Tag: upyerbrum

Birmingham Bloggers I think we have a target:

Dave Harte - picture from aeioux on Flickr

For at least 3 years now Dave Harte from Digital Central has been supporting the digital media industry in Brum. Now it’s time to return the favour.

Dave is running the London Marathon next week. He’s been long on training but short on fundraising. Last year he raised £495 for St Mary’s Hospice in 3 months. Now he needs your help to repeat that trick but in 6 days. Why the Hospice…

They deal with those people who are coming to the end of their life and work hard to make those lives and the lives of the people around them a tiny bit more bearable. I’ve not had close dealings with them but I see their building on virtually every training run I do and as I’ve said before I feel a certain elation when I do as it represents the end of a climb and only a mile and a half to home.Have a read of their website to see the full scope of what they do but I think they’re worth the money. So let’s see how we get on. 7 days and counting. Updates on here and on Twitter.

Dave’s job is to run 26 and a bit miles. Ours is to raise £495 before he does his bit. I know which I think is easier! You can donate online here or using this widget (which sometimes doesn’t work) – which of course can also live on your blog.

Birmingham Bloggers have so many pipes have we become craic heads?

Birmingham Bloggers March 2008 from aeiouz on flckr.

I always appear to be the last person to write about any particular meeting of the Birmingham Bloggers but I had no intention of being the last person to write about monday’s meeting twice! For some reason the material in this post disappeared overnight:

Stef's tweet.

So what was I saying? I think I was appreciative of people’s patience with the formal bit of the evening. We had feedback from the brum group who went to Austin, Texas for SXSW. Our first two meetings had been nothing more than a chance to chat. Stopping everyone in full flow to get formal seemed a little odd, especially given how involved and passionate the conversations were. It worked though. Pete Ashton’s post here summarises reaction to what was a very enjoyable evening and also links to a video on the more formal bit from Andrew Dubber and these blog posts:

Stef Lewandowski: Roundup of ideas
Hemminac: “Badges for bloggers builds barriers?!”
Antonio Gould: Short post
Charlotte Carey: “the rather mischievous notes/observations I made”
Antonio Roberts: “I’m very interested in seeing what a coworking space, and the people running it, can offer a communtity who are almost completely unknowledgable when it comes to technology.”
Simon Hammond: “There was a lot of discussion about ‘evangelism’, ‘conversion’ and ’spreading the word’ about social media which struck me as odd language.”

Thank you also to Lloyd Davis for talking to us about the social media club he’s nurturing in London.

It’s called the Tuttle Club, a reference to the De Niro character in the movie Brazil – a guerrilla plumber who’s able to make the system work with simple, unbureaucratic applications of effort.

Different forms of what you might call Tuttleware have sprung up from the folk of the Birmingham bloggers group. Or as Pete puts it:
Paul Bradshaw built a Birmingham Bloggers Aggregator and a Birmingham Twitterers feed.
Lloyd reminds us in the comments of the Coworking Birmingham wiki that was set up a while back. It’s there for the using.
Pete Lewis has started a Brum Planet which appears to be a massive stream of stuff being produced online in Birmingham. Something for ambient browsing.
Mark Steadman brings us Blogging Brum: a group blog for Birmingham.

Charlotte mentioned that as a group we have a very high proportion of white men. Her research at BCU is looking at why women and people from ethnic minorities rarely appear at the head of the high value, high growth businesses in the digital and media sector. Any thoughts on how Birmingham bloggers meetings, events can involve a wider range of people please share them.

I don’t think that was all I said in the original post – but I need to get on with some editing. Thank you to Al at Rooty Frooty for staying open for us. Thanks for the comments so far (which is more than you can usually says before you’ve finished a blog post) and I might leave the last tweet to you:

sixball birmingham bloggers tweet

Read this please…

The West Midlands leads the digital way, well our politicians seem to be up for it. Comment at Tom Watson:

today I am announcing the establishment of the Power of Information Taskforce. I’m pleased to say that Richard Allan has agreed to Chair the Taskforce. Richard has a vast breadth of knowledge in this field. He’s also an all round good guy and I know he will help us provide clarity to government departments as they contend with the power of information agenda.

Five new blogs – four from Birmingham one not – plus something new from WordPress.

I just want to say hello to Andrew Hemmings who moved from lurker to blogger after last night’s mini Birmingham Bloggers meet in the Spotted Dog. (Don’t panic, it was an impromptu meeting for Joanna Geary who will miss the next one this Monday 7pm at Rooty Frooty in the Custard Factory) Andrew talked to a number of people about blogs and their possible impact on his work in promoting the TIC. He had a typical response to a first bloggers meet:

By the way…thanks to all those last night who so willingly shared their knowledge, views and opinions to a newbie at the blogging table – I’ve got plenty to think about! Those thoughts will follow….!

Now he’s done the perfect thing, and started his own blog. It really is the fastest way to appreciate/understand the possibilities. So welcome Andrew.

Hi also had a fine chat with Nicky Getgood who was watching the blog meet from the bar then came and joined us – mostl because she’s very friendly, but also because she blogs here.

Chris Unitt was also at the Spotted Dog and is blogging for the fantabulous Fierce Festival here. You can also vote to help them programme the festival. Hi Chris, I like the scratchy graphics. Did you do those?

Simon Howsey is new to me – he seems to be using wordpress to aggregate a whole series of feeds, many from Birmingham Bloggers.

A belated hello to a blog I subscribed to a while back thanks to a tip off from the very fine fine Tim Davies. Alice Casey has set up her blog to explore some of the ideas which percolate through her work with with Involve. This (and many other blogs) are about the link between social media, neighbourhoods and social good. Which is of course where I began a good while back with the Grassroots Channel podcast. She and I will both be at a barcamp in May to explore social media and youth participation – which again relates to some other work I’ve been doing.

For anyone who’s just set up a new WordPress blog an hour ago the rather heavily revamped WordPress 2.5 went live. Looks good. Time for some upgrades.