Here’s the finished result, a section in a programme called ‘Yourope’ on Arte TV. The programme is in German but as I understand it, is also played across Europe. To be perverse I’ve ripped the French version (offers to translate gratefully received). It covers the course and the Birmingham social media scene:

It’s been a beef of mine for a while that sometimes Birmingham misses out on getting good indie or foreign films into its cinemas until well after they’ve been released across the UK. Whatever the reasons it was clear that it was going to happen again when the award-winning documentary ‘We Live in Public‘, about the internet entrepreneur Josh Harris, was released in the UK in November. In fact the schedule of upcoming screenings didn’t include Birmingham at all, whilst Northampton and Norwich, amongst others, were all lined up to get a viewing.

As part of the MA Media suite (PDF link) of courses that the MA Social Media forms a part of, the students have the chance to organise some activities under the banner of ‘Personal Development Planning’. In fact there’s even a bit of cash to spend on the activities. So in mentioning to my students that an exciting, important film about the late 90s dotcom boom was bypassing the city, quick as a flash they reacted. As I went off grumbling about the situation Paul Hadley quietly got on with the job of organising a one-off, special screening of the film. Within 24 hours the cinema was booked and the film hired from the distributor.

The eventbrite page went up and on December 9th a cinema full of people took their seats to learn how downright weird things were the last time we all got excited about the potential of the internet. The film focused more on the personal life of Harris which was inevitable since he put his personal life on display when he and his partner chose to wire up their house to the internet.

The film told an intriguing story although I could have done without knowing how Harris enjoyed dressing as a clown and probably a bit less of the ‘it’s all his Mom’s fault’ rhetoric. I haven’t seen ‘Startup.com‘ for many a year which covers similar ground but with a less frenzied stylistic approach.

Many thanks to the (so wonderful we should list it) Electric Cinema in Birmingham, Dogwoof, the film’s distributor and Paul Hadley for pulling this together and for introducing the film with a glass of Absinthe in his hand.

Christian Payne also attended the screening and recorded an audioboo. He also seemed fond of the Absinthe.

So before the MA Social Media students even started on the course they were getting their hands dirty with the http://bccdiy.com hack day and before week two comes to a close they’ll be doing some social media surgery and live blogging at a local conference.

The ‘Sharing Information Digitally‘ event is run by the West Midlands Regional Observatory and explores “the whys and hows of making public data more accessible, as well as looking at social media as a way of disseminating data and information.”

The event takes place in Birmingham at Millennium Point and the full programme (Word document link) includes me, Stuart Harrison, webmaster – Lichfield District Council, Stuart Parker from www.wesharestuff.org and Michael Cross from The Guardian Free our Data campaign.

In the afternoon there’s a Social Media Surgery with equipment generously supplied by Digital Birmingham and ’surgeoned’ by students from the MA and anyone else who cares to chip in. It should be interesting and is the first of a series of events in the city that the students will get the chance to attend.

Photo credit: Network by clix

I always seem to end up in jobs that are difficult to describe to my mother. For a while I had the grand title of ‘Cluster Innovation Manger for Interactive Media for Education and Entertainment’. That took some explaining by her to those who asked what young Dave was now doing. For the last 12 months it’s been a little easier – I’ve been ‘working for the council’.

That’s a simple statement to repeat and the great thing about it is that it creates a different impression depending on who you tell it to – it could just as well mean emptying the bins as working in an office. I notice my mother doesn’t add further explanation when telling people I ‘work for the council’. That’s fine by me – the detail was rather complex.

I was actually Economic Development Manager for Digital Birmingham which basically meant I went around saying how good the internet was and specifically championing the use of social media to anyone who would listen. There was a tad more to it than that but now my time there has come to an end; or rather, I’ve decided to bring it to an end to take up the exciting opportunity of working with the good people at Birmingham City University on the MA Social Media.

I’m the ‘award leader’ for this degree which largely gives me an administrative responsibility to get the students from one end of the course to the other. I’ll be pitching in with teaching of course but the key role is to support the development of the course and keep those student numbers looking healthy.

So whether you’re a current student or a prospective one then I’m looking forward to getting to know you.

pic: Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum (BHIC)