I like this idea a lot and, as such, am wondering if there are any companies or organisations in Birmingham that would like to try something similar. We’re often looking for places to meet and work during the week and if they think they could benefit from having us around the place it’s a win-win.

Any thoughts?

Thanks to Nikki Pugh for the heads up.

Just a quick post on returning home from the second free Social Media Surgery that we held for Birmingham’s voluntary organisations at the BVSC in Digbeth. As with the first event, tonight’s event was very popular and we hope everyone went home with some practical ideas and the confidence to try them out. We look forward to online activity from organisations including City Centre Neighbourhood Forum, Perry Barr Multifaith Network, the Get Walking Keep Walking project and Digbeth Trust to name but a few.

I’m sure more details will emerge over the next few days about what was achieved (please link to any further info in the comments), but for now, I’d like to say thanks to the following ’surgeons’ for giving up their free time to offer advice to some worthy local voluntary organisations:

• Robert Annable
• Pete Ashton
• Nick Booth
• Jon Bounds
• Joanna Geary
• Nicky Getgood
• Stef Lewandowski
• John Mostyn
• Henry Mostyn
• Phil Oakley
• Stuart Parker
• Antonio Roberts
• Chris Unitt
• Ben Whitehouse
• Gavin Wray

so put Sunday 23rd November in your diaries as the ‘We Share Stuff’ team will be at The Red Couch cafe, Erdington each Sunday morning from 11:00am to around 1:00pm. The surgery will be free to attend and the cafe itself serves a wide selection of drinks and snacks. So if you’re curious about the Internet, want to know how to get a voice online, or merely want to drop by for a chat, please do. The atmosphere is real friendly and we promise not to bombard anyone with jargon. It’s all about showing you how easy the Internet is becoming.

It’s an important reminder than no one needs any formal organisation to be able to offer this help, just somewhere warm with wifi and somebody willing to serve a hot drink or two.

Meanwhile the Birmingham Bloggers group (with space and support from BVSC & the Birmingham 3rd Sector Assembly) is running a second social media surgery for voluntary organisations and community groups from the city Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 from 5.30pm to 7.00pm at the same venue at the first one (BVSC in Digbeth - see map link here). If you came last time you are always welcome to come again. Please sign up by clicking here - just so we know how many folk may turn up.

The original surgeries run by Pete Ashton may be thinner on the ground this winter - unless of course more of us pop along to keep them going - but you can still find him at Rooty’s.

Meet under the singing moose at any time after 6pm - Tuesday 9th December, retire to a local pub (the Wellington [EDIT- confirmed]) when you get too cold.

Singing Rudolph by roogi

Did you know they have a Birmingham Market in Frankfurt?

Facebook is rubbish, you get so many notification emails that when something comes along you want to know about it slips through the net. No-one’s suggesting that there won’t be FB events for Brum Bloggers meets sent out, but the bestest way is to use upcoming.org and the Brum Bloggers group therein.

You don’t even need to sign up for another site (even tho’ it’s good and it really helps if you go to a lot of gigs), just go along to the page and find the subscribe button.

There are a few options, RSS isn’t the best as you’ll get the events as soon as they get put up — leaving a month for them to slip your mind again, but iCal (for outlook, iCal and other calendars) or the option for Google calendar should be right.

You do need to join Upcoming.org if you want to post events (and join the group to add events to the Brum Bloggers calendar).

This means the next one is this Monday !

There’ve been a few requests to have the occasional meeting not in a pub, just to have a change of atmos - but annoyingly non-pub venues that are open on weekday evenings are a bit thin on the ground round here ! As the person with the keys to the safe this month, I’ve picked The Green Room, opposite the Hippodrome (Hurst Street); it’s more of a cafe bar than a pub, so hopefully will go some of the way to attract anybody who’s so far not come because of not liking meeting in pubs.

The usual plan applies - people start to turn up from around 6ish, but come whenever you’re ready, & leave when you feel the time is right.

Event pages on Facebook & on Upcoming

I thought last month was a one off? Yes. So did I. But it worked really well. The social media savvy folk who volunteered their time said they would be happy to do it again. A number of the people who came for help wanted more when we had to close the session. Candy Passmore from BVSC and the Third Sector Assembly is happy to lay on a room again, the crucial wifi, drinks, biscuits and fruit. I know Be Birmingham and Digital Birmingham are also interested. So lets keep going and see what we can accomplish on energy and good will.

I’d like to come for some help - what can I expect? Turn up any time to suit you between 5.30 pm and 7pm for some personal advice. At the last social media surgery we had about a dozen people with skills in the area talking directly to individuals and groups. They listen to what you do and want to accomplish and then show you tools like blogs, podcasting, photo sharing services, youtube, social networking sites and explain how they might help you. You might get one to one help, you might be in a small group (depending on how busy we are and how many volunteers are able to come). We can show you the simple things, like how to write on the web, how to create a link which will click through from your web page to another or how to add photos. We can also show you relatively simple way to add aduio and video. We can even help you set things up there and then. Some people walked away with their own bit of the social web:

The Birmingham Jubilee Debt Campaign (click on the name for a hyperlink the site) created a free blog at our last session on October 15th. Within a couple of days they were using it to report a very successful campaigning weekend and they’re still telling their story. They keep entries short and simple - which removes that awful sense that doing this is a chore. It only takes a few minutes and I’m quite certain that by now the people behind this blog could show a newcomer how to get started. You’ll also notice, if you click here, how many people have left comments to say hello. That is how friendly and supportive the social web can be.

Court Lane Allotments now have a blog, thanks in part to the encouragement they received at the last surgery. You’ll notice that one of the gardeners puts photos of the allotment on a site called flickr. From there can easily share them in the blog (it’s a little bit of learning and a couple of clicks). At the risk of overload, this group also has joined the conversation on a microblogging service called twitter. It all shows how different parts of what we call social media interconnect.

You don’t have to go this far. You can just listen and ask questions. Some had a crack at writing on a practice blog. Others, like 8teaarts and gerimoshers, set up experimental sites on the day. As you can see they’re quiet, but that can often be the case as people get their head around what to do next, or whether they want to use these tools. At another social media surgery we can give a little more advice and encouragement. It costs nothing but a bit of time to try, which also means that if it doesn’t work out for you, you’ve lived and learnt.

Do I have to prepare? No, although a great first would be to work out how to leave a comment on this blog post (ask us a question or tel us what you thought of last time) or on any of the blogs mentioned in this post. Should I bring anything? No - although if you have a laptop you might want to bring that, so we can show you things using your own computer.

For the social media volunteers. You know how proud I was of the response last time. I hope that doesn’t sound patronising - but it was brilliant. Without so many turning up (there were ten in the pub afterwards - but not all stayed for a drink) we could haev managed. Of course anyone who can’t make it can always help by linking/subscribing to and commenting on the new blogs, flickr sites etc as they emereg from the surgeries. If you’re coming please sign up on the eventbrite page. Now I just want to pull together some of the posts about last time:

The Travellers: Paul Webster travelled from Sheffield to help us out. “Thinking about this on the train home I realised that we have enough events for the geeks, the teccies, the webbies and the planners but not enough for the community organisations to learn in simple language about those toys that we all love to play with.” Paul Henderson from a little nearer - Coventry

The Locals:

Pete Ashton - the man who invented social media surgeries I know came away “exhausted and buzzing” (that is not a form of transport), we really must do it again, which of course we will. Chris Unitt “certainly learned a lot about how to pass this sort of information on and apply it to the concerns of those trying to make a difference.”

Stuart Parker “The event was a great starting point though, and proved what can be achieved with a little organisation and belief.” The social enterprise We Share Stuff will also be running a North Birmingham internet surgery every Sunday Morning.

Stef : “we all went away having learnt things - pros and newbies alike”.

Louis commented “the beauty of surgeries of this kind is that they can be spontaneous and require very little to run other than some hosts with enthusiasm, some chairs and some wi-fi. Count me in for the next London one!” London hasn’t done one yet Louis, come on catch up!

In Blackpool they are optimistic about what they called our “early success”, Paul Groves echoed that. Rachel Gilles was enthused by the fact that”We really can bypass the usual channels, it’s wonderful that it’s being embraced so widely!”. John Mostyn got straight to the practical point with “Brilliantly done all, I hereby offer to make the tea at the next one”, whilst Dave Harte drew comparisons with Steve Bell’s Birmingham Broadside and pondered if we’re also developing approaches which will help bring Birmingham’s SME’s onto the social web.
The surgeries are supported by the Third Sector Assembly, Birmingham with funding from the National Lottery through the Big Lottery Fund.  There will be other links and mentions. Who have I missed out?  (First published here)

He did mention that winter tours are not very popular. I was thinking that people might like to get out and about a bit in the fresh air come January and work off our xmas indulgences, but thought I’d better canvas some opinion in case everyone would rather leave it til Spring?

Since the lovely, but sort of overlapping, Birmingham Social Media Cafe is meeting regularily in the last week of the month I think we should go for the second week. This is also good to not get all muddled in December and Jan.

So, in an unexpected rash of planning ahead I think we should set dates in advance and I’m proposing a rolling Mon-Thurs thing second week in the month.

Which would make November’s meet Monday 10th November and December’s  Tuesday 9th.

Maybe we should fix venues too? Any thoughts?

The theme for blog action day 2008 is poverty, considered in it’s widest sense. So rather than simply blog, we’re arranging to do something more practical: run a social media surgery for voluntary and community groups in Birmingham. Many of these deal directly with poverty in the city, I think all of them contribute in some way to creating life opportunities or alleviating suffering or disadvantage.

The aim is simply to get a group of volunteer social media savvy people together who can give one to one advice on which bits of the social media palette might be able to help these groups accomplish more.

Perhaps we might set up some blogs, get people using video or images in a new way, help them map problems? Who knows? I’m quite certain everyone who takes part will learn something.

Half an hour ago Candy Passmore at BVSC agreed to provide a room at their place (138 Digbeth, B5 6DR, map). The proposal fits very closely with their attempts to encourage the voluntary sector to find new ways to communicate, lobby and network. The offer also comes with wifi and some food between 5.30 and 9 on the evening of Wednesday 15th October 2008. Once we’ve got something written she will also pass the invitation onto their networks within the city.

So who fancies helping and who knows any community or voluntary groups who might like to come?

First posted here.