If you’ve never seen a social media surgery before then John Popham’s video above is just about what you might expect. He shot it last night at the first such surgery in Leeds, which he started after visiting our first anniversary surgery last month.
Folk in Leeds are using a similar model to the central Birmingham surgery, you get some idea from this video at the most recent Birmingham social media surgery
It focuses on the informal and matching volunteer webby types to volunteer community types. As we found when we began these here in Birmingham, there seems to be a a great deal of enthusiasm in the digital community in West Yorkshire to get on and make things happen. Simon Duncan thought it a “great success”.
Why then do I say surgeries are spawning?
Huddersfield. Their first is next week.
York (courtesy of the comment below from the wonder John Popham) is in December.
In South Africa Marlon Parker is adapting the idea for shopping centres and the general citizen.
Cornella near Barcelona will soon have one organised by Chris Pinchen of Citilab – who visited us again in October:
Talk About Local uses the technique and has now spawned the wonderful idea of a social media tent for fetes and fairs.
Lichfield has experimented with one.
Sheffield incorporated one in Unsheffield this summer (umh “unbrum”? – I wonder).
Podnosh has run them in Acocks Green – which was featured by the Birmingham Post and now has a life of it’s own – plus Lozells. Alan Colson now also runs a social media surgery for councillors in Solihull.
Others include a more business minded approach in Nottingham, (similar to our own work at Hello Digital) SCIP in Brighton, and far afield Mosman, Australia has now used there’s to created a site for their neighbourhood.
Any Missing?
November 11th, 2009 at 1:17 pm (#)
They are so easy to run! The only problem is getting people who don’t know about it to find out, so sometimes can be slow to get started, but they can be great fun.
If you have even just a little knowledge about blogs or social media, then I would recommend going along to one of these, you may learn something, you may be able to help. Either way, it’s a nice feeling to share the knowledge.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:19 pm (#)
York SMS 9th December http://yorksms.wordpress.com/
Sheffield, Bradford, and Hull all in the planning stage.
And there is the wild, and wacky idea of doing one at next year’s Great Yorkshire Show!
November 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm (#)
Acocks Green – a fantastic success when these things take on a life of their own and become self supporting – Well done.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:18 pm (#)
Thank you – good luck in Huddersfield. The potential there is huge.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:46 am (#)
[...] After such a good start it is certainly my intention to be involved with more, and – as happened in Brum – I’m looking forward to seeing the ‘patients’ become the [...]
November 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm (#)
Hi,
We’re doing a SMS drop in this Saturday 21st November at Sheffield Univeristy Enterprise Zone (Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP) from 1-4pm. If anyone wants to come along to give us a hand/ get some advice?
More info at: http://www.bashmash.org
Hannah
January 27th, 2010 at 8:55 am (#)
[...] at a Social Media Surgery here. All local charities and voluntary organisations are invited. John Popham has done a couple of videos which may give you a feel for what the surgeries are [...]
March 8th, 2010 at 2:49 pm (#)
[...] at a Social Media Surgery here. All local charities and voluntary organisations are invited. John Popham has done a couple of videos which may give you a feel for what the surgeries are like. We’d like to know how many [...]