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:

One of my first observations about Birmingham was that the academic and business communities seemed incredibly interactive. What I found was that this whole digital community was even larger than I thought, and the people who are part of it are extremely passionate about it, and keen to spread their enthusiasm. There is a quite large grassroots movement for a Digital Birmingham that is made up of academics, businesses, and regular Birmingham citizens alike.

The biggest difference I noticed between Birmingham and anywhere in the US was that Birmingham’s social media scene was constantly hosting events for digital inclusion, to discuss ideas about Digital Birmingham, or to otherwise garner attention for and praise digital efforts around the city. These events took the form of surgeries, blogger meet-ups, social media cafes, and even as large as Hello Digital, and Developing Birmingham’s Digital Districts. Here in America, I’ve never seen such consistent efforts to engage the community in the digital fever. We seem to only have big, expensive, infrequent events like SXSW, #140Conf, and Blog World Expo. Try getting to any of those for less than $300 – it’s likely to be more like $1000 that you shell out to attend and participate. What Birmingham does, I would argue is better, because it is focused locally, with goals reaching globally.

I may be naïve to speak so highly of the Birmingham social media scene – perhaps I didn’t spend enough time there to see the flaws, or I’m glossing everything over due to a tendency to be overly optimistic. But even if this were the case, I truly see a lot of potential for it to become a digital center. There is certainly a group of people very intent on making it happen, at least, and that kind of determination can go a long way. I can’t wait to watch the city and its digital industries evolve.

Two thoughts I had after todays talk about how Birmingham could stop talking and start doing:

1. Has anyone from BCC been to London to ask CEOs of Digi Companies what it would take to get them to move their businesses to Birmingham?

2. Is it time for a Digital Birmingham conference in London? The feedback would be enlightening

I believe Q1 would allow Brum to get narrow down the actual USP it could use as a hook to attract business and Q2 would allow Brum to start to Market itself to the rest of the UK

Econsultancy has organised days where you can go and sell yourself to Londons digital glitterati – these would provide exceptional reach at low cost

A 3rd, less related idea was that if Birmingham wants to develop Digital Business, it should dump the term Creative.

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

Reflections on Birmingham Social Media Café from Jon Hickman on Vimeo.

An overview of BCC DIY, by Stef from Jon Hickman on Vimeo.

The following email came in overnight from my local Freecycle moderator:

We Recycle with Freegle
=============================

Hi everyone

You’ll notice that our group has changed our name, and this also means that our address has changed too.

It’s now:

Web: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BirminghamFreegle

Email: BirminghamFreegle@yahoogroups.com

What’s changed for you?
======================

Nothing much. The home page looks a bit different, and the email address is new (and you have seen it at the top of this page) but other than that – all the rules are the same, all your moderators are the same, and our group is still GRASS ROOTS and LOCAL.

We’re still dedicated to keeping things out of land fill, and the same moderation team are still here beavering away in the background helping to keep the group running smoothly.

The main reason for our move is simple. While Freecycle is a GREAT idea, all our UK groups were basically forced to work under a system devised in and for the United States. Leaders of Freecycle in the UK spent more than two years talking with the main Freecycle Network trying to get the freedom to run things in a way more suited to our own country and our own laws. Nothing changed.

In July four leading members of our National UK Freecycle team resigned. Moderators around the country then formed an Independent Association of Freecycle Moderators and again tried talks with The Freecycle Network. But again to no avail.

Since then an increasing number of Group Owners and Moderators have been SUMMARILY DISMISSED from Freecycle including the former UK Director of Freecycle UK.

So we have decided to go our own way.

It seems nothing has changed for me in the big scheme of things as a Freecycle Freegle user, but it hints at a problem of scale: sure Freecycle was great because it was a collective that self-organised over the web, but this affair suggests that flexibility is needed to sustain glocal organisations.

The other thing that I’ve been reflecting on is the name “Freegle”. It doesn’t work as a verb so I guess people who used the service for a while will continue to see they are “going to freecycle the sofa”. It also seems to privilege the act of receiving over the act of giving. Linked to “frugal”, with the added emphasis of “free” this sounds more like a site to grab the ultimate bargain, not a site aimed at reducing landfill. Without the allusion to “recycle” where’s the incentive for the donor in the new freegle future?

Thinking about social media in smaller networks like that keeps the expanses of the Internet manageable.  For example, with businesses, it is not about connecting with everyone online, but reaching out to the specific market or audience that can most benefit from your product.  Even for individuals, subscribing to a few local news blogs is a more manageable information flow than subscribing to every global news source available.  Such information consumption can quickly become overwhelming.

Personally, I’ve got TweetDeck and Google Reader organized into different networks by category – real life friends, bloggers, news sources, and social media gurus – but also regionally – Baltimore, my hometown; Syracuse, my college town; and now Birmingham, where I’ll be heading in two weeks to participate in the MA Social Media program.

I’m excited to be joining the Birmingham network, because it seems like the perfect environment for the development of such a program.  When I was in Syracuse, there was naturally an academic community that conversed in social media outlets.  I also joined a group of motivated locals who have a strong Twitter association and meet each other for happy hour each week.  But each of these networks never seemed to intermix.  What I’ve noticed about Birmingham so far – as much as I can observe from across an ocean – is that the academic and business communities seem much more interactive with each other.  Most significantly, I’ve seen that prominent academics reach out to local businesses to offer social media guidance.  People around town – such as the Urban Coffee shop – really seem to grasp the concept of Internet technologies and use it to market themselves well.  Birmingham, more than any other network I’ve been a part of, seems much more like an open, inviting community to join.

I’m hoping that through the MA program, I can learn ways to promote similar network integration and open-mindedness about social media business options. Birmingham is a great example – in a community willing to embrace change, there is often a lot more potential to do good things with the tools at hand.

Mdot stands for “My Dad’s on Twitter but he doesn’t know why” – an event which took place yesterday as part of Fazeley Digital ‘09. Part lecture, part performance, the idea was to mind map some current thinking about Twitter by writing on a wall in an empty studio space at Birmingham’s newest digital media hub, Fazeley Studios.

Some people, including those who make their living in social media, seemed confused as to what it was all about: I think it was about the process rather than the content, and for that reason I found it really interesting.

Here’s how it worked:

• Alex & Matt, aka Drawnalism, took the lead on the wall: they wrote and visualised what was being said. All were welcome to join them by creating their own artwork, or by modifying what was there already.
• Four speakers (Dave Harte, Marc Reeves, Jacki Booth, and I) led a conversation informed by the title “My Dad’s on Twitter but he doesn’t know why?”. We each gave a short speech then took questions from the room.
• Kate Manion, Chris Unitt and Nick Booth were all designated as live bloggers, but as you’d expect from a Birmingham social media audience, there was a lot of chatter on Twitter – which was of course displayed in the room on TwitterFall
• Comments from Twitter and from the audience were encouraged, and fed into the discussion and the wall
• Anyone could write on the wall at any time they wanted to
• The whole affair was compered by Karl Binder who’s team also filmed and streamed the event

What was most interesting about the process was the reticence of the “audience” to write on the wall. When I spoke to Karl & Kate in the run up to the event I was expecting something anarchic. Karl had created a space where we were not just allowing but encouraging people to write on walls and have an opinion and we thought people would grasp that with both hands. In fact what happened was that they observed the mapping, they spoke when asked to speak, and they addressed things to the speakers. Rather than being facilitators of a discussion, we’d become lecturers for the day.

Perhaps the layout of the room and giving four of us microphones encouraged that dynamic: it looked more like a performance than a conversation. Perhaps if we gave everyone a pen at the start, or laid out the room differently then things would have been more interactive. Perhaps people just don’t like writing on walls?

But then suddenly something really interesting happened. We finished. And then just like at the end of a pantomime, when the children come on stage, the “audience” took over. They came up front, they took up their pens, and they added to the wall.

Somebody mentioned during the speaking session that social media is a performance. Sometimes we forget that it’s a solo performance: people are happy to have their voice, to publish their thoughts, but not while the world is looking.