Tag: Voluntary Sector

Links: Trust, collaborative planning and google maps

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On Demand Micro Volunteering by mobile phone from the Extraordinares. Hat tip Thriving.

All the News that’s fit to Network. “So if there’s trust to be created, there’s money to be earned. Trust is the foundation for a value proposition. All else equal, it stands to reason that users will pay more for the news in which they have more trust. If so, then it follows that users will pay more for the news they use based on a relationship with creators, in whom they can place more trust than they can in newspapers as brands.”

Michael Grimes on The Big City Plan:  “I truly believe there are lots of people in the council who really want this to work. But the bureaucracy of Birmingham City Council seems incapable of understanding how public engagement works.” Jon Bounds on the same: “The resources needed to produce the Big City Talk site were only time (the domain name cost £2.99, and I used existing hosting), the skills we used would have been readily available within the council structure — and experience if needed is already in the city. The only thing stopping Birmingham City Council running a “social” online consultation was the organisational will. I think there may be more of that now.”

Steven Tuck uses Big City Talk to get tongues wagging in a Social Media Session at Kirklees Council
Google Maps created with a spreadsheet of addresses.

Birmingham Social Media Surgery for Voluntary and Community Groups III

The third social media surgery for voluntary and community groups in Birmingham is next Wednesday, January 28th 2009 at BSVC 138 Digbeth, B5 6DR, (map).  Please feel free to drop in anytime between 5.30pm and 7pm where volunteers from the Birmingham bloggers group will show you how you can make best use of social media. It doesn’t matter if you are the head of communications at a major charity or an active citizen in your neighbourhood, if you’re at all curious come along.

To helps us predict numbers please sign up using the form you will find here:   www.paradisecircus.com/social-media-surgeries/

Tools like blogs, podcasts, video and social networks can give a real boost to campaigning organisations, often for no or little cost. So these experts are offering you approachable one to one help and support because they believe it can help. You may just want to see what is possible and go away and think about it. You might be itching to set up a blog and start using it, either way you can get help appreciating the best use of the internet for your organisation. If you’ve been before please feel free to come back.

This surgery is organised as a collaboration between bloggers in Birmingham and the Third Sector Assembly.

Big City Plain and two nubs.

Big City Plan Talk.jpg

Many, many evenings of voluntary work went public last night with a site to complement Birmingham’s Big City Plan consultation.

www.bigcitytalk.org has been built by Jon Bounds who’s worked patiently with other Birmingham bloggers Julia Gilbert, Nicky Getgood, Michael Grimes and myself to translate council speak into clearer speak. Stef Lewandowski has also been among a number of people who’ve supported and encouraged this, not least through conversations with the council.  I don’t think it’s flawless – so please feel free to comment about the site, but more importantly please use it to comment about the big city plan before February 6th.
We want to help move beyond the traditional consultation approach of citizens or organisations making comments to government and for government. Instead we are keen to create an online place which will encourage a more public conversation about how we will shape the city centre over the next 20 years.

Fortunately it has been met with some enthusiasm from other people.

Midge describes it as “something that Joe Public could actually get involved with AND comment on”. Shona has already used it to have her say on the options for Digbeth. Mark Steadman wants people to use the site – pronto (consultation on this phase of the plan ends on February 6th), one Simon is chuffed to see the it built on free and open source software WordPress whilst another Simon is impatient to see more people commenting.

BiNS reminds us of one fundamental truth about planning for our city: “You know how big and complex Birmingham is, well it is. Very.”   Digital Birmingham reflect on this as “another example of how far ahead Birmingham is in its use of social media. Digital technologies coupled with a highly-motivated group of citizens makes for a very powerful combination.” Something I think is very true!

For me Dave Briggs gets to one nub here (I declare a situation can be double nubbed)when he asks two questions:

Readers working within local government: how could you make the most of the civic energy in your area, to work with residents to create something really worthwhile?

Everyone else: What’s going on in your local area that you could take a bit of time out to help out with, or improve?

So I’d like to add that extra nub with a third question aimed at publicly funded media like the BBC: Should you be doing this sort of stuff? If so how will you need to change your rules of engagement?

Isowish for the unselfish gene.

I so wish that I could become a film making, illustrating, small holding farmer » I So Wish | Making wishes that come true.jpg

A couple of my friends, Stef and Dubber,  set up this simple site a few months ago. It is much more interesting that it may at first appear.  After all this looks like a selfish site. Tell us what you want, it says.

But what makes Isowish social, worth joining and interesting is not making a wish but being part of a community that might help grant one.  Some of the wishes are deeply personal, beyond anyone’s power to grant. Yet even these elicit encouragement and support from the Isowish community.  You may not be able to fix a problem, but you can make people feel better.

Isowish demonstrates a simple truth, that generosity is the key to social web.