Category: Uncategorized

Social Media and chalk.

York art gallery

Abby Corfan from Audiences Central explains very neatly how social media is not about technology:

I strongly believe that social media doesn’t need to rely on super shiny gadgets or fancy websites- in fact it’s so much more about the ‘social’ part than the ‘media’.

Which leads me to this example: At York City Art Gallery they recently invited people to comment and write messages under works of art using blackboard and chalk. It was for an exhibition curated by Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl with a Pearl Earring) who chose pieces from the gallery’s collection which depicted parts of stories. These were hung with a blackboard border and gallery attenders were invited to write suggestions for the beginning and ends of those stories around the artworks. This is not a new technology, but it is an application of the principles of sharing, commenting and engaging in a dialogue; which to me is exactly what social media is for.

Agreed.

What Amanda Learnt from Twestival

Beth Kanter has written a really thorough piece about Twestival as an online and social fundraising model. I would heartily recommend you read her post based around a conversation with the woman behind Twestival: Amanda Rose. Beth has this summary of lessons from Amanda:

1) Don’t Spearhead A Worldwide Event Alone.   Amanda says the next Twestival needs a better system and more capacity for managing the large number of cities and volunteers that want to participate. She notes, “I believe I did the best I could under the circumstances but felt really frustrated because I wanted to give city organizers all of the resources they asked for but either physically didn’t have time or capacity to implement.”

2) Providing A Better Virtual Hub To Support Volunteers.   Amanda says the website was a key element in reaching out to the cities and that she was not prepared for the amount of work that went into setting it up.  Says Amanda, “Even through this was a volunteer-run event, there was a level of expectation from people once they signed up.  I think most understood that we were doing the best we could with our resources and limited time – but it was frustrating not to be able to offer them something beyond a blog to connect and share.”

3) Be more prepared to work internationally.   Amanda says it was difficult to work with cities around the world, all with different financial systems, fundraising approaches, and cultures.

4) Set up a system for incoming donations to be aggregated quickly and easily.   Donations were coming in from several streams, including Amiando, Tipjoy, Paypal,  and cash donations.  This made it difficult to tabulate the amount raised quickly.  In addition, being able to produce real time tracking reports that showed how much each city still had to work to achieve their original fundraising target would have motivated them and spawned a bit of friendly competition.

5) Extend the planning timeline to 2-3 months.   Amanda admits that it was stressful to work under these very tight timelines.  “However, not unlike Twitter which is restricted to 140 characters, I wanted to challenge everyone to see what we could do in the span of a few weeks.  This generated a lot of buzz and enthuasiasm on Twitter and extended offline.”  Amanda observes that volunteers were amazed with what they could do in this short a timeline and the amount of creativity that surfaced was truly inspiring.  Amanda points out, “Hawaii raised over $7k in 9 days, Toronto $10k in about 15 days.  What we are left with now are international teams who have a passion to do this again – only bigger.  The feedback so far has been incredible and many cities feel disappointed that they couldn’t reach their goal this time; but the amount of awareness they were able to generate through their community or local press is a testament to their hard work.”

People who’ve blogged after going to Twestival in Birmingham include:

John at 383project – who picked up the baton of brumtwestival when Amanda asked – says: “Well that was it folks! Only a few weeks since we first speculated about the possibility of organising a Birmingham Twestival and it actually happened. Thursday night saw Birmingham gather with over 175 cities around the world to get together and raise money for Charity: Water. The turnout was amazing and saw 185(ish) local tweeple make it down for an evening of music, raffles, games and general fun. To cap it off, the total raised was  a superb £1519!”

Digital Birmingham’s Simon Whitehouse wrote: “So, well done and a big thank you to the BrumTwestival organisers – and I nearly forgot to say what a thoroughly enjoyable night they laid on, didn’t I?  Well, they did.   It was a lot of fun, most of which I won’t put on a work blog ;0)”

Any more?

Control Shift – The Conservatives on Local Government

With a name like Control Shift it would be rude not to blog about Conservative plans for local government. You can download the whole document here, this summary is taken from here:

Control Shift’, our decentralisation green paper, outlines a series of policies that will see powers transferred from the central state to local people and local institutions:

  1. Abolishing all regional planning and housing powers exercised by regional government, returning powers and discretion back to local communities
  2. Creating bottom-up incentives for house building, by allowing councils to benefit more from the increase in council tax revenues from new homes, rather than being equalised away by Whitehall
  3. Allowing councils to establish their own local enterprise partnerships to take over the economic development functions and funding of the Regional Development Agencies
  4. Giving local authorities a new discretionary power to levy business rate discounts, allowing them to help local shops and services, such as rural pubs or post offices
  5. Provide citizens in all large cities with the opportunity to choose whether to have an elected mayor, through mayoral referendums
  6. Greater use of direct democracy, including allowing residents to veto high council tax rises, and instigating local referendums on local issues
  7. Requiring councils to publish detailed information online on expenditure by local councils – including the pay and perks of senior staff, and issuing new guidance to stop ‘rewards for failure’ to sacked town hall staff.
    Caroline Spelman, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said, “It’s not just about empowering local government; we want to empower the people it serves so that they can have more say in how much of their money they want their council to spend on their behalf.”

In the Guardian David Cameron writes:

Many worry that decentralisation is a step backwards. But localism isn’t some romantic attachment to the past. It is absolutely essential to our economic, social and political future. If our local economies are vibrant and strong we are far less vulnerable to global shocks or the failures of a few dominant industries. If people know that their actions can make a real difference to their local communities, they’re far more motivated to get involved – and civic pride is revived. If local government is both more powerful and more accountable, we can start to restore the trust that’s been lost in our political system. It’s for these practical reasons that I am a confirmed localist, committed to turning Britain’s pyramid of power on its head.

To my mind the green paper appears to be suggesting very modest shifts of power towards anything that resembles local. A presumption that local councillors should have money to spend in their patch is about as close to home as it seems to get. It seems to embody the same struggle that the mainstream media is having with understanding what is local. Local radio is rarely what I would consider local – likewise local government. The question remains how can government (rather the people who spend public money)  really get involved in useful conversations at a local level – ones which will improve decision making.

Links – Speak to Geeks plus more on Social Brum.

Social Birmingham.  Swedish Journalist Axel Anden travels to Birmingham to see if it’s true that we use social media for social good in a uniquely vibrant way. (He’ll report in Swedish in good time)
Speak to a Geek – Manchester does social media surgeries for vol orgs. Love the name – good luck.
Greenslade is cheerful about Fort Dunlop – Birmingham Post et al praised:  “my visit to Fort Dunlop last Friday dispelled every one of those concerns (and prejudices). I found instead a vibrant newspaper office on a vast scale, operating with the kind of journalistic enterprise that was heartening to see and to experience.”

We are glum about losing Jo Geary to the times. (Congrats bab)