Year: 2009

Stuff I've seen from July 22nd to July 25th

These are my links for July 22nd through July 25th:

  • Message in-a-Box – Do you want to use multimedia, online or offline tools to advance your cause? Creatively and effectively? To reach the broadest possible audience?
  • Helen Milner: Digital Britain sees digital inclusion emerging from the chrysalis – Helen writes: “From my point of view the evidence is clear, and it’s the link between social and digital inclusion which remains most concerning and most urgent. Those already at a disadvantage are up to seven times more likely to be digitally excluded.”
  • Jackie Hai | Convergence Commons – “There’s a simple reason why no iTunes for the news exists yet: it’s because the journalism industry has thus far failed to produce any songs worth buying. For that matter, the journalism industry has produced very few songs at all — the staggering majority of stuff being circulated today is commodity news, contextless updates with no replay value after being consumed once” via @paulbradshaw
  • ASH-10 » Echoworking – Pete Ashton on the new Moseley exchange Co-working (Cow Orking) space in Birmingham. My view is that it’s utterly brilliant that one of our neighbourhoods has such a fantastic thing for small businesses and creative types.

Social Media Help – support for local groups blogging.

If you look at the top of this page you’ll see a new set of pages called Social Media Help.  They are an extension of some work we have been doing for Groundwork UK on the Big Lottery Community Spaces fund..

With tight resources we wanted to provide some simple guidance for any community groups who use social media as they  apply for or perhaps spend the Community Spaces fund dosh.  My favourite of all is this wonderful blog post from the Friends of Abbey Gardens, but other groups are at it, including Macclesfields Skate Park group, Fairland Park, and  some consistent blogging from Roy at Meols Park.

The help section is available on their site and here.  It will also be useful for the facilitators who help groups with contracts etc.  there are 50 of them and we neither had the time or the desire to try and show all 50 how to blog etc.  For those do want to encourage local groups to use social media it’s a starting point.

The help section is available on this site and here and the end result is:

We’ve compiled some practical articles and videos to help you get the most out of using social media to tell your story. You can go through them one at a time, or dip in and out. Each section has a search facility to help you get to useful nuggets of information from trusted help and support sites.

  1. Tips for blogging with WordPress
  2. Tips for sharing pictures with Flickr
  3. Tips for sharing videos with YouTube
  4. Tips for using Twitter
  • What makes the web social?

    • It deliberatley only covers a few services because we dont want to clutter things up for beginers.  Thanks very much to Paul Henderson for pulling this together.  Feel free to use it for social media surgeries and the like.

    Westminster Council's clear new website

    Westminster City Councils bold search box
    Westminster City Council's bold search box

    I’m very keen on this bold and simple new website from Westminster City Council.  It speaks the visual language many web users already understand:  google and search.

    I also like to see good use of maps. Perhaps a next step might be for Westminster to collaboprate with local open street mappers and start using that.  Why? Because in the long term it will help alleviate copyright problems over data and maps.

    More things I've spotted on July 22nd

    Here are some of the things I’ve read today:

    • Mission Creep | Neil Williams on Twitter Stategy for Government – “You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter…” is how Neil starts this piece on his JFDI moment.
    • TH!NK ABOUT IT – european blogging competition – Homepage – TH!NK2 Climate Change is a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. 81 bloggers from Europe with featured guests from India, China Brazil and the USA, representing the world’s biggest players in climate policy, will come together on the European Journalism Centre’s thinkaboutit.eu platform, to exchange ideas and debate the issues of climate change.
    • A return to the “old skool” – Social Media challenges in the Public Sector « Carl’s Notepad – Thoughtful piece from Carl Haggerty: “Are we seeing social media facilitating a return to traditional and “old skool” values around community and neighbourhood support. I see the main difference being the “community” and the “neighbourhood” that people relate to is more complex and far reaching (offline and online) than ever before. If this is the case, then the Pubic Sector truly has a huge task ahead, not only support itself to transform the way we engage with people and our own staff, but to acknowledge those communities who are already engaged but also nurture communities (offline and online) to become part of the wider public service delivery model.”
    • Mapping Digital Inclusion Actors « CDI Europe – A really useful map of the different roles different organisations and people play in digital media, digital inclusion, democracy and civic activism from iris at CDI
    • The Stirrer – Social Media Surgeries – “The Birmingham social media group have attracted visitors from across the UK to see how it works. The model is so simple and cost free. Just bring those who have something to teach together with those who want to learn and bang a life changing concept is off.” Audrey Miller, a beneficiary of the social media surgeries sums it up quite nicely, although it’s a touch embarrassing.

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