This recent post on how attempts to create shared online platforms for community groups often founder has received quite a few comments. In it I argued that being open and generous are key principles for success online. David Brazeal has helped me identify another: optimism. Part of what I was [...]

I know Facebook is a timewaster. I could have used many hours more productively over the last couple of months, but instead I install apps, answer facile quizzes, and then uninstall apps. Using Facebook can smack of that guilt you get when you start smoking after a week of quitting: the guilt [...]

Naseem Akhtar is angry – quietly, productively, but all the same angry. She believes the families of Birmingham deserve better schools, schools which have greater aspirations for their pupils, schools which aim to do more than achieve an average outcome for children.

Last month she launched a city wide campaign on the [...]

 

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One of my favourite new blogs in Brum is Strategy – The Digested Read.  No – stop it, don’t yawn.

Dave Harte wittily strips out the essence of turgid reports on the city, the region and the creative industries.   This is him on  Advantage West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy:
Our vision: now we used to think we [...]

Too much time and public money is being wasted on closed systems which rarely work as networks.

If you’re a community group in Birmingham you can create your own free web presence on two new services Birmingham Voice (see also) and ChangeUp. The principal problem with both is ownership. Yes you can sign up [...]

I’m certainly not the first to spot this (thanks Dave) but it made me laugh.

If you’re looking for support for your cause or charity get thee to a nightclub – or better still an online dating service. Why? Because people are more likely to be conspicuously generous when they’re nicely sexed up.

Experiments carried out by Geoffrey Miller at The University of New Mexico (and written about in [...]

In the spirit of experimentation I’ve just set up a Facebook Group for people who blog in and/or about Birmingham UK. It’s an open group at the moment – hoping we can keep it resonably focussed on those of us who live here or write about here.

Birmingham Bloggers on Facebook

Need I say more? [...]