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.

Local coffee, for local people

The strangest thing happened to me today. Urban Coffee, a new coffee shop found out I was off for a coffee in Birmingham City Centre and asked me to come to their shop instead of my usual place. A bit of Twitter based banter later, I was there enjoying a free croissant, beautiful coffee and more good banter.

I wouldn’t normally take the time to write up a social media marketing case study. The fact that I am leads me to the main point I want to make: Urban Coffee have used social media to take me from an unaware prospect to a brand ambassador in about ten minutes. How did they do that? Well there’s three parts to the story really.

Part 1 – The functional part

It all came about because they saw me tweet my dissatisfaction with my usual coffee shop:

Anyone in Brum for crap food, average coffee and good wifi at Coffee Lounge this lunchtime?

They followed it up, saying:

@jonhickman you should come over to Urban Coffee, great cakes, great coffee and free wifi

As simple as that. They listened, they answered. Well it’s not really that simple. I don’t just do what people tell me afterall.

Part 2 – The networking part

What made this a compelling offer rather than a corporate spam was the fact that two nice people I know – Neil & Jamie – Tweeted me to recommend I try Urban Coffee out. Suddenly my network is making a recommendation to me. I’m now near to buying in to this brand.

Part 3 – The experience part

For some reason I decided to be cheeky and request a free cake in return for my custom. This led to a lighthearted banter on Twitter ending with the offer of a free cake:

@jonhickman You have to come in and say “The weather is good for the time of year” to receive your free food

Let’s face it, it would be rude to knock back that sort of offer, so I was on my way to the coffee shop. I walked past my normal place, arranged to meet Neil & Jamie there for lunch, and my other friends were now chatting with Urban Coffee’s owner Simon too.

By this stage I had a feeling for what I was going to find at the coffee shop: a warm welcome, an independent spirit, a relaxing place where I could work and chat, and nice people. Luckily the shop followed through on these Twitter based expectations.

I was warmly greeted, the space is light and airy, the WiFi strong, and they have good stout tables, big enough to get four coworkers and their laptops around (they have plenty of plug sockets upstairs too). The coffee was great, the banter was there, and of course, my cake was free.

• How Cellphones, Twitter and Facebook can make history: Ted talks Clay Shirky – Thanks to Delicious user Caffeinebomb for sending this in.
  (http://delicious.com/caffeinebomb & http://twitter.com/caffeinebomb)
• Australian Local Council starts using Birmingham’s social media surgeries | Be Vocal – The fantastic social media surgery concept, pioneered in Birmingham by Pete Ashton and developed by Nick Booth, is taken up in Australia.
• How Andrew Stott is setting Whitehall a-Twitter | Technology | The Guardian – Brief profile and interview with the man who is teaching politicians and civil servants how to engage with the public via social media tools (not just Twitter).
• Guardian on their influential readers – This is interesting. A presentation from The Guardian & Observer advertising sales team regarding influence within their readers. Now newspapers aren't just selling their readers as a demographic to advertisers: they're selling the network of their readership to brands.
• Timms takes over Digital Britain brief | Technology | guardian.co.uk – A new minister in the hot-seat to drive forward Digital Britain, the UK Government's strategy and vision for the digital economy, and the required infrastructure and skills development that will make this possible.
• twopointouch | Surrender! Foucault and Twitter – A brief overview of how we might apply Foucault's ideas to social media, with some useful links to further reading.