Tag: Snnprofit

Grassroots Channel Spiked by the iPhone

13,587 programmes were downloaded from the Grassroots Channel Podcast in December 2007, 30% up on both November 2007 and the month just finished, January 2008. Would I be right to speculate that this mini spike is caused by Christmas playtime for people with the new iPhones and iPods?

No help from looking at the figures for the previous Christmas. December 2006 saw 3786 programmes downloaded, but in January 2007 you lot consumed 5219 programmes – an increase caused mostly by us putting 8 new programmes and a pdf on the channel in 1 rather bonkers month.

December 2007 was not only our best month for downloads, it was the moment when the total number of Grassroots Channel programmes delivered breached the 100,000 mark. (Smile to ones-self – punch air). The channel sets out to (mostly) tell the stories of active citizens in Birmingham’s neighbourhoods.

The most popular programmes since our first outing in October 2005 have been:

1.Soweto Kinch on life in B19. The award winning brummie Jazz star (Amazon here) on his remarkable album collaboration with Moira Stuart and why he still lives in B19.

2. It Shouldn’t be So Common. Simon Walker of Curio City talks about the murder of Alex Mendez, who visited Birmingham from his home city of Boston to support this project in Ladywood.

3. I am the Grass Now. The neighbours from Balsall Heath who volunteer to keep open Edward Road Police Station.

4. Does no Pay Make you Powerful? Linda Hines and Michelle Ashmore of Witton Lodge Community Association get tearful as they talk about how people power is transforming Perry Common.

5. Generating Market Forces. The story behind Kings Norton farmers market.

£50 million for the Black Country or let the cyclists freewheel to a win?

We’re in the final days before voting closes for the People’s £50 Million. I’m backing the Black Country Urban Park. First because they’re our neighbours and also because it is a remarkable part of the country – with huge potential for being home to a better way of living.

But, if the blogosphere is anything to go by, perhaps the national Sustrans cycling and walking network is in the lead. (Update – thanks to Nunovo for some work suggesting this may be the case – see comments on this post.) Of course it matters less to more places, whereas the Black Country bid matters much more to fewer places.

With this in mind Jon Bounds and I are using upyerbrum to help promote the cause and encourage you lot to vote for the Black Country Urban Park over three other competitors (ops did I forget to link to them!) for this £50 million slab of the Big Lottery Fund.

We’ve already created a Facebook application (add it please and message your mates – they can use it to link to the vote). Now we bring you this stylish yet simple animated badge (look right) which you can add to your blog or website. Find the code here.

I imagined the campaign would all hinge of the phone vote at the end of this week. But the programmes on ITV 1 have been shown late – after the local news. As a result of the low audience and low energy of the TV side of the competition I think the winners will be those who get their networks voting. So who’s out there Standing UP for the Black Country?

First thank you Duncan Borrowman for changing your vote – and all on the basis of a reasoned argument from Colin Ross in Wolverhampton. Thank you also to Granny’s Buttons who cogently argues that any and all canal towpath users should Stand Up for the Black Country.

Next on the list is the irrepressible Donato at Bostin, who’s been using his Facebook group and his Myspace friends to yell his support. Spaghetti Gazetti is also firmly onside, along with the Halesowen Innuendo Society (and yes do look away if you’re squeamish). Bridgette McKenzie isn’t sure which way to go – (vote Black Country Bridget) while Toyah is shouting for us online. Passionate Media are (is?) not only voting the right way they’re also sporting our blog badge (thanks).

Dave Radcliffe (a Lib Dem) takes a pop at the Minister (Labour) for the West Midlands for supporting the Black Country when the Sustrans project will bring minor benefit to Brum. Nonsense Dave, £50 million iin the Black Country will have far more benefit to Brum. Telford seems to share that vision whilst Birmingham is fudging it’s support in a very positive way.

Pete at Created in Birmingham has already voted for Sustrans (update/correction is most supportive of this project – see clarification below) – but (like Birmingham Council) also wanted to point to the Black Country campaign. Local politicians should be linking like mad – just as Steven Frear and Bob Piper are (very polite Bob) and of course the bid has p-p-p-picked up support from Political Penguin with a fab sideshow of images.

So please use the badge, vote, email your friends, Facebook your chums Myspace your mums. Please just do it.

Others I’ve missed supporting the Black Country Urban Park

West Brom Blogger.

Neil Dixon.

Russ L at Oh.

BCT.

BiNS goes all Black Country it’s Not S**t, despite this earlier post railing at regen lotteries.

Governor 2.0, Tanya Byron and the Digital Media Literacy Summit

Thursday morning and the phone goes. My kids’ secondary school. “Gawd”, I think, “I need to catch a train to London”. Don’t panic. No accident, no expulsions. It turns out I’ve been elected one of four parent governors.

I can be slow at times – because I spent the rest of the day at the Digital Media Literacy Summit before it dawned on me that perhaps one of the most useful things I could do as a school governor is encourage the school to exploit the social web. With this in mind I ask around at the conference for some advice:

Tanya Byron gave me a couple of tips which you can hear in the podcast below. She’s currently running a government review (consultation ends on the 30th November) on the balance between safety and opportunity for young people both online and in the gaming world. Adam Fahey, himself a school governor, was hugely encouraging including advice on tactics – such as getting on the best committees and finding advocates within schools.

The Age of Tactics.

Tactics stuck out for me at the summit. Chanel 4 Commissioning Editor for education and new media, Matt Locke told us that social web evangelists need to think of this as as much a time for tactics as strategy. This absolutely chimes with my experience where I know organisations can benefit from new ideas and connections generated on the social web – the real issues is how to get them deep enough into the experience to understand the potential.

He also helped us picture the geography of social networking – the combination of Secret Spaces, Group Spaces, Publishing Spaces, Performing Spaces, Participation Spaces and Watching Spaces.

Jon Gisby – the Former MD of Yahoo in the UK – gave one obvious tactical solution – access to the right people. He correctly argues that equipment is not so important, the key for improving digital media literacy is to ensure that there are enough people who understand in the right places. So can we seed places with evangelists, unleash the passions of those already there.

Ewan McIntosh was downright inspiring. He warned of the problem of education being run by 21st century illiterates and said so much more which requires some digestion.

Tim Davies brought us back to a fundamental issue of strategy.

It continues to surprise me how often different standards are uncritically applied to young people and to adults. The justification for the difference is assumed, but never articulated.

As a governor my aim must be to help educate young people to understand and negotiate risk and opportunity. My experience teaching social media (with both adults and children) is that you can only really understand/learn by doing. So, in theory, the more young people do the more literate and hence safer they should become.

For an overview of the point of the summit please watch Peter Packer.  Also there Daniel Snell,  Gareth Morlais, Nick Reynolds, Kevin Anderson and Hilary Perkins.

Net2ThinkTank: It's the shopping season – so get your supporters shopping for your cause.

Britt Bravo at Netsquared has thrown out this question: How Can Nonprofits Use the Social Web During the “Giving Season”?

The truth is that this is the shopping season – so make the most of it with something that’s a touch web 1.5.

Sign up for an affiliate site and encourage your supporters to use it for some of their Christmas shopping. Over at the Birmingham Conservation Trust we opened this shop through buy.at. We chose it because it has a number of key high street brands which have a lot of public trust – which is important when you are thinking about how people may perceive your charity.

You can buy everything from a case of wine for Christmas through to the holiday you’ll need to recover afterwards, the clothes you’ll wear to the works Christmas party and even those utterly useless presents bought for uncles you barley know.

We don’t litter our website with affiliate links but simply encourage our networks to use it for their shopping. You can apply all of the tools of web 2.0 to encourage people to support you at no cost to themselves. Add it as an item on social networking sites, send the link to friends on facebook who share an interest with you or live in a neighbourhood relevant to the charity, perhaps even use it as a url when you leave comments on people’s blogs.

Be warned, it can be difficult to get people into the habit of using your affiliate site.

On www.buy.at/birminghamconservation we have one stationery trader, Euroffice, who offers 8% on just about all purchases. With deals like that why not talk to businesses you know and ask them to start consider routinely using the service to buy their office supplies.

Of course the more flexible your affiliate provider is the better for you.

I’ve got mixed feelings about perfiliate who runs buy.at.  You can’t create links to specific products or traders – which seems a little complacent on their part. For example the National Trust will pay us £20 for everyone who signs up to them through our buy.at shop. That’s a natural tie in. If we could email a link to that offer direct to our mailing list it could allow us to raise money quickly with minimal effort. But we can’t – the best we can hope for is that our supporters will wade through a series of links to. So any suggestions for a better affiliate welcome.