Tag: Third Sector

Stuff I've seen September 13th through to September 14th

These are my links for September 13th through September 14th:

  • Free Wireless Broadband – Community – Our offer to communities throughout the UK is simple…… let us know why your community needs WiFi and we will come and install a totally free service in a public place, for 3 years (or longer if we find sponsors to pay for it). We currently have enough in the fund to pay for 50 communities in the UK.

    Freerunner have also partnered with JustGiving.com to put free WiFi Internet access where its really needed – charities. If you charity has a broadband connection we will come and install the Freerunner service for free in your location. Its perfect for charity shops as it gives people another reason to visit. It also gives you the chance to help bridge the digital divide. JustGiving.com and Freerunner have committed to provide this service to 500 charities, totally free of charge, forever.

  • Patry’s MORAL PANICS AND THE COPYRIGHT WARS: elegant, calm, reasonable history of the copyfight – Boing Boing – Cory Doctorow reviewing: "Patry's Moral Panics stands out for the sheer, unadorned calm of his approach. Patry doesn't have a lot of rhetorical flourish or prose fireworks. Instead, he tells the story of copyright in plain, thoughtful words, with much rigor and grace. Reading Moral Panics is like watching a master brick layer gracefully and effortlessly build a solid wall: no wasted motion, no sweat, no missteps. Patry knows this subject better than anyone and can really explain it."
  • The Barcelona Update Blog » Free Wifi in Barcelona – a new council sponsored scheme – This Barcelona blogger says: "All in all, we applaud the Council for their forward looking attitude – particularly as they are restricted by law in what they can do. However, it’s not quite the free for all it seems and a bit more clarity on the access at each point would make it a whole lot easier."
  • Should the Public Decide What the House of Commons Debates? – Birmingham Post – News Blog – A Commons committee chaired by Staffordshire MP Tony Wright (Lab Cannock) is to consider whether the public should be able to initiate a debate in the House of Commons.
  • 10 People You Won’t See on Twitter Anymore [Make it personal stoopid] – This new rules may cause problems for some local authorities and even newspapers: "Robotic Twitter accounts should live in fear of death by the powers that be at Twitter. If you’re not human and you’re configured to automatically tweet, reply, and retweet based on Twitter content or RSS feeds then you could be in danger. The rules express a clear preference for the human touch when it comes to Twitter updates, stating that you could be in violation of the TOS and subject to termination, “if your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates.”

Stuff I've seen September 3rd through to September 4th

These are my links for September 3rd through September 4th:

  • In Development » Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released – as copyright works are concerned, NZGOAL proposes that agencies apply the most liberal of the New Zealand Creative Commons law licences to those of their copyright works that are appropriate for release, unless there is a restriction which would prevent this. The most liberal Creative Commons licence is the Attribution (BY) licence.
  • Inaccuracies in newspaper coverage of Cabinet Office job advert – Blunt rebuttal: "This morning several newspapers ran a story about the Cabinet Office advertising for a Deputy Director of Digital Engagement who will be paid around £120,000 a year."

    Unfortunately, every single story contained inaccuracies, from basic facts about the vacancy to fundamental details of what the job is all about.

  • How to stop being embarrassed by your website commissioning :: interactivecultures – "let’s call him Harold" Jon Hickman on form and inspired by the Help me Investigate investigation into the city council's website. (missed this when on holiday).
  • Membership has its meaning « BuzzMachine – "the membership bar has moved up. It’s not enough to let people give you money and promote you. Now you have to invite them to have a real and meaningful role in what you do, even a sense – if not a stake – of ownership and, consequently, control."
  • NTI Birmingham : Gamer Camp – Free: "Gamer Camp offers would-be game makers in the West Midlands the chance to learn how to develop and produce games for Apple's phenomenally popular iPhone/iPod Touch, as part of a four-week training course taking place at NTI Birmingham and Birmingham School of Visual Communication." via d:log

Recipe – how to make a social media surgery

I often get asked how you make a social media surgery. Below is a list of ingredients and how you use them.

This recipe is for a standard social media surgery and is ideal for community, voluntary and neighbourhood groups.

Last year I would have said this is enough to serve a city, but since then I’ve got a bit greedy and think that every neighbourhood should have a surgery much like this one. I’d recommend you read all the way to the end before starting to mix the ingredients.

Social media surgery recipe

A diary: This should be full of dates and used to avoid clashes with other things.

Lists of people – 3: Here in Birmingham we use three lists of people. One is a list of people who care about where they live and get things done (some people call them active citizens). This list can be any size, although bigger tends to be better. These are our patients. We have a much smaller list of people who themselves have bigs lists of people who care about where they live and get things done. We send the dates (see above) out to these people who circulate them to their lists.  Finally you need a list of people who care about where they live and get things done and know about the internet. These are your surgeons.

As you get better at this recipe you will find that people who first appeared on the patients list will move across to the surgeons list. That’s exactly the result you’re looking for. In fact those people are the sweetest part of the whole confection. Also if you are making different social media surgeries for different neighbourhoods you will probably find yourself acquiring a whole range of different lists. That’s normal, but do keep them in separately labeled jars.

A room (with corridors): This is the standard size social media surgery so you just need a standard sized room. Most rooms come with corridors, please don’t discard these. We have found them very handy as marvellous overspill spaces.

Tables and chairs: Some people like their tables and chairs in neat rows. I prefer them just how they come. So scatter these around.

Tea and coffee: Let people help themselves.

Wi-Fi: Never skimp on this. A good social media surgery will be drenched in wi-fi. If you find yourself tempted to drizzle the ‘nets the whole thing will certainly turn out flat. Some types of wi-fi come with a key. If you have that sort make sure everyone can easily find it.

Organiser (1 or more): You must have at least one of these so dates get set, rooms get found, wi-fi checked, lists updated, emails sent out. It also always helps to keep a couple of spares in your store cupboard. Don’t use too many organisers though, that can spoil things.

Welcomer (1): People really don’t believe that a surgery can last between 90 minutes and 2 hours and nothing formal happens. So it’s good to have someone to welcome the patients through the door, take their details and explain to them what isn’t going to happen (you’re not going to get lectured at, speeches won’t be made, you won’t be made to do or learn anything your don’t want to).  The welcomer also introduces the patient to their surgeon.

Social capital: This is the most important ingredient. We started with Birmingham Bloggers Group social capital, which had been simmering for a good 20 months, thickened by all sorts of strange ingredients. Think of social capital as the stock pot of your social media kitchen; you need to keep it constantly bubbling away. By the way, it has to be home made and hand made. In an emergency you can borrow some social capital from your neighbour, but please take care to return it as soon as you can. Some people are tempted to use shop bought social capital. It never works.

Note: Some of you may be surprised to see that I have not included Expectations in this recipe.  I use zero expectations when making a surgery. Anything more than that can sour things.

Happy surgeoning.

This is the Birmingham standard social media surgery. Other recipes may be available from Sheffield, Solihull, Brighton, Nottingham, SCIP in Brighton, in Dave’s head, a Solo Bassist, Pete Ashton, Manchester,  Mosman, Australia.

Birmingham Photospace – who's portrait would you like to see?

Birmingham Photospace
Birmingham Photospace

Jon Bounds (in his inimitable way) has spotted this post on the Birmingham Photospace blog.  It echoes something I’ve thought about doing with the Grassroots Channel Podcast, but have to act on.  This is what the snappers hope for:

Say Liz comes in to have her portrait taken.  Once she’s had her image taken, she’ll be invited to suggest how she may like Matt (who is next in line) to pose. (She may ask him to smile, to frown, to stand or slouch, to display the object he bought earlier from Artsfest. She’s limited only by her imagination (and the laws of decency!))  The photographer will take a few frames, and then Liz will get to choose which one she would like to exhibit.

Not quite as crowdsourced, but I’ve always fancied doing an interview with a Birmingham active citizen and at the end asking them who I should talk to next – then following their nose to the next wonderful person.  Perhaps a photographer would like to share the project with me?   I’ve done a few of my own.

Neville Davis of the Sparkbrook Neighbourhood Forum
Neville Davis of the Sparkbrook Neighbourhood Forum

Perhaps you can teach me to be better with the camera and I can help you schuusch up your audio stuff?  If you think it’s a good idea please nag me below .

Update:

Besides the comments below we also have this, from Matt Murtagh (who is very good at taking pictures):

I’d be interested in that, the artstfest thing is kinda my idea…

Thanks, Matt.