BAD08 Birmingham Social Media Surgery: provisional results

Chris Unitt on flickr

I was enormously proud of all the people who turned up today to help voluntary groups in Birmingham better understand the power of the social web.  I’ll revise this tomorrow but just want to pop up some links before stopping for the day….

http://gerimoshers.wordpress.com/  is the new experimental blog of one visitor who will use it to explore social media before plunging her network of volunteers who support victims of domestic violence into the world of the conversational web.   Why this blog?  She wants to write about older folk who like to mosh!

http://jdcbirmingham.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/our-new-blog/ is the first full post for a blog established for the Birmingham branch of the Jubilee debt campaign.  This might be their first trackback!

8 tea arts blog.

Leonardo experienced an epiphany in audio.

We didn’t stop. Lots of social media types were helping several people at once.  About 14 folk turned up to offer knowledge, I reckon closer to 3 times that came looking for help. The photo above is the room we booked, others spilled out into the hall ways where they talked and looked and listened and learnt.   When we called a halt some people moaned and asked for more!

So I’ll find the other posts for this tomorrow, digest and re-write. If I’ve missed a blog created there let me know and I’ll add. But in the meantime thanks to BVSC for supporting the idea and to everyone who came along and helped spread the word.

21 comments

  1. Well done – I gave a quick mention to this on my blog – sounds like you all really enjoyed it and no doubt lots of new ideas will emerge – keep us posted and really sorry I couldn’t make it to help out.

  2. David Wilcox says:

    Nick – what an inspiration to us complacent bunch in London mostly talking to each other:-) Maybe the arrival of Amy Sample Ward from the US to bring Net Tuesday and more from Netsquared will be a catalyst. I’ll point Amy over

  3. Louise says:

    Well done Nick, Paul W, Paul H and everyone who made the surgery happen. I’m totally inspired by what a few people with enthusiasm and a few hours can achieve, count me in for London!

  4. Rachel Beer says:

    Wow – looks like this was a huge success, Nick. Brilliant stuff. Really inspiring.
    I’ve been thinking NFPtweetup, on 24th Nov, could work in a similar way. Would be a more positive use of our time than just a get together.
    What are your thoughts?

  5. Rachel says:

    This is such an incredibly exciting thing – the more we can use new technology to get interesting and valuable stories and activities out there the more vibrant a place Birmingham will be. We really can bypass the usual channels, it’s wonderful that it’s being embraced so widely! Can’t wait to get stuck in…

  6. Nick Booth says:

    Go for it Rachel.

    We organised this in a week using our own networks and those of the third sector organisations in Birmingham. Time of day though is important – a lot of community groups and vol orgs folk also have work to go to. This was 5.30pm to 7.30pm.

    We described it as a surgery and come any time, but most people turned up at 5.30 – which meant we were rushed from the first moment, so stressing the come any time or perhaps even staggering into two sessions, the 5.30 one and a 6.30 start might help.

  7. Monica says:

    thnaks for helping me set up my blog!

    you were are a nice friendly and very helpfull bunch.

    I hope you do this sort of thing again…as i now need to learn how to use my blog…i’m anything to do with computer’s ill-literate ( or maybe thats insulting the term!)

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