Paradise Circus

This was prompted by a tweet from Regengirl:

My first thought was something like Ask Metafilter could work where people could post questions for us to answer as and when we’re able to. Then it occurred to me we have a forum here already, so I created a Help section.

The problem with the forum is it tends to be pretty dead unless threads are announced on Twitter, so reverse engineering that problem led to me create @paraforum which simply pumps new topics from the Help forum to Twitter. If you follow it you’ll get questions in your Twitter stream within the hour.

The next step is to publicise it as an available service and the best way to start that is to have something to show so let’s get some questions in there. And next time you’re talking to someone who might need help in the future, give them the link.

Let’s see if it works!

BARG: the noise of unstoppable, projectile, transmission of stuff.

BARG’s remit is really hard to describe (before we’ve actually got a bunch of people in a room together, at least) and, whilst I’ve had a go at it on this introductory post, it’s difficult to get past problems with the terminology, how it’s used and people’s perceptions when they see phrases like ‘Alternate Reality Game’ or ‘Pervasive Game’ or ‘Locative Media’. Ugh.

So, let’s try this instead: take a look at the programme for last year’s Hide & Seek festival: http://www.hideandseekfest.co.uk/programme. If anything on this list appeals to you as the sort of thing you’d like to either play, design or commission, then BARG intends to be a starting point to help make that happen. Oh, and we’re out to have some fun too!

The first BARG takes place from 7pm on Thursday the 29th of January (that’s next Thursday) at the Old Lamp Tavern, Digbeth, Birmingham. B5 6AH [map]. All welcome, but please be prepared to tell us why you came in order that we can shape BARG into being something useful.

February’s blogmeet is a little different to the norm. Fear not, it’s still very much a social occasion, but this time round we’re hopping aboard the first BrumTwestival express – a charity night fundraising for the Charity:Water organisation http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

Tickets: Tickets are £5 and you can book online at http://www.amiando.com/twestivalbirmingham.html. Tickets are limited to 200 and going very fast so get clicking if you’re up for a great night of fundraising for a very worthy cause.

Ok, if you’re already on Twitter see 1. If you’re not, see 2.

1. Hello Tweeties. You may have come across the BrumTwestival before. If not, please follow it on Twitter – just add @brumtwestival and check out http://birmingham.twestival.com. I’ll let them do the talking.

2. w00t?! Ok, Twestival is a festival taking place across the globe. It’s arranged by like-minded folk who are on the social media site, Twitter. Cities around the world are hosting the first ever Twestivals – Twitter festivals – in a bid to raise money for Charity:Water. It’s a great chance to network, meet up with some great folk from both the blogging community and beyond and have a smashing time. So, you’re coming then?

Because it’s raising money for a good cause, entry to the event will cost a fiver and you can bag your ticket online at http://www.amiando.com/twestivalbirmingham.html. Tickets are limited to 200.

The Charity

Charity:Water is ‘a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. We give 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.’. Find out more at http://www.charitywater.org/

Where’s it taking place?

Birmingham UK Twestival is being kindly hosted by Poppy Red – a fantastic bar and restaurant located in central Birmingham. It sits neatly between Moor Street and New Street Stations with many of the major city bus routes passing right by it.

What’s the lowdown on the night?

On the night there’ll be food provided (nomnomnom), and maybe even a lovely drinking token on the door (pending sponsorship). In addition to some music and games, there’ll be a projector set up so a live Twitter stream can take place between BrumTwestival and other Twestivals taking place across the globe – a great chance to catch up with fellow charity-minded Twestival friends as they shimmy and shake, or twimmy and twake. Or suchlike.

There’s a prize draw for a Nintendo Wii (complete with Guitar Hero for all you aspiring Slash-types) which all ticketholders will be in the running for, as well as a host of other prizes in a raffle donated by good-hearted local Tweetpeeps. More details at http://birmingham.twestival.com/2009/01/23/raffle-prizes/.

Get your tickets now at http://www.amiando.com/twestivalbirmingham.html and join theBrumTwestival Facebook Group

More details about the event at http://birmingham.twestival.com/

12 Feb – 19.30

Poppy Red, The Arcadian, Hurst Street, Birmingham B5 4TD – Google Maps

[JB - Cribbed this text directly from Shona McQuillan who is donating one of her fantastic artworks as a prize, but didn't say so out of modesty]

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.

The Big City Plan is a “masterplan” being worked up by Birmingham City Council in order to present a  vision for the development of the City Centre over the next 20 years. It has a lot of options, questions and information in it — and it’s currently going through a consultation process (no doubt you will have seen the taxis and posters).

When it came to blogging about it, a few of us felt that that was difficult because:

• It’s a huge dense document full of overlapping ideas, and it’s difficult to pull out one piece to discuss (you have to go over everything to make sense).
• There wasn’t a way to discuss in a central place.

So we had quite a long meeting at December’s Birmingham Social Media Cafe, and decided that we could treat the plan as a blog — each section commentable on, linkable to, and with as much information as possible (which meant researching and finding links about a lot of planning ideas and documents).

It took a long while to do — but it’s now up at bigcitytalk.org.uk.

Please feel free to link to it, copy chunks of the blogged version for your own use, but most of all go discuss and comment and feedback to the Council about the Big City Plan — so we can make Birmingham as good as it can be.

We’ve now got a good mix of meet ups happening in city. I’m wondering if it’s time to do something a little more formal so I’m proposing a series of discussion panels.

To start things off how about “How to be a better blogger”. Get four established bloggers to talk about what they do and follow it with a Q&A. I’m happy to moderate (want to get more experience in this). Hold it in the back room of a pub – maybe the Spotted Dog or the Lamp Tavern – one evening from 7pm. An hour or so of formal then get with the chatting.

If there’s enough interest I’ll start organising it. I’d also be looking for suggestions for people to be on the panel.

What more is needed? Apologies for the late announcement of the venue (although dates are fixed well into the future now, see the sidebar) – we were trying to tie up a visit to Funlop, the new home of the Birmingham Post, Mail and Mercury, but it didn’t quite happen – soon, perhaps.

So the Venue: the Solomon Cutler on Broad St (a slightly upmarket Whetherspoon’s)

Beer In the Evening Link.

Time: whenever you like from about 6pm

Subjects: nowt, just celebrating our first anniversary (1st Brum Bloggers’ Meet was last Jan – can you believe it?).

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Space trousers on.