Podnosh

givv.org. allows you to make one monthly donation

The site www.givv.org is simply brilliant. It allows us subtle control what we give and to whom.  When you offer someone control it tends to make them feel better about doing something.

As a charity donor it allows you/me to make one single monthly payment into an account then choose how to apportion that.

If this month I want to support disaster relief I can, next month I split it between that and a home based children’s charity. In fact I can split it as many ways I like – picking up local charities for a while, changing my interests from young people to building sonervation.

I can then decide whether I let those charities know I’m supporting them or not, either joining their netowork or avoiding it.  That means I can also have some control over how many times they send me daft envelopes with silly pens in.

As a charity trustee or administrator I get one lump sum payment a month from givv.org rather than lot of different payments.  Especially for the smaller charities (such as my favourite,  Birmingham Conservation Trust) it may improve the chances to get small yet manageable donations from a much wider group of people.  When someone opts to share information with you the chances are that will also be a more fruitful relations – better rewarding the effort put into nurturing it.

It’s very clever and I hope something similar comes to Britain soon. Of course don’t let the wait put you off making a donation here  ;-)

www.justgiving.com/birminghamct/donate

Tip top hat tip for Chris Unitt.

It is with almost heart thumping glee that I get to write about the first use of a social media surgery in Africa (at least the first I now of).

I met Marlon Parker when he visited Birmingham last year.  He taught us really interesting stuff about using mobile phones and went back intent to get a social media surgery started in South Africa.

He writes:

Today was no ordinary day for the RLabs team as they launched the first African Social Media Surgery. The idea was to take Social and New Media to the public in an open space providing them with basic skills on getting started on this exciting journey. The launch was hosted by Vangate Mall in Bridgetown (Setting up of equipment above), Cape Town and 47 people actively participated by spending at least 15 minutes each with our Social Media Surgeons. These included people signing up for email accounts (gmail), Facebook as well as Twitter accounts. There were people also interested in sharing sites such as Flickr and Youtube with also the occasional person asking about blogging. Below we see Clive, one of our Social Media Surgeons, helping a couple with an email account that could be used for their small business.

The surgeons included some people who had previously learned about using social media from Marlon. One of them, Craig, sums of the group of teachers as:

ex drug addicts and ex gangsters that have completed the course: Social Media for Social Change and various other training at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Judging from this tweet surgeon and patient appreciated it (which is what we find here).

Birmingham’s Central Surgery carries on in a new venue tomorrow night. The folk at The Studio have kindly offered to host it. For more please look here.

It’s a question I’m often asked.   May I start with something simple.  I’m assuming you want something that is easy to use, easy to carry and makes video which is simple to edit and very quick to upload to the internet.  If so buy this one, the Flip Mino – but not the high definition one.

If you are going to buy a flip get this one

Why?

It is light and very easy to carry in a pocket or a bag.
I’ve used and owned the larger ones but found that the red record button was prone to stick.  On these it works like a dream.
60 minutes is plenty of recording time.
The built in usb connector is darned useful.
It does wide screen, which is nice.
There’s no point in buying the high definition one because the lens is the same and the files are just bigger and take ages to upload to the net.

Tip:  the white one if often cheaper than the black one and you’ll rarely find any for less than they sell on Amazon.

What if I want something like a Flip that isn’t a Flip?

At the moment the best reason to do that is because you want better sound. The Flip does perfectly decent sound in straightforward conditions – but make it very noisy and you start to struggle a bit.

Oddly there are not that many sensible choices. There are growing number of high definition flip type camera  that allow you to do what you can’t do with a flip – plug in an external microphone.

Dave Briggs has this very informative explanation of why it’s worth buying a Kodak Zi8:

What Dave says is right, but the point of the Flip is simplicity.  Once you have to add an external microphone, plug it in,

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera - almost but not quite

mess with it, hope it doesn’t drop out then – to keep the file size down, remember to reset the video recording quality to less than HD (for upload speed) I’m not convinced the more complex camera will be better. It does have one advantage – you can take stills.

It is still simpler to buy the Flip and ask someone to step into a quiet room to talk to them.

However sound is all important in online video so there’s a more expensive but better solution.  I bought one a few weeks ago and love the new Zoom Q3.  You can record just audio if you wish ( a still photo combined with an mp3 makes great content) and will record very simple video with great audio. There’s a built in USB connector, you can use and sd card and the file sizes are weeny – so whizz up to the net.

This is what @documentally says about it – and I agree with him:

What then is special about it?:

Robust
Same ease of use at the Flip
Great sound without needing an external mic
Low resolution video – hence small file sizes.
Does just audio in great quality

So for for me the almost ultimate is the Zoom Q3 – give me widescreen yet low def video on the Zoom Q4 and I’ll be a very happy man.

Beth Speaking from elstudio on Flickr (click on the picture to go to the original)

Beth Kanter is the social media expert for non profit organisations. Last year I made this promise to pay more attention to her prolific blog output.

Today is her 53rd birthday, and in keeping with a small tradition built up over the last 3 years, she is again using her birthday as an excuse to show how social media and trusted networks can combine to help charities. She is raising funds for her favourite charity, the Sharing Foundation.

I first met Beth almost exactly 3 years ago when she visited Birmingham from her home in Boston, New England. She was  working with David Wilcox to deliver a presentation at a conference for people who provide IT support for charities and the like.  It was a time when social media had not become the generic term it is now. I was mostly thought of as a podcaster, one of the one’s who’s job it was to help with telling the story. So naturally enough I interviewed her for the Grassroots Channel podcast.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Here are 5 things things that I know a number of people have helped me understand, but I can confidently say that Beth Kanter repeatedly showed me these ways:

1. Lead by example. Beth experiments all the time.  Just (F) Do It is ingrained in her personality.  The more I’ve done the same the more confidence it’s given me to keep on going.
2. Don’t hog your content. Share it and move on. You should always build your expertise on the next new thing you’re going to learn, rather than worry about others getting good at one you already know. The faster you share the faster you learn that new thing.
3. Respond. Beth has 305,000 followers on Twitter. She still gets back to you!  How does she manage it?  Discipline.
4. Blogging isn’t a vain thing to do. It can be but, the way Beth does it, it isn’t.  She writes a great deal about the people she meets, she is very generous in describing what she is learning from them. She also puts huge amounts of effort in doing thinking for us and sharing it when it’s incomplete.  These are things Beth (and others) taught me about content.
5. It’s about bringing people together. As David Wilcox said it 3 years ago:    “The other delight at the event was a chance to meet up with fellow UK enthusiasts for social media including Steve Bridger, Miles Maier, Paul Henderson and Nick Booth. We can’t rival Beth’s US fellow social media bloggers yet, but I think a little blog community is emerging here around social media and social network where the focus is nonprofits and civil society. Drop a comment in here if you are interested in linking up – we hope to have a get together fairly soon. Beth suggested we start tagging social media posts with nptechuk … the standard US tag is nptech.”

There is so much more I learn from Beth but these are the basics. That’s why at least once a year I donate something to the Sharing Foundation.  Not because I’m especially connected to the work of the foundation, simply because I’m am especially connected to Beth.

Thanks to Amy and Stacey for encouraging me to write this post.

Stuffed full of mince pies and still dozy from the mulled wine? Time to get back into action and put your serous Social Media cap on for 2010. We took a break in December, and instead held a Social Media Surgery Social (phew!) for all those who had attended or helped at Birmingham surgeries in the year. Now we’re back to work full of ideas for how we can use the web to aid what we do. So schedule in the January surgery to your diaries now.

The next CENTRAL Birmingham Social Media Surgery will take place on Wednesday 20 January from 5.30-7pm at our new venue – thestudio.

We moved venues from Fazeley Studios in Digbeth (above) to thestudio on Cannon Street because we found during the winter months people were reluctant to make the dark evening walk to Fazeley street. Thestudio is bang in the middle of the city centre (see directions below) and couldn’t be easier to get to.

Situated on 7 Cannon Street, B5 5EP. To get to Cannon Street take a right turn off New Street after H&M. You can see the location on their map here.

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This week sees the launch of  www.birminghambeheard.org.uk – a database of consultations about and from Birmingham.

Typically the consultations stretch back about 3 years and involve the various organisations which form Be Birmingham, the local strategic partnership.

The site itself has been made by an internal team at Birmingham City Council.  We were approached to make a a promotional video, which ended up being very practical: a simple to guide to how to start using the site:

You’ll notice one other thing which has happened since we made the film.  The site has an RSS feed.  It gives you general updates and the moment and I’m sure they’d be willing to consider a wider variety of  rss feeds – for example by ward or constituency if you think that would help you. So  there’s room to offer feedback here, use it if you get a moment.

Joshua Barwell and Carl Sheward

Carl Sheward and Joshua Barwell are two Junior Volunteer playworkers at Pype Hayes Community Focus. Both 16-years-old, when they are not studying for AS-levels they are spending their free time getting those younger than them involved, doing fun days and activities.

For their effort and heart for the community at such a young age, the Junior Playworker Co-ordinator has nominated them both for the Young Persons Birmingham Local Hearts award. They both agree the work is rewarding, and possibly see themselves forging a career in community work.  Here’s their story.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Dolores Pinkney and Kevin Duffy

This is the story of Dolores Pinkney who runs the Dojo project in Handworth. She has been working tirelessly for her community since she moved to Birmingham with her family in the 1960s, and now she has been nominated by Kevin Duffy for Birmingham City Council’s Local Hearts Awards in the active citizen category.

She says her parents were her inspiration – they opened up their home to everyone in the area and it became a focal point of the community. Now with her brother Hector, who works at Handsworth Library, Dolores has continued her parents’ legacy with the Dojo project.   It ranges from jogging sessions on Tuesdays & Sundays to securing the lease to build a community play centre on the derelict site of the Hockley flyover.

Dolores says her motivation is “encouraging everyone that we meet, enabling and empowering,” and if someone is there who needs help, she cannot turn them away. Here’s her story.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Chris Birdsell and Bob Flack

Chris Birdsell isn’t your average pub landlord. Along with running the Varsity pub in Harborne, Chris is chairman of the local “pub watch” which alerts police to incidents on the High Street, he’s on the committee for the Harborne Traders Association, Harborne Village Centre Partnership and on the committee for Harborne Carnival. He’ll know who to put you in touch with, and regularly opens up the pub for community events.

Harborne Village Centre Manager, Bob Flack, nominated Chris in the active citizen category for the Birmingham Local Hearts award, because he recognised the innovation he has for local projects and the ability to drive projects to their end. Chris recently started a local artists evening – allowing those in the community to showcase their work. He said he always has people coming into the pub asking for help, and often he will find ways to help the people help themselves – opening the pub in the evening for them to hold fundraising events and meetings, and putting them in touch with the right people.

Chris has been described as the eyes and ears of the community, and said his motivation has to be the people. Here’s his story.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Noorin Ahktar

Noorin Ahktar wants to change Britain. She goes out interviewing the people at the top – leaders of the council, councillors, public service providers and holds them to account in a way accessible to her community. Her aim is to make sure some communities know about the changes being made in public services – she promotes and raises awareness in ethnic communities – she now has a rogramme called ‘Community Time’. She has set up a blog, and uses radio and tv channels to make the short programmes in English, Urdu, Punjabi, and a number of different languages.

Noorin thinks some communities are wrongly perceived as ‘hard to reach’ – she challenges this point of view with her truly innovative and brilliant work. Her inspiration is the fact if people of aware of what is going on around them, they will have the knowledge to be able to do things.

Manjit Singh nominated Noorin for the active citizen award, one of the shortlist categories for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Awards.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast