Podnosh Blog

How do you define a neighbourhood?

Nick Booth — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:16:07 +0000

The apparently very brainy Tom Martin of Substrakt has defined the shape of Digbeth by digbeth (shaped?) tags in flickr. Not a bad way to start. Hat tip Digbeth is good and Antonio Roberts.

Linda Hines Blogs - another win for the social media surgery.

Nick Booth — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:47:55 +0000

I’ve just found another blog (courtesy of the Be Birmingham site) set up following last months Birmingham social media surgery for Blog Action Day. (Next surgery November 26th is also supported by the Third sector Assembly and BVSC but continues to use volunteers from the Birmingham Bloggers group. Community groups and voluntary orgs hugely welcome, please click here for details)
Bend it Like Linda can be found here. She writes:

Hi, this is my first experience of blogging so I’m a little nervous about what to write! I live in Perry Common and have been actively involved in my comunity for 18 years now. I was recently invited to become a “Community Champion” by Be Birmingham which means that I represent the community at a very high level and am able to feed others views and ideas into the strategic partnership

Linda Hines is a remarkable woman (who’s nerves I can understand but they might surprise some) who first became an active citizen when the council told her they would have to demolish her house. I’ve worked with her a number of times, including with residents for regeneration, the Third Sector Assembly, the local strategic partnership and the now defunct b:cen. Whoever gets to coach Linda at our next surgery will have a great time.

If you want to prepare yourself listen to the sometimes tearful story of why she does what she does please listen to this podcast from the Grassroots Channel in July 2006.

Social Media Surgeries - breeding in Brum

Nick Booth — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:46:32 +0000

We Share Stuff has announced a new set of Sunday morning internet surgeries in Erdington – building on what else has been developing in Birmingham.

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 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.

Social Media and Social Housing

Nick Booth — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:58:45 +0000

This afternoon I spoke at the National Housing and Disrepair Forum annual conference. 100 or so council officers, solicitors, barristers, housing association types and others worrying about just how much money is spent on compensating council tenants for repairs that haven’t been done. This is a link to the presentation: Talk is cheap – so use it more.

I was invited by Kate Priest, the head of the legal department at Birmingham City Council that deals with such matters. Kate had heard me talking about local government, social media and the changing democratic relationship in one of my sessions at the Institute of Local Government.

A £3,000 pound compensation bill for a tenant could mean a £15,000 bill from their lawyers – and all that comes out of the repairs budget. So it’s worth exploring other ways to stop this.

I wanted to get across the idea that this can be thought of as a problem of trust. Lawyers thrive where trust does not. The challenge I wanted to throw to the group was how can they understand this as more than a problem of record keeping, accountability and process? Instead can they involve their people in sincere networks of trust within neighbourhoods.
The presentation is simply designed to offer examples of how and where the social web builds real networks of trust – ones which can make things happen. It was intended to give them a sense that trust is worth hard cash. The tenant who trusts their council worker and so negotiates directly with them could free up thousands for work of public value. The tenants who are part of a wider network of trust may even be able to help negotiate priorities.

Thank you for a big chunk of input on twitter (image here and here of the 19 comments). Here is what you suggested:

“By presenting an authentic face to tenants which listens and responds to their concerns and issues and by helping to link tenants up to find others in their situation, or who have resolved issues to share experience and connect” Dave Briggs.

“Listen to people where they are already talking about you (good and bad stuff)” Paul Henderson.

“Any way of improving two-way communication must surely help” Catnip.

“Councils need to improve / review their relationships offline before making a difference online” Stuart Parker.

“One easy win would be for blogs to be set up for individual estates – the council can keep tenants fully in the loop of developments, the tenants would be able to have their say, but also that blog could help develop & bind the community of the estate itself together. wins all round, for minimal financial investment, really.” Simon Gray.

“Not a council tenant, but as a private one an answerphone and email address would be a start!” and “I think the question’s wrong: maybe, ‘what are the problems facing council tenants’ and keep soc media in mind when addressing them “ Michael Grimes.

“This is helping in some respects, esp with young people on 1st tenancy http://www.inliving.co.uk ” John Popham.

“If social media is ‘informal’ it will help get over the “stigma” of phoning somone or appearing in person.” Paul Jennings.

“Human face and interaction with two-way content. Would also bring tenants into contact with each other as well as council.” Nicky Getgood.

“I think councils are way off social media. Difficult to control comms leads to degraded service. Also privacy issues and challenge of delivering service using tools and channels that are external. Eg what if Twitter down? Ian Edwards.

“Google alerts for blog posts about “dog sh*t” or “broken paving slab” + their ward, then follow it up. That’s only a semi joke”. Jon Hickman.

“Blogging for different estates. Would get people to know each other and get them talking about issues that matter to them.” Antonio Roberts.

“Works t’other way- CLG wants tenants 2 have a role in mgmt- better way 2 engage than endless meetings (although meetings r useful)”. Nick Drew.

Toronto based Michael Cayley also asked: “ pls share some references used for trust & social capital session aimed at lawyers who defend councils from housing repair claims.

I used very simple examples. I was facing an audience of 100 people, none of whom blog, only one had heard of twitter. Even though I was amongst many lawyers only a smattering had come across Linkedin. I needed to show how building networks of trust can help make good things happen. I used the example of the Birmingham Bloggers group and the Social Media Surgeries. I used the volunteer effort that mysociety can apply to ventures like fixmystreet (and not a soul in the room had heard of the site). I also talked to them about the open innovation exchange experiment and how it’s model of open collaboration to pitch for contracts is using trust to disrupt existing ways of doing business and improve the outcome for the public.

Responses were mixed. Some went for the very human (my favourites) such as getting good at saying sorry, takings flowers when you’ve messed up and having street meeting with contractors. Others talked specifically about procedures and software to track transactions. One reported how law firms use facebook to recruit people for court cases.

Overall I tried to emphasise that I wanted people to go away not so much thinking about the internet, but appreciating that whatever they can do to build trust should ultimately reduce their need to fight fruitless court battles with the very people they exist to help.

We’ll see what comes next.

Very neat video explaining programme to turn back the clock on climate change

Nick Booth — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:52:42 +0000

[vimeo:http://vimeo.com/2163564]

The gents at Birmingham business Eight Eyed Sea Bass have produced this clear and clean animation explaining an open source project to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon damaging our climate. I did a little bit of work help Tim Kruger from cquestrate in July and he has been building the site and community with support from Birmingham’s Chris Unitt, Antonio Gould and Maverick. The video is worth your time and please consider lend a little help to cquestrate. They need to find collaborators (for example legal or chemical brains) – so even a quick link will improve the chance of the right people finding them.

EDM 2141 - please write to your MP.

Nick Booth — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:41:04 +0000

Update, Turns out Lynne Jones has already signed this – check here. Teach me not to check first! Good news.

—-
Spurred on by Simon – and nicking some of his text I have sent this to my MP – the very independent Lyne Jones.

I am writing to ask you to sign EDM 2141, tabled in July by Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson, in support of the Free Our Bills campaign by charity MySociety.

MySociety’s pioneering work is recognised worldwide. You will probably have seen their site, TheyWorkForYou, which makes Hansard infinitely more usable on the internet. They are seeking Parliament’s assistance to do something similar with bills, to allow the public to see the laws being drafted and published on their behalf.

Whilst recognising the motion has been tabled by a LibDem member, and that EDM signatures can sometimes be motivated by party affiliations, I would note that senior figures in your own party have spoken in favour of freeing public data. Not least Tom Watson, who’s work as Cabinet Office Minister is encouraging collaboration on new ways to get public value from public data. This is precisely what MySociety is proposing for Westminster.

MySociety’s track record shows that they can and will deliver. They are proposing changes which will take little time, cost little money, and have no material impact on current working practices.

I urge you to show your support for this important principle; and to take a few moments to sign the EDM in question.

I encourage you to do likewise. But only nick bits of this letter.

The Next Social Media Surgery for Voluntary Organisations in Birmingham.

Nick Booth — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:41:57 +0000

The date is set: Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 5.30pm to 7.00pm at the same venue as the one we ran on Blog Action day in October. To sign up for a free place and find a map to the location please visit this eventbrite link. In this post we also have an explanation of what is going on, some information for people thinking of coming along to get some advice and a few words for the very fine folk who are offering their expertise for free.

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 fopr 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 audio 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. Shirley P Cooper wrote “We met Philip (with one L) Oakley a truly inspiring, encouraging geek who introduced us to Wikis, Twitter, Rejaw, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Goodreads, Jaiku. Ping.fm and delicious. The food was lovely and we also met other nice people.”

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”. Phil Oakley made his first very welcome appearance in our midst and also wrote “Open Source alone is not going to end world poverty but it could certainly help educate and grow economies, it certainly won’t be a hindrance.”

Comments from
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?

Obama’s journey

Nick Booth — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:14:41 +0000

Thanks Pete

Gartner Research - social networks will partly replace government.

Nick Booth — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:57:28 +0000

This post from Gartner Research is well worth a good read for anyone interested in large organisations and social media.

Gartner predicts the execution of many government processes in human services, tax and revenue, health care and education will involve individuals who are neither employees nor contractors. Examples include replacement of some human services functions such as online collection of charitable donations to be directed to people in need combined with online ‘time banks’ through which citizens provide time to help others. “The future of government is a very different government and, in some cases, no government at all,” concluded Mr Di Maio.

and

Gartner points out that the benefits of social computing — when accrued — will rarely occur in the context of government-driven initiatives. For example, governments’ desire to retain ownership and control of the network, through restrictive participation policies, will be detriment to magnetism.

Gartner recommends that governments engage selected employees in finding external social networks relevant to the agency and its domain of government. They should also ensure that the use of social computing inside and between government organisations is based on a clear and compelling purpose – which is likely to be something that they cannot ‘engineer’. “Instead, they should recognise that spontaneity is needed for success,” said Mr Di Maio.

Thanks to Beth Kanter.

Do Muslims have a sense of humour?

Nick Booth — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:19:40 +0000

That’s one of the questions asked on the site of a new programme being launched in Birmingham on November 7th. The full question on Heard and not Seen is

I want to ask, “Do Muslims have a sense of humour?”.
I ask as the media portrays them in a negative way; extremism, fundamentalism etc etc. Where do Muslims go to relax and have fun as I understand they don’t drink either. I’m just curious…

One answer can be found on the site below the question, whilst I think an even better one comes from here in the form of the islamic lolcats you see on the left.

Heard and not Seen is run by Friction Arts (who’ve just shifted their own website over to wordpress) and is best described as askthedriver for Muslims.

If you also want to go to the launch and ask some questions details are here.

Compact, concise, connected - why Birmingham (Post) must change.

Nick Booth — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:10:47 +0000

Above Marc Reeves sums up why The Birmingham Post must change. After 150 years as a broadsheet, he told tonight’s launch party that nothing this radical has yet happened to the paper. The loss of the Saturday edition and the change to stapled tabloid size are the the most visible changes, but to my mind the most important ones are happening elsewhere.

They will be found in the new relationships being forged online (and in the real world) that will see reporters change from people with contacts into people with real relationships. It is something that Marc and Jo Geary (and others at the paper) have been experiencing for many months.

The curious thing though is appreciating the scale of the operation at the new Fort Dunlop HQ for the Post and sister papers. 500 jobs is a huge amount to support in a changing world with business models breaking by the day. By that measure this is just the start of a communications revolution which will take brains, courage and flexibility to survive.

So lets take a moment to be proud.

Here in Birmingham the Post is changing fast to find new ways to understand how those business models will be framed. Channel 4 has come here with 4IP to do the same. Hello Digital is looking to help us get digital faster. Independents from small companies to community groups and local bloggers are learning faster than almost anyone.

We are gaining great pleasure from plunging ourselves into solving one the key problems of the start of the 21st century.

Birmingham is learning to break and remake the rules all over again.
—-

Other Reactions:

Editors Weblog.

PaidContent “We cannot carry on as we are”

Birmingham Post Cartoonist retires (I remember Bert Hackett from work experience and being at school with his daughter).

Grovesmedia: “a tentative thumbs up for now”.

D’log, Steve Bowbrick muses on whether we could nationalise newspapers, and Mark Steadman.

The COSC - I can’t resist sharing this..

Nick Booth — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:04:46 +0000

One entrant from Filmdash. Might interest anyone who does community based stuff.

Eloquent Colalife Video

Nick Booth — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:43:36 +0000

Simon Berry’s patient yet relentless campaign to persuade Coca Cola to use its distribution network to trasnsporrt re-hydration salts is explained in this elegant short video.

Here it is, the 30 sec video to support the ColaLife submission to Googgle’s Project 10^{100 (10 to the 100th). Sam Berry (Animator); Julian Moore (Sound); Simon Cohen and Howard Lake for creative suggestions.

There’s still time to comment on the text of the application if you can.

Onwards and upwards!}

There are a lot of talented Berrys. Watch it, comment ,share please.

BAD08 Oxfam Advert

Nick Booth — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:59:52 +0000

Useful blog action day reminder of the orgs that can move mountains to alleviate poverty.

BAD08 Birmingham Social Media Surgery: provisional results

Nick Booth — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:41:26 +0000

I was enormously proud of all the people who turned up today to help voluntary groups in Birmingham better understand the power of the social web. I’ll revise this tomorrow but just want to pop up some links before stopping for the day….

http://gerimoshers.wordpress.com/ is the new experimental blog of one visitor who will use it to explore social media before plunging her network of volunteers who support victims of domestic violence into the world of the conversational web. Why this blog? She wants to write about older folk who like to mosh!

http://jdcbirmingham.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/our-new-blog/ is the first full post for a blog established for the Birmingham branch of the Jubilee debt campaign. This might be their first trackback!

8 tea arts blog.

Leonardo experienced an epiphany in audio.

We didn’t stop. Lots of social media types were helping several people at once. About 14 folk turned up to offer knowledge, I reckon closer to 3 times that came looking for help. The photo above is the room we booked, others spilled out into the hall ways where they talked and looked and listened and learnt. When we called a halt some people moaned and asked for more!

So I’ll find the other posts for this tomorrow, digest and re-write. If I’ve missed a blog created there let me know and I’ll add. But in the meantime thanks to BVSC for supporting the idea and to everyone who came along and helped spread the word.