Author: Nick Booth

Looking forward to June’s Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery

May's Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery in thestudio

We’re now looking forward to the next Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery, which will be at the Studio in Central Birmingham on Tuesday June 8 between 5.30pm and 7pm. The address is 7 Cannon Street, Birmingham, West Midlands B2 5EP.

If you’re from a Birmingham-based voluntary or community group and would like to receive some friendly advice on using social media, then you can sign up for the surgery by following this link to the Social Media Surgery Plus site.

There’ll be another surgery in July and then we’re likely to take a break in August, before being back in September. I’ll give you a dates as soon as possible.

If you’re new to the Central Birmingham surgeries then you can find out a bit more about them by looking at this link. And, if you’ve never been to a social media surgery before, it might be worth reading this blog post, which attempts to explain what there all about.

It’s worth reiterating our earlier thanks to the folk at thestudio for allowing us to use their restaurant area for free. The staff have been brilliant – always very helpful and quite patient with our sometimes slightly tardy departures from the building. Hopefully the weather will be good on the 8th and we’ll be able to enjoy the terrace, too.

Although our last surgery was pretty quiet, there were some really interesting outcomes. In particular, it was heartening to see Emma Neil and Hannah Severn, who are both volunteers at the Birmingham Conservation Trust. I’ve written a little about the last surgery, which also includes a video interview with Emma and Hannah where they talk about their experiences.

It was also great to see a number of our brilliant surgeons down, including Gavin Wray, Mary Horesh of Friends of the Earth, Simon Gray, and Heidi Blanton. The surgeries wouldn’t be able to work if it wasn’t for members of the Birmingham Bloggers group, like the people I’ve mentioned above. They volunteer their time absolutely for free and have helped dozens of people.

"Is that on google or the internet?"

Thursday saw me leading a lunchtime session on social media for people who work at Advantage West Midlands.   I’d been invited by the Prospect Trade Union as part of the National Learning at Work Week.

It wasn’t my normal audience – that would be communicators, policy makers, senior officers, politicians perhaps data people. This group just had a lunchtime spare with a mind to learn something new. Curious and hungry and unaware they were about to receive the full bore of my enthusiasm for the web and civic engagement.

Questions questions

Loads of question followed – good simple straight forward ones about how things work, privacy, why you would bother.  The sort of questions we’re used to being asked at social media surgeries.   So a group refreshingly happy to ask the basics.

One really made me stop and think: “Is that on Google or the internet?”.

I was stumped for a moment.  It felt like a cartoon character has just looked up at me from a drawing and asked me to explain the world of 3 dimensions.

It’s a perfectly reasonable one mind (all questions are).  “You can find it through Google or you can go straight to the web page using the web address,”  I tried to explain, adding:  “they’re  all on the internet” to a rather puzzled frown.

It happened to be Silver Surfers this week.   I’m not keen on the idea myself but marketing minds often feel it is working and perhaps that question explains the need.

Remember the basics

If even the concept of the world wide web is still slippery for some (hence the question) how do we describe this fundamental shift in information and relationships for those who have yet to grasp it?   So I asked twitter this question:

I’m struggling for an analogy to explain the Internet to people who’ve only ever known libraries and radio etc.  any thoughts?

and these are your generous answers in the order they arrived:

parboo it’s like a library, all on… Nope, I can see why you’re struggling 😉 how’s you n yours?  (fine thanks)  ( click here for parboo’s blog)

citizensheep I’m struggling to have any thoughts at all at the moment. I’ll have a think though.  (Citizensheep is Michael Grimes and his blog shows that it’s always worth waiting for his thoughts)

josiefraser @podnosh Internet like a highway apparently http://u.nu/3dvfa if you say super highway it makes it a bit more ziggy stardust. So maybe don’t.  ( Josie’s blog)

steve_nicholls @podnosh i think @parboo was on to it there. A big reference book where instead of skimming the index, you type it in?

pauljonlevy @podnosh Like ceefax but better? You off timetravelng? LIke everybook or radio programme in the world on air at the same time?

bounder @podnosh CB Radio with librarians 😉 ?  (Jon’s blog)

redmamba @podnosh brain ?

cyberdoyle @podnosh tell them its libraries and radio on rocket fuel. similar but faster. and on tap. available on demand. if you can get a connection.

peteashton @podnosh probably no help but it’s both larger and smaller than a library. 😉 (Pete’s blog)

natashacarlish @podnosh it’s like all the books and all the radio and a whole lot more inside a tvscreen which you can access all the time

danslee @podnosh Internet? It’s like having a selection of really good books delivered to your desk. At the click of a button #librarywebanalogy (some of the stuff Dan blogs about)

red_annie @podnosh the Internet is what happened when the library, supermarket, post office, radio and tv got squished into a portable box.  (Annie’s blog)

katehughes @podnosh imagine a library so big it has all the books in the world, then imagine that instead of books, it is filled with knowledge, then imagine instead of aisles and the dewey decimal system, the information comes to you instantly and every piece of infinite information is attached to each other so you can find whatever you want from wherever you start. I love the internet. http://tl.gd/1e1lo5 (By the way Kate is cheating – she uses tweetlonger to share more than 140 characters with us!  She’s also blogs at http://socialhousingcomms.blogspot.com/.)

KazThomas @podnosh  Internet:  Encyclopedia of life filled with screens of knowledge!  I reckon that sums it up? (Karen’s blog)

BostinBloke @podnosh electronic library

parboo @steve_nicholls @podnosh yes… and it finds stuff quicker than a quick thing in a quick box and it talks too and you can put stuff in it.

One I left out of order was this:

mattbuck_hack @parboo @podnosh Is the ‘answer’ us? 😉  #copyright #gnomic #utterancesINC

I do wonder whether reading this would make the person who asked the question any the wiser but is amuses me that the tweet that most seemed to sum up my inadequate thought (which is nothing more complicated than “help”) should come from Matt Buck – a cartoonist, one who more than most might be able to explain the transition from 2 dimensions to 3.

Looking back at the first Balsall Heath Social Media Surgery

It’s been manic recently, so I’ve not had the time I really need to talk about our first social media surgery at Balsall Heath. But, now I’ve confirmed that the next surgery – again at the Balsall Heath Forum – will be on June 2 , I thought it was a good time to look at what was a fascinating and quite exciting first outing for the newest Podnosh-run event.

Quite a few Balsall Heathers (or should that be Balsall Heathans?) have been down in one capacity or another to the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgeries in the past, so it was good to see a few familiar faces coming to the Balsall Heath surgery.

Simon Whitehouse was in attendance, helping Nisha Virdi. And John Newson was also down, getting some assistance with his blog for Balsall Heath Is Our Planet from Dan Davies (who, as it happens, also lives very nearby – even if he thinks he’s in Moseley!)

But there were also many new faces who managed to make it down, including – of course – those working at the forum themselves. I spent some time helping Abdullah Rehman and Nowrah Abdul to set up a blog for the forum, which it’s nice to see they’ve been using in the week or so since the event.

Nick Booth was able to help Zainab and Dalal from the Yemeni Women and Children’s Society – and even set up this quick blog post with them on the day. And it was particularly exciting to see Zulfiqar Ali, of the Pakistani Youth Council. Zulfiqar is really good at using online tools already, but he got some help with using RSS feeds and Yahoo Pipes, which hopefully will be very helpful with some of the interesting things he’s doing.

So, all in all, lots of interesting things happened and I’m really looking forward to the next event. Hope you can make it!

To sign up to the next event, on June 2, please visit the Social Media Surgery Plus site.