You may have heard me before railing at the term user generated content. It infuriates me because it embodies two ideas: “you mean we can get them to make films for us for free?” and “Well yes they can use our space but only when and how it suits us”.
It begins with the assumption that you can’t trust the public – or rather the public is just too risky to trust. This has shaped too many public and private sector approaches to sharing with the audience.
Websites don’t exist without links, they don’t exist without readers and hence they don’t exist without community. It is the users, the comments they make, the virtual, intellectual and actual links they establish through using your content that turns it from a string of one and noughts into something with influence in the world.
Without the user there is no content, so learn to trust us.
Tag: Voluntary Sector
BOGOF houses, socially responsible shopping and web 2.0
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Perhaps inspired by the buy-one-give-one-away early campaign from the One Laptop per Child programmes an environmental housing developer in Sacremento is offering BOGOF on Houses.
If you buy one of their US homes they will train a mason in Burkina Faso to build a home there.
They call the project Real Estate Development 2.0. I like the idea and the communications built around it.
I told you so….
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As you might gather I’m keen to see lobby groups, charities and the social sector using social media, but tone of voice is everything. I found this film through John Hemmings blog. There’s something about it that troubles me. It follows an Ofsted report highlighting important failings with the court support service CAFCASS.
The video is discordant. The combination of the emotive images (I imagine none of which show actual abuse by cafcass?) and the ‘told you so script’ grates.
So congratulations to Mothers for Justice for having their case supported by Ofsted. But please think again about how you convey your message. It’s now time for action, so tell us what you want to happen or tell us a story which will give legs to the campaign for change. Pressure groups are well placed to tell stories of real people’s real experiences and that’s where the emotional impact should be found when using social media.
Tip top Trav28
I’m enjoying the unravelling social media project that is The Big Picture. I especially like the interest taken in the people behind the pics: art as an expression of who we are rather than an end in itself. Jon Bounds has interviewed trav28 about why he’s taking a photo a day – most of Birmingham – and I’m blogging this to extend his 15 mins to 15mins and 1 sec. How about an audio interview against a slideshow of trav’s pics?
Update: Part way there…
