Month: May 2008

Jazz is Gangster: Soweto Kinch as Active Citizen.

A Clare Edwards tweet alerted me to the video above which is promoting Soweto Kinch‘s Flyover Show (May 31st underneath the Hockley Flyover in Birmingham (and its free). The fact that this is happening is proof of Soweto’s credentials as an active citizen – one of those leaders who’s persistence makes sure a vision comes together. In this case he’s using music and the space under the flyover (and border between gang territories?) to bring together a community.

He talked about his frustration with trying to make unique things happen in his neighbourhood when I interviewed him on the Grassroots Channel from his home overlooking the flyover. (click here for the mp3 or scroll down to listen)

That was in October 2006 – nearly two years later he’s finally got there and I suspect this will be a great event.

You might also like to read the following

Created in Brum from a while back.

As above but more recently…

Birmingham Eastside.

Jazz Breakfast.

Clare Edwards who’s skills have helped Soweto get the flyover gig going.

Andy Derrick.

Bobbie Jane Gardner who quotes Soweto as saying “Digital technology is an important tool that enables and allows for democracy”.

 

Marc Reeves, The Birmingham Post and Five fine questions on blogging.

5 questions from dieselbug2007 on flickr

I love a blog post which asks a good question. This lunchtime the editor of the Birmingham Post, Marc Reeves, popped up five corkers as he wrote about how one of his guest (corrected thanks to Jon) bloggers had attracted a good chunk of derision from readers for this post and this one.

So those questions…

  1. Is a blog a tool only for individuals rather than media brands or organisations: A blog is one of two things – a stream of information attached to an RSS feed – or a tool for conversation. I’ve never managed to hold very enjoyable conversations with a brand or an organisation. So I plump firmly for the individual here.
  2. What ‘control’ should a host brand such as the Post impose on its individual bloggers? As much as you like – you’re the boss. The problem is that if you assert too much control then the fun part of the blogging will go away, because your writers will be looking over their shoulder and the readers will sense they’re neutered. Two questions to ask yourself: What is news? if you describe something as a news blog what would you expect to find in it? What reasons would be good enough to ask someone to stop blogging? Clearly a contemptuous attitude to libel might be one. Would racism be another? How about 3 boring posts and your out. They’re a bit of an idiot? Again, you’re the boss…
  3. What are the Post’s brand values in the eyes of readers? – In my eyes – changing. I think the quality which will most endear me to the post is openess and transparency because that creates the opportunity for an intelligent debate, which this city needs and the Post is well positioned to host. Coupled with lots of photos of people holding glasses of wine and standing next to Brian Woods Scawen.
  4. Are traditional news brands inherently incapable of adapting to the new – two-way – nature of online journalism? No – some journalists might be, but they shouldn’t be blamed for that. You’ve got to be quick though. Just look at the falling revenue from all those estate agents trying to save money on their advertising budgets.
  5. What now constitutes expertise in a given field? Fastest finger on google? Nah – too flippant. It is the depth of thought that I admire. Why? Because the web has made it easier than ever for us all to passionately hold to half thought through or borrowed ideas. I also reckon that highly networked people are well placed to be experts because they have access not just to information but other people’s brains to help them think through ideas. Did I just describe a university?

I also suggest you read the comments section on the post, many of my answers are echoed there.
(Marc – you just got 4 links with one post!)

Twitter commentary on Birmingham City Council Live election results streaming

Twitter Birmingham Election Streaming 2008

To read more twitter responses to the very enjoyable and very local live streaming of the election results in Birmingham please look here. I enjoyed the streaming (hosted by Adrian Goldberg) but the text service (link here) was clumsy and the media pack only available as a pdf – which is bonkers ‘cos it should also have been full web pages (a culture that thinks in print/document terms?).

Election Bloggers Elsewhere:

Getting on the telly does help bloggers get comments – have a gander at Alix from the Lib Dems, Luke for Labour and Iain Dale for the Tories who were the BBC’s election bloggers. Even Ewan Spence managed a bit of the action. The BBC’s Emily Maitlis kept updating reports but no comments function and no trackback means that wasn’t my idea of blogging.

Other Links:

Birmingham 2008 Election results here.

Upyerbrum.

Vale Mail.

West Brom Blog.

At 3 am May 2nd Wikipedia was not updated.

Yahoo Pipe bashed together by Paul Bradshaw.

and a Journalist asks for sympathy!

Major thanks to Jon Bounds for starting and encouraging the shared election twitter. Update The morning after, this is he how he summed up the experience:

The actual conversation bounced between pub-style debate, willful surrealism, and the kind of listening and reacting to the actual words that microblogging really helps — collating the “did he really just say that?” factor between other viewers rather than waiting for the host to pick the politician up.

Four hours of it made us all flag, but it really was a worthwhile experience and in two years (when the local elections come around again) I really hope the council harness the conversation in some way too. It doesn’t have to be twitter (which, considering the UK local elections borked it, may not be around) but it was really powerful – and if publicised widely could be really useful.

Whilst Pete Ashton describes the evening here on the Birmingham Post blogs