Category: Neighbourhoods

1st February 2013

Using Social Media to Improve Perceptions of Saftey

At the moment we are in the middle of a project working with the South Birmingham Safety Partnership. This involves running social media surgeries across communities in South Birmingham to improve civic conversations in those areas, get the communities and local partners talking to each other talking to each and getting their news online and hopefully by doing so positively changing their perceptions of safety.

Yesterday we had our second session in the Kings Norton. Jo Burrows, senior youth worker at the Three Estates Youth Project came along. Jo, by her own admission was a complete novice when it came to social media – she didn’t trust it – and this came through her lack of understanding of the tools that were available. After just one Social Media Surgery with us we managed to change some of those misgivings and set her up with her own blog for the Project. Here’s what she had to say :

24th January 2013

The value of Social Media in neighbourhoods and appealing to communities

Yesterday a sad thing happened; 2 children went missing. It was presumed at the time that they’d gone of their own volition and they were later found well and safe, but none the less it was an awful thing to happen.

This all happened in Darlaston, 5 miles from my house, in Wednesfield and as such when the press release went out appealing for witnesses we posted it to the WV11 site and Facebook page. We were aware that while the children weren’t strictly from the WV11 area our readership expands beyond our borders, and friends,and friends of friends, would most definitely cross over into Darlaston and the surrounding areas.

We posted the photo from the appeal along with the copied the police release verbatim, all we added to the post was two words at the end “please share”

And share people did.

Within an hour 565 people had re-posted the news direct from our facebook page and less than 2 hours later that number had jumped to 1984!

It seems to me 2 things had happened to make the numbers jump like that – every parent that uses our site could empathise with the situation these parents were in, no one can imagine, or would want to imagine, what it feels like to find your child missing like that, and going on the old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” everyone wanted to help raise awareness to bring these children home safely.

The other thing that happened was we were there, we were local and we we part of the community and we appealed to them directly with the “please share”!

Darlaston falls under Walsall Council but it is fairly close to the border with Wolverhampton. Both Councils picked up the police release and shared to their facebook pages, Walsall’s post was shared 20 times, Wolverhampton’s 136.

The local radio station, Free Radio also picked up on it and shared to their page too, Their story was shared 550 times.

Looking at those figures it seems clear that being community based and very local really had an impact on the way the community interacted with the appeal.

The important thing here of course is that the children were found and returned home safe and well, but as an observation it is interesting how much being part of a community can make a difference

7th December 2012

Hyperlocal folks in South Birmingham – a few notes from the first social media surgery in Kings Norton.

This picture shows three hyperlocal bloggers all come together through yesterday’s first Three Estates Kings Norton social media surgery.

On the left is Lynn Horsnett of the Friends of Kings Norton Park. She came along for some tips – having started a blog. We helped her make it more blog like – activating comments and looking at trackback (the way in which when one blog links to a post of another blog it appears in the comments section) and writing google friendly titles for posts. We also helped her change her twitter account and improved the prfile a little. She is though in her own right a hyperlocal blogger – but he local is a park in south Birmingham.

Lynn’s feedback was that the surgery..

helped Friends of Kings Norton Park to open its blogspot up for conversation and helped set up a twitter account, hopefully meaning we can now hear from the important people, the wider community. Love the ideas of interlinking community groups and widening networks. Social media workshops are really positive experiences.

In the middle is our own Steph Jennings – a hugely experienced hyperlocal blogger around to offer tips about her work on www.wv11.co.uk.

Beside Steph is the amazing Sas Taylor – listen here to why she and her husband Marty run the B31voices local blog. Sas was sharing her expertise with a range of people at the surgery, including Kizzy Bent of Birminghsm City Council’s Environmental Health team.

Kizzy commented after the surgery:

Sas showed me how Environmental Health can promote the work we do in Northfield District on her blog and twitter sites to ENGAGE with the residents. I was amazed and will definitely be sending regular updates to the site. The Podnosh meetings have boosted my confidence using technology and highlighted social media is the way to go to connect with a wider section of the community. Thanks I will be encouraging my colleagues to do the same.

Austin Rodriguez – of the Birmingham South Community Safety Partnerships – is working with us to run surgeries in south Bimringham, blogs in his own right on the site

http://bhamsouthcommunitysafety.com/

which brings together a lot of social media activity in South Birmingham plus news of their work. Austin helped his colleague Lewis O’Rourk.

Lewis said after the surgery

I was initially a little bit wary of social media. The session has provided me with a decent insight into the simplicity of using this mode of communication. It is easy to use, a fantastic way of engaging with people and cost effective. I will certainly be using social media in future for various projects and media campaigns.

The best thing though by miles was bringing these people together in one place – one place where they could start to share not just skills but ideas and work together. Social media surgeries are about much more than technical skills – they are about confidence and relationships and building trust to make things better.

21st October 2012

Which flip camera should I buy? – the update for 2012

A couple of years ago I wrote what turned out to be an often visited post answering the question: “which flip camera should I buy“.

Things have moved on a good bit since then (mainly that new owners Cisco decided to discontinue the flip) so I just want to update it really.

My thinking on the best kit for social reporting is very simple:

Speed counts more than quality – so shoot in standard definition not hi definition – it uploads faster.
Decent sound often counts for much more than decent pictures.
If you are using a stand alone video camera simplicity matters.
The most sensible thing to use is what you are most likely to have to hand.

So:

Zoom Q3HD

Buy the ZoomQ3HD – Hi Definition Nick you say? Yes – but don’t use it that way – change the video setting from high definition to standard definition. You get a good widescreen image. Prices have come down quite a bit over the last year or so – so you wont regret buying this one. It comes with great sound so also works as a fantastic audio only recorder. Do not buy the ZoomQ2HD – Why? Because it doesn’t come with a built in usb – and that means you’ll have lost the cabel just when you need it.

Alternatively: if you can find a standard definition Flip (ideally Mino but any) then buy it – it will probably be second hand but is small, widescreen (which tends to look the part) and very simple to use – keep it in your pocket or bag.

Use a smartphone – currently the iphone 4 onwards does a great job, and we’ve been tinkering with the Samsung Galaxy SIII – for audio use audioboo to capture.

Your ipad – that can be a fab social reporting tool. But take to get good sound – you’ll will probably need to hold your ipad or phone closer than feels comfortable for decent sound.

Good luck.