Tag: Social Media Surgery

Who are social media surgeries for?

Melissa helping someone learn about Facebook at Dudley Social Media Surgery

This post summarises emails I’ve sent in response to enquiries about the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery I coordinate – and advice to other Surgery Managers.

It’s about my personal take on what – and specifically who – the surgeries are for. It also stems from feeling protective of the helpers who volunteer their time and skills for free at the surgery, the very social capital that makes the surgery work.

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What skills do I need to become a social media surgeon?

two people ata a social media surgrey laughing
A Social Media Surgery in Dudley – image from Gavin Wray

This was the question Beatrice asked me. She wasn’t sure if she could help as a surgeon at one of these events designed to support local community and voluntary organisations in a relaxed one to one format:

I would like to make myself useful helping other people and I would like to know what skills I would need to be a good social media surgeon.

I am not a technical person by background. I have, however, spent a fair amount of time on the internet and it would be good to know what skills would be in demand at such an event.

It seems I have a bit of time to mug up on skills before the event but I’d be grateful for any advice on where to focus. Twitter is my platform of choice. I have just splashed out on a camcorder and digital recorder but I doubt I will feel confident with these tools before the event. Can I still be a useful person if I stick to Twitter/Facebook/general internet skills?

Oh yes – very. The fact that Beatrice wants to help is really the most important skill/thing she needs – but I also replied with:

  1. Ability to ask simple questions like “what are you trying to achieve” or perhaps  “how do you use the web at the moment”
  2. Willingness to listen to the answers
  3. Enough knowledge/experience of say twitter or blogging or facebook to be a couple of steps ahead of the person you’re helping.
  4. Patience, willingness to ask for help from another surgeon if they ask you something you can’t answer (including ability to google to answer questions you can’t answer)
  5. Ideally a laptop or similar so you can show people how the social web works in your experience.

That’s about it really! A sense of fun helps too (see the pic above of “surgeon” and “patient” in Dudley).

For other thoughts on keeping it simple at surgeries please see our recipe and later clarification.

Lozells & Birchfield Social Media Surgery, Small and perfectly formed.

I have been helping at a couple of surgeries now including the well established Central Birmingham Surgery and the Wolverhampton Surgery which I helped to get started and each one is different.

Lozells and Birchfield surgery is small and whilst the Central Birmingham surgery is run through podnosh on a voluntary basis this one forms part of our paid work.

Today I returned to Lozells Methodist Church to help the surgery manager Jo Burrill from our client  Midland Heart – a social housing organisation who work hard in communities, and 4 patients who’d registered for today. Selwyn looking for support with his email, Chris and Kevin both with WordPress enquires and Verona who wanted some help posting to a website. It was a nice number and while I helped Chris with his stuff and Jo helped Verona with hers the others got chatting and Kevin turned into an impromptu surgeon to help support Selwyn with his email problems – every one left  happy having received  the help they needed.

Everyone who has attended each of these surgeries either surgeon or patient has left satisfied with their input and that is is the measure of their success, it’s not the number of people that come through the door but being able to help the people that are there. So while in comparison to the to the city centre surgeries of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, Lozells and Birchfield’s Neighbourhood Surgery is small but it’s definitely perfectly formed.

Spotlight on international social media surgeries

Social media surgery at COCAP Nepal

Photo by Mero Report: Social Media Surgery at COCAP, Nepal

Social media surgeries in the UK received lots of attention last Thursday when the Prime Minister recognised the social media surgery movement with a Big Society Award for 2012.

Nick posted about the award and mentioned the wonderful people who have organised surgeries over the last three years in the UK. They’re enthusiastic, generous people who make stuff happen.

While the Big Society Awards acknowledge individuals and organisations across the UK that demonstrate the Big Society in their work or activities, I thought I should mention the surgeries outside the UK. It’s great to see an idea that originated in Birmingham spread to other shores – and I’m keen to hear how the surgeries are working in other countries.

Here are the wonderful people who have taken the social media surgery model abroad and run their own events:

Carolyn Deuchar, a Senior Research Officer at New Zealand Tourism and Research Institute, also likes the idea:

"Am loving this: Social media surgeries to support local community & voluntary organisations"

Do you know other surgeries I haven’t mentioned here?

Updated 12th March 2012: Kultwerk West are holding a social media surgery in Hamburg on 14th May 2012, the first to take place in Germany.