support to the pupils at Kings Norton Boys School in Birmingham. We helped them set up their own podcast channel which they christened Podminions and hosted here on the Podnosh site.

Having opened the door the first group of podminions are now rushing through it. They are finding their voice in the programmes, passing knowledge and skills onto other boys in the school and have also established a website specifically for this project at www.podminions.co.uk.

It looks great, works well and has the capacity to expand into a perfect place for a school to converse with itself and the ‘outside’ world.

If you visit and have a rootle around please fire off an e-mail to let them know what you think. A little encouragement etc….

The Knight Foundation is inviting entries to a $5 million competition to find innovative new ways to use online journalism to strengthen community life.
The 21st Century News Challenge is subtitled “who will build community through new media?”.
That’s exactly what we aim to do here, with the Grassroots Channel connecting active citizens, and Podminions providing a platform to help school pupils find their voice.
The challenge is open to everyone: individuals, companies and organisations from any country.

They don’t want the obvious:

We love citizen bloggers, but to qualify for one of these awards, you’ll have to show how what you’re doing will transform the field. Blogging about a school board meeting is valuable, but not unique.

and go on to explain why they hope to spend $5 million a year for 5 years on the intitiative:

The future of our communities, towns, suburbs, cities and states depends on the future of citizens’ ability to get the news they need to run their governments and their lives.

The goal here is to keep the values of good journalism — the fair, accurate, contextual search for the truth — as we construct the information vehicles of the future. It is news in the public interest that really makes our social worlds go round.

But when readers move from the printed newspaper to seek information online, who in cyberspace performs this function? Who is going to do in new media what Jack Knight and Jim Knight did with ink on paper in the 20^th century^?

We want to explore whether and how the digital world can be used to connect people in the real world. When we say community, we mean the real-life places where people live and work.  Truth is, online communities don’t need us.  Virtual communities spring up every day. But the idea of turning the web on its head to help people connect in real life does need our help.

We seek to bring technology to the arena of journalism values, just as we will also seek to bring journalism values into the arena of technology.

All I know about the Knight Foundation is what I’ve read on their website – a huge endowment left by the founders of what was once America’s largest local newspaper group. So if you can tell me more please do so.

In the meantime I’ve got my thinking cap on. If any one – especially in my own community in Birmingham – would like to collaborate then please get in touch.

I just want to make reference to a couple of other bloggers.
Steve Bridger has recently posted about the value of story telling for the voluntary sector and Ingrid Koehler responded on the IDeA blog. Their worlds overlap with mine through a shared interest in the NCVO ICT Foresight programme.
I wont quote what they are saying in any great depth, but encourage you to click through and read. One point Ingrid made about the value of stories grabbed my attention.

In my work, I’d love to have more of these stories, but they are notoriously difficult to gather and sometimes to articulate.

The Grassroots Channel podcast is entirely based on gathering stories of active citizens. I won’t pretend it is a doddle, and encouraging others to gather stories and share them with the channel has been difficult. However I would say that Ingrid overstates the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

Richard Sambrook (Director of the BBC’s Global News Division – but also someone who blogs outside the BBC site) has alerted us to a interesting new appeal from Charles Leadbeater who has posted drafts of his new book We-think months before it’s publication is due.

We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations.
My argument is that these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a society in which participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines.

Charles wants all of us to join the action, collaborate with refining and improving the book – boosting the contribution it can make.

Great idea. Of course the moment the presses roll it will be out of date. Or maybe not. Perhaps collectively we can generate ideas which begin to give clarity to the trends we’re experiencing.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/6321157

http://isolatr.com/

For more on the anti-social web try here.

I had a friend at University who moved back home to America once we had all graduated. She was a good friend, and regularly wrote to me. They were good letters, full of news and interesting ideas, thoughtfully composed. I loved receiving them and from time to time would pen a few short sentences and post them. More often than not though I set the letter aside – promising to reply tomorrow.

Finally a letter popped through my door. In essence it said: “I’ve been reviewing some of the things in my life and I’ve decided to edit you out.” Once I was over the shock I realised I wasn’t surprised – why keep talking to someone who’s “too busy” to reply?What was remarkable was that she had the courtesy to tell me, after all most us just let relationships wither and go looking for more rewarding conversation.

So why am I telling you this? Yesterday I spent a stimulating few hours with a group of people exploring web 2.0 technologies and their value to the voluntary sector. We had been brought together by Megan Griffith at the ICT hub of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. Our aim is to help the NCVO set out some key strategic thoughts for voluntary organisations on the risk and opportuntities that come from IT and social networking.

As I digest what I’m learning it I’ll share more thoughts.

But my first is about vol orgs, the capacity to communicate and the willingness to share. If people are telling you they want to be in your club, but you lack the will, resources, culture or even manners to maintain a conversation , then the relationship will wither. That is true whether you communicate by phone, online or letter.
If you don’t intend to attend to the relationship why start in the first place? The other side will eventually turn away and find someone who will talk.

And you’ll be very lucky if they write to you tell you why.

Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.

- wow – for more try here.