Last Friday, Steph and I spent a great morning in Bexley at Orbit South housing association, with Orbit residents from Kent and Sussex.

We worked with Heather, Paula, Peter, Sue and Jackie to set up their own Posterous blogs to talk about what#8217;s going on in their neighbourhoods and to help them in their roles representing Orbit residents where they live.

It was great to receive such a nice warm welcome (as stories of forthcoming epic snow started to flurry) and see the enthusiastic way the residents got stuck into setting up their own blogs, asking lots of questions and understanding how social media is relevant to what they do.

The blogs vary in purpose – some are hyperlocal blogs about a street, block or sheltered housing area, one is for a Residents Forum connecting Orbit South residents across south east England, and another is a focus group monitoring Orbit services on planned works.

Here are the five blogs started:

• Chapel Lodge Block, St Leonards-on-Sea


• Boleyn Court, Gillingham


• South East Residents Forum


• Quex Court, Thanet


• Planned Works Focus Group

We#8217;ll be continuing to support and encourage to update their own blogs to become a useful resource for Orbit residents.

Peter said of his blog:

“It#8217;s like a village notice board. I#8217;ll be able to add events, resident meeting dates, news, posters and the like.”

Photo of Sue, Heather and Jackie by Steph Jennings

Last Friday, Steph and I spent a great morning in Bexley at Orbit South housing association, with Orbit residents from Kent and Sussex.

We worked with Heather, Paula, Peter, Sue and Jackie to set up their own Posterous blogs to talk about what#8217;s going on in their neighbourhoods and to help them in their roles representing Orbit residents where they live.

It was great to receive such a nice warm welcome (as stories of forthcoming epic snow started to flurry) and see the enthusiastic way the residents got stuck into setting up their own blogs, asking lots of questions and understanding how social media is relevant to what they do.

The blogs vary in purpose – some are hyperlocal blogs about a street, block or sheltered housing area, one is for a Residents Forum connecting Orbit South residents across south east England, and another is a focus group monitoring Orbit services on planned works.

Here are the five hyperlocal and scrutiny blogs started:

• Chapel Lodge Block, St Leonards-on-Sea


• Boleyn Court, Gillingham


• South East Residents Forum


• Quex Court, Thanet


• Planned Works Focus Group

We#8217;ll be continuing to support and encourage to update their own blogs to become a useful resource for Orbit residents.

Peter said of his blog:

“It#8217;s like a village notice board. I#8217;ll be able to add events, resident meeting dates, news, posters and the like.”

Photo of Sue, Heather and Jackie by Steph Jennings

Knowledge and experience dwells in neighbourhoods, because we do. On recent visit to Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol, I was struck by how firmly the centre is rooted in the local community. Andrew remarked that projects like their University of Local Knowledge value and celebrate local experiences, and also treat the neighbourhood as a kind of pool of local data and local stories. The challenge for local authorities is how to mix our data into that same pool – how to put the data that communities can make use of into the places where they can really use it – their own places.

If you know where the radishes are, you know whether it’s feasible to get a supply of radishes – and if you know where the shops are, or what people buy, or what people’s attitude to local food is, then you also know where you might be able to sell those radishes. If you know who is growing the radishes, you can start a conversation with that person, and who knows where it might lead.

I know a few people who are partial to a good radish. There’s a story in that somewhere.

This week I#8217;ve been playing with stacks on Delicious, the social bookmarking site. Stacks are a way to organise your links into a common theme and the new social features make collaborating much easier.

To learn how the new features work – rather than curate links around an arbitrary theme (such as “most awesome kitten stunt videos”, which someone has probably done already) – I started this stack to share resources and links aimed at social media surgery managers.

Here#8217;s my blurb on Delicious describing what, I hope, the stack can be:

I#8217;ve started this stack to share resources and links related to running social media surgeries for voluntary and community organisations. See socialmediasurgery.com for more details on what a surgery is, the ethos we share and how to start your own surgery. Please feel free to add your own links but – please note – keep this focused on resources you, as a Surgery Manager, think your “patients” will find useful. If you#8217;ve run a surgery, you#8217;ll have a good idea of what people need to get started and what they need to develop further. This stack of links should be a useful resource. Any SEO / self-styled guru types / spammy marketers / self-promoters, please stay away. Thanks in advance for collaborating.

Are you involved in running, or volunteering, at a social media surgery? Are there resources or links you often find yourself demonstrating that others could benefit from knowing about?

Please feel free to contribute your links to the stack and make it a useful resource.

View Social Media Surgery stack on delicious.

I know this because of a set of #8220;skills#8221; that are hard to measure or teach.

One is being networked.

Peter Latchford (who#8217;s doing some initial work for the LEP on skills) approached me to see what I thought are the skills businesses like Podnosh will need. On the 30th of January he#8217;ll report back and tell the LEP what small business is asking for.  So this is what I#8217;d like them to hear:

Podnosh recruits for?

Values. 

We are driven by making things better: improving public services, helping active citizens have a greater impact, allowing individual civil servants more freedom to improve lives, supporting good third sector organisations to help more people.  We don#8217;t work with anyone, if potential clients  don#8217;t share a good chunk of our passions or values we#8217;d rather they found someone else to help them.

So for this we employ or work with people who:

• believe in what we do


• care about it


• are accountable


• transparent


• honest


• have integrity


• are networked

In turn they often know what they want and believe in and are leaders in their own worlds.

They are usually enterprising: Steph Jennings runs her own hyperlocal blog,  Josh Hart makes livebrum happen, Gavin Wray has nurture the Central Birmingham Social media surgery for years.  They make things happen, adapt to change, accept and learn from failure.

On top of that they are flexible and committed.  All seem to have  unstoppable ability to make things work, see things through and to learn everything and anything he needs to make that happen.

So we also want to find people who  start things themselves (not the same as self starters), can#8217;t help but learn on their own, aware of their strengths and happy to be open about what they want to strengthen.

It may sound like a halcyon world of small enterprise.  But these are the people who work at or with Podnosh and they all have remarkable qualities (and if It sounds like I#8217;m expecting them to be superhuman I#8217;m not, I could never keep up).

One thing I haven#8217;t mentioned? A certificate in anything.

Certainly there are technical skills and we are looking for more folk who are good at Ruby on Rails,  but in our world many technical skills get outdated very quickly. So at it#8217;s simplest we recruit the person, get that right and the knowledge later.

What do you recruit for #8211; what does the LEP need to understand are the skills or qualities we need to help Birmingham#8217;s small businesses thrive?

nbsp;

nbsp;

nbsp;

Great Value(s) P(l)eas(e) - photo by Tony Crider (click to view on flickr)

Later this month the Birmingham and Solihull LEP will start making some decisions about skills and work – asking themselves what skills do employers need and how to make them available.

I know this because of a set of #8220;skills#8221; that are hard to measure or teach.

One is being networked.

Peter Latchford (who#8217;s doing some initial work for the LEP on skills) approached me to see what I thought businesses like Podnosh will need. On 30th January he#8217;ll report back and tell the LEP what small business is asking for. So this is what I#8217;d like them to hear:

Podnosh recruits for?

Values

We are driven by making things better: improving public services, helping active citizens have a greater impact, allowing individual civil servants more freedom to improve lives, supporting good third sector organisations to help more people. We don#8217;t work with anyone – if potential clients don#8217;t share a good chunk of our passions or values we#8217;d rather they found someone else to help them.

So for this we employ or work with people who:

• believe in what we do


• care about it


• are accountable


• transparent


• honest


• have integrity


• are networked

In turn they often know what they want and believe in and are leaders in their own worlds.

They are usually enterprising: Steph Jennings runs her own hyperlocal blog, Josh Hart makes LIVEBrum happen, Gavin Wray has nurtured the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery for years. They make things happen, adapt to change, accept and learn from failure.

On top of that they are flexible and committed. All seem to have an unstoppable ability to make things work, see things through and to learn everything and anything they need to make that happen.

So we also want to find people who start things themselves (not the same as self starters), can#8217;t help but learn on their own, aware of their strengths and happy to be open about what they want to strengthen.

It may sound like a halcyon world of small enterprise. But these are the people who work at, or with, Podnosh and they all have remarkable qualities (and if it sounds like I#8217;m expecting them to be superhuman I#8217;m not, I could never keep up).

One thing I haven#8217;t mentioned? A certificate in anything.

Certainly there are technical skills and we are looking for more folk who are good at Ruby on Rails, but in our world many technical skills get outdated very quickly. So at it#8217;s simplest we recruit the person, get that right and the knowledge later.

What do you recruit for – what does the LEP need to understand are the skills or qualities we need to help Birmingham#8217;s small businesses thrive?

Update:

Karl Binder at Adhere added these thoughts to the discussion in his post #8220;Total Business#8221;:

So I look for:

• Aptitude, a readiness and quickness in learning


• Love what they do, have a passion for their job


• Flexibility


• Desire to continually try something new


• Recognition that their job role can and will change


• Existing skill set

If I had to sum up my employment strategy in a catchy little sound bite I would say I always looked to #8216;employ people, rather than skills#8217;. This effectively means if the person#8217;s attitude is right, they have a willingness to learn and an ability to do so, don#8217;t get disheartened and give up quickly and realise that their role is one that is constantly evolving, I would employ them over someone who was the finished product in one particular area of expertise.

Thanks Karl.

Yesterday at the Lozells and Birchfield Social Media Surgery I was paired with a young man who was looking for help setting up a blog for an organisation he was involved with. I started as always by chatting with him a little bit about what the work he was doing and what they wanted to use the blog for when he said something that really pulled what he was trying to achieve into focus for me;

“The girls have babies and the boys shoot and stab each other. I’ve lost count of the amount of christenings and funerals I’ve been to but I’ve never been to a wedding that#8217;s just not what we do”

- He was talking about life in Handsworth and Lozells as he knew it.

The patients name was Mosies, he is a 19 year old ex gang member from Handsworth, He’s not long been found not guilty on a very serious criminal charge, and by his own admittance has been in trouble with the law before, and now he’s taking that experience to not only try and turn his life around but also to try and change the gang culture that plagues youths in some parts of North Birmingham.

He along with other ex gang members from opposing groups in the area, some with criminal records for gang related activities have come together to form the New Day Foundation, They are aiming to try and combat gang culture targeting younger children to educate them on the realities of gang life and try to show them that there are other options to what they think is “normal”,  to change their futures so they can go to more wedding than funerals in their lives!

I sat for an hour and listened to Mosies as he told us about the path he’d taken to be sitting in the room with us that day. Where he’d come from, why he wanted to change the lives of people stuck with the perception that joining a gang was the only option and how he and the other members of his group hoped to do that.

He had the whole room enthralled and as he was telling us how at the age of 14 he stopped going out to the cinema with his friends so he could save his money to buy a gun and all I was thinking was look at you now! 5 years later a changed individual talking about the pride taken in earning money the “proper way”, looking forward to getting a mortgage and hoping the story of your experiences would in some way stop others having to go through it.

-  and that right there is what I like so much about the Social Media Surgery format; Only in a room where people are encouraged to talk to each other and help each other one on one would I have heard Mosies story. At a prescribed training session we’d have all sat in rows listening to one person talking and hoping to pick up the most relevant bits for our needs and no one would have realised the momentous journey this one young man had taken to be there with us.

nbsp;

Paul Bradshaw is hosting this review by Ofcom#8217;s Manager of Nation#8217;s and Region Damian Radcliffe.  Damian has been a patient observer and (I think) advocate for bottom up hyperlocal website#8217;s such as the one#8217;s we help through social media surgeries.

They often provide an information anchor which can be very useful to local government, the police, housing associations #8211; anyone serving a neighbourhood. On the whole I tend to think of local as much more local that is often meant when maintsream media or ministers bandy around the term hyperlocal. They seem to be talking about town size patches #8211; we#8217;re keen to encourage something much more local still.

View #8220;BBC People Meet Hyperlocal Bloggers from the West Midlands#8221; on Storify

Public money can and does get wasted in the unruly rush to the end of March.  You could improve that.

1. Write a meaningful headline

Headlines are one of the most important parts of your blog ndash; not just for readers but for sites like Google which use it to decide what your blog post is about.

When you write a blog post, the headline should be as meaningful and factual as possible. lsquo;An event this weekendrsquo; for example, tells us very little. lsquo;Council meeting at Sparkhill Community Centrersquo; is much better. If someone is searching for lsquo;Sparkhillrsquo; or lsquo;council meetingrsquo; or lsquo;community centrersquo; they are much more likely to find it.

A good technique is to put yourself in the place of someone looking for the information yoursquo;re publishing. Will they use the same jargon as you, or a more common term? Try to include in your headline the terms that people will use for their search.

2. Write meaningful content

Google will not just look at your headline when categorising a blog post. It will pay particular attention to your first paragraph, any subheadings, bold and italic text, and links.

Try to include important names, places and terms in those places. It not only makes it easier for Google, but also for readers, who will often look to the first par, subheadings, bold and italic text and links for the key information theyrsquo;re seeking.

3. Categorise and tag your content

Once yoursquo;ve finished your post, make sure you categorise and tag it. The boxes to do that are to the right of your post as you write it (instructions for how to do this can be found here).

Categories and tags help Google to more accurately classify your content ndash; but they also make it easier to find for people browsing your site. If something is categorised lsquo;Herefordshirersquo;, for example, when someone has finished reading it they can click on the lsquo;Herefordshirersquo; category link to see all the other posts in that category.

4. Add an image ndash; and an alternative description

An increasing number of people are using image searches to find content. When writing a post think if you have an image that suits it. If so, add it in (instructions can be found here) and make sure that the lsquo;alternative descriptionrsquo; box is filled with something meaningful and factual ndash; this is the text that Google uses to categorise it.

5. Add text summaries to audio, images or video

Search engines like Google cannot hear audio or see photos or video, so they look around it to try to figure out what the content is about. If you are publishing audio or video include an introductory paragraph that explains who is speaking, where it was filmed, and what it is about. Make sure you include key places, names and phrases that people might use to find this content.

As an aside, if your video is hosted on YouTube or your images on Flickr, make sure you have a description on that site as well ndash; and a link to the blog. More people use YouTube to search than use Yahoo! so itrsquo;s another way that people can find your information.

• Neighbourhoods Learning Together — BVSC #8211; Course available for community activists in North Birmingham and Sandwell: #8220;30 places are available and we want to the group to reflect the diversity of the area. If there are barriers or support needs which are making you hesitate, then let us know and we’ll see what we can do. The venues for the sessions will be wheel chair accessible.#8221;


• Telford amp; Wrekin CVS-news from the Development Team » Blog Archive » Telford amp; Wrekin CVS BASIS Project #8211; #8220;The whole purpose of which is to recruit, support and train 50 local voluntary and community organisations, in the art of social media, so that they can implement it, to ultimately support group sustainability#8221;


• Swimming pool data scraping: comparing opening times | Where can we swim? #8211; #8220;Birmingham City Council’s leisure centre website isn’t an easy place to look for information, harder still to try to take data, but that’s just what I’ve spent some considerable time trying to do#8230;.#8221; Our own Andrew Brightwell continues his one man campaign to scrutinise availability of swimming pools.


• The power of conversations « Francesca Elston #8211; #8220;#8230;conversations make people happier and more useful.#8221;


• Pentagon hunts WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in bid to gag website | Media | The Guardian #8211; The Daily Beast, a US news reporting and opinion website, reported that Pentagon investigators are trying to track down Julian Assange – an Australian citizen who moves frequently between countries – after the arrest of a US soldier last week who is alleged to have given the whistleblower website a classified video of American troops killing civilians in Baghdad.


• Cutswatch | Society | guardian.co.uk #8211; Public services face the harshest cuts in decades. We want to know what#8217;s happening in your area


• Futurebuilders — loan business scrapped, new direction will be grants for neighbourhood organisations « The BSSEC blog #8211; #8220;Civil Society Media website reports that Nick Hurd, the civil society minister, has confirmed that Futurebuilders — New Labour’s flagship loans-plus-support model for investing in third sector development, managed by the Social Investment Business — is “effectively closed for business”. In future the £200m fund will be dedicated to providing grants to stimulate the formation of neighbourhood-based organisations, a clear change of direction under the coalition’s new ‘big society’ policies.
  
  The Office for Civil Society (the replacement for the Office of the Third Sector) has also confirmed that Capacitybuilders and the youth volunteering organisation v — both major New Labour initiatives — are “under review”.#8221;

It featured academic and activist Simon Baddeley talking about his campaign to prevent homes being built on the Victoria Jubilee allotments, which border Handsworth Park.

Grab your plot

Simon and his neighbours couldn#8217;t stop the housing development, but they did manage to get planning to require the developers to re-instate 80 of the allotments plots.   Simon has fought long and hard to ensure that this commitment is honoured.  Yesterday he claimed his plot:

Simon Baddeley: quot;Got the plotquot;

A few weeks ago Simon also digitised the original documentary, which you can see here:

A healthier approach to Urban Land?

For me the re-opening of the allotments  represents a small symbol of a shifting attitude to land in our cities. At the time the doucmentary was made it felt like land was there for developers and individual profit.  Since then demand for allotments has grown, people are showing off their pride in these places, the Birmingham Open Spaces Forum is nurturing a better relationship between citizens and council.  Parks like Cannon Hill and Handsworth have improved immeasurably and the famous CoCoMad in Cotteridge Park has shown how far open space cements community relations.

As Emma Woolf, of the Friends of Cotteridge Park,  explained in one one of our first Grassroots Channel Podcasts in 2005, conflict over public space can be a catalyst for a community coming together:

Is it time for a more flexible understand of public land?

Martin Field has been making the case for an easy to use map of publicly owned land plots in the city.  He#8217;s made a tiny bit of progress:

We  emailed  a simple google map reference to the relevant officer and within 24 hours we had a response as to the specific ownership. Very good service and free, although you can only determine if the land is owned by the City or not, but still a good start. If the City does not own the land you are directed to the UK Land Registry, which is not a good experience and not free!

Last week I was at the Handsworth Residents Network meeting, which included a detailed discussion about how hard and frustrating it is for community groups to clean up or use eyesore plots.

The council itself has been seeking to streamline the process of transferring assets into the hands of community groups through it#8217;s Community Asset Transfer Development Programme.  (I#8217;ve been involved in recording that programme). Their work includes thinking of broader ways to measure the value of using land, called Valuing Worth.  This is supported by a wide range of other activity #8211; including Growspace, which is taking hold in Ladywood.

These are small things.

I think we are still confused about ways of using urban land and why shouldn#8217;t we be. Cities are confusing places.  But people outside and inside local authorities are finding it easier to collaborate to make better use of land for community benefit.

What else do we need to do during a time of lower public spending, tighter financial restrictions for developers and an ideological/economic battle over where food should be produced?  Update #8211; perhaps all questions you can explore at the Cultures of Birmingham: Open Spaces event from the Chamberlain forum on 24th June at 6.30 at the the Mac in Cannon Hill park

This video by Demos tells the story of how my neighbourhood and the people in it are doing work which fits with the governments Big Society idea.  David Cameron has visited Balsall Heath a number of times and Dick Atkinson who#8217;s in the video, was at the Downing Street launch of the Big Society.  Nowrah the main woman in the film is one of the people helping us run the Balsall Heath Social Media Surgery.

That#8217;s all I want to say at the moment #8211; lots of thoughts bubbling at the moment on the Big Society #8211; but enjoy the video.

• Living with rats: It#8217;s all about social justice #8211; Nice presentation on the future of regeneration from Julian Dobson


• Big Society champion appointed Government advisor #8211; Nat Wei, one of Teach First#039;s founding team, has been appointed as the new Government adviser on Big Society and a member of the House of Lords.


• PM and Deputy PMrsquo;s speeches at Big Society launch | Number10.gov.uk #8211; A transcript of speeches given by Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the launch of the Big Society programme on 18 May 2010.


• Conceptual inclusion #8211; quot;Language such as lsquo;be onrsquo; is one of the many barriers groups face and itrsquo;s one of the reasons I enjoy volunteering as a surgeon because it really gets you thinking about how often and how easily you use words or phrases that seem commonplace but are in fact jargon to many and the session presents an opportunity to explain or discuss the terms properly. The digital world is moving so quickly that it isnrsquo;t just new words needing to be learnt but whole other ways of thinking,quot;


• duncanhodgson.co.uk #8211; quot;online youth work is the most valuable tool I#039;ve used in a long long timequot; #8211; Let#039;s not forget that!

• Why its essential to socialize your business philosophy #8211; #8220;If you can’t or refuse to adapt your business philosophy to realize the full potential of social media, you will be wondering why your socialized competitors are doing increasingly more business than you are.#8221;


• Home is where the Art is: How to do social media #8211; #8220;Whatever you do with digital media, it is just that #8211; digital media. The important stuff is the conversations it supports. No conversation, no point to digital media#8221; This is from a customer and makes me very proud!


• Talk About Local 2010 #8211; What we learnt #8211; Blog - #8211; Much to our surprise, Greener Leith won the #8216;Best Specialist Hyperlocal#8217; award, for which we#8217;re most grateful. We#8217;re still laughing at the plastic umbrella (price tag unremoved), tiny plastic trophy and the camouflage hat that made up the prize


• Nick Petrie | One year of Redbrick #8211; The student media scene is a great place for experimentation because the business model is different. It is an environment where risk should be encouraged and entrepreneurship supported. Social media is the buzz topic at the moment, but it is the concepts that surround it that matter; relationships, community engagement and conversations – the interactions that publications have with their audience.


• 2008-09 Citizenship Survey: Empowered Communities Topic Report #8211; Corporate #8211; Communities and Local Government #8211; #8220;Using 2008-09 Citizenship Survey data, this report provides an in-depth examination of community empowerment: whether people feel they can influence local and national decisions; whether they would like to be more involved in decision making; what would make it easier to influence decision making; and how people would influence decisions if they wanted to.#8221;


• future interviews « #8216;i interview interesting people#8217; #8211; Interesting journalistic process from Robert Dale


• Design for America #8211; Sunlight Labs is pleased to announce our latest contest #8212; “Design for America.” This 10 week long design and data visualization extravaganza is focused on connecting the talents of art and design communities throughout the country to the wealth of government data now available through bulk data access and APIs, and to help nurture the field of information visualization. Our goal is simple and straightforward — to make government data more accessible and comprehensible to the American public.

It wasn#8217;t my normal audience #8211; that would be communicators, policy makers, senior officers, politicians perhaps data people. This group just had a lunchtime spare with a mind to learn something new. Curious and hungry and unaware they were about to receive the full bore of my enthusiasm for the web and civic engagement.

Questions questions

Loads of question followed #8211; good simple straight forward ones about how things work, privacy, why you would bother.  The sort of questions we#8217;re used to being asked at social media surgeries.   So a group refreshingly happy to ask the basics.

One really made me stop and think: #8220;Is that on Google or the internet?#8221;.

I was stumped for a moment.  It felt like a cartoon character has just looked up at me from a drawing and asked me to explain the world of 3 dimensions.

It#8217;s a perfectly reasonable one mind (all questions are).  #8220;You can find it through Google or you can go straight to the web page using the web address,#8221;  I tried to explain, adding:  #8220;they#8217;re  all on the internet#8221; to a rather puzzled frown.

It happened to be Silver Surfers this week.   I#8217;m not keen on the idea myself but marketing minds often feel it is working and perhaps that question explains the need.

Remember the basics

If even the concept of the world wide web is still slippery for some (hence the question) how do we describe this fundamental shift in information and relationships for those who have yet to grasp it?   So I asked twitter this question:

I#8217;m struggling for an analogy to explain the Internet to people who#8217;ve only ever known libraries and radio etc.  any thoughts?

and these are your generous answers in the order they arrived:

parboo it#8217;s like a library, all on#8230; Nope, I can see why you#8217;re struggling how#8217;s you n yours?  (fine thanks)  ( click here for parboo#8217;s blog)

citizensheep I#8217;m struggling to have any thoughts at all at the moment. I#8217;ll have a think though.  (Citizensheep is Michael Grimes and his blog shows that it#8217;s always worth waiting for his thoughts)

josiefraser @podnosh Internet like a highway apparently http://u.nu/3dvfa if you say super highway it makes it a bit more ziggy stardust. So maybe don#8217;t.  ( Josie#8217;s blog)

steve_nicholls @podnosh i think @parboo was on to it there. A big reference book where instead of skimming the index, you type it in?

pauljonlevy @podnosh Like ceefax but better? You off timetravelng? LIke everybook or radio programme in the world on air at the same time?

bounder @podnosh CB Radio with librarians ?  (Jon#8217;s blog)

redmamba @podnosh brain ?

cyberdoyle @podnosh tell them its libraries and radio on rocket fuel. similar but faster. and on tap. available on demand. if you can get a connection.

peteashton @podnosh probably no help but it#8217;s both larger and smaller than a library. (Pete#8217;s blog)

natashacarlish @podnosh it#8217;s like all the books and all the radio and a whole lot more inside a tvscreen which you can access all the time

danslee @podnosh Internet? It#8217;s like having a selection of really good books delivered to your desk. At the click of a button #librarywebanalogy (some of the stuff Dan blogs about)

red_annie @podnosh the Internet is what happened when the library, supermarket, post office, radio and tv got squished into a portable box.  (Annie#8217;s blog)

katehughes @podnosh imagine a library so big it has all the books in the world, then imagine that instead of books, it is filled with knowledge, then imagine instead of aisles and the dewey decimal system, the information comes to you instantly and every piece of infinite information is attached to each other so you can find whatever you want from wherever you start. I love the internet. http://tl.gd/1e1lo5 (By the way Kate is cheating #8211; she uses tweetlonger to share more than 140 characters with us!  She#8217;s also blogs at http://socialhousingcomms.blogspot.com/.)

KazThomas @podnosh  Internet:  Encyclopedia of life filled with screens of knowledge!  I reckon that sums it up? (Karen#8217;s blog)

BostinBloke @podnosh electronic library

parboo @steve_nicholls @podnosh yes#8230; and it finds stuff quicker than a quick thing in a quick box and it talks too and you can put stuff in it.

One I left out of order was this:

mattbuck_hack @parboo @podnosh Is the #8216;answer#8217; us?   #copyright #gnomic #utterancesINC

I do wonder whether reading this would make the person who asked the question any the wiser but is amuses me that the tweet that most seemed to sum up my inadequate thought (which is nothing more complicated than #8220;help#8221;) should come from Matt Buck #8211; a cartoonist, one who more than most might be able to explain the transition from 2 dimensions to 3.

Quite a few Balsall Heathers (or should that be Balsall Heathans?) have been down in one capacity or another to the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgeries in the past, so it was good to see a few familiar faces coming to the Balsall Heath surgery.

Simon Whitehouse was in attendance, helping Nisha Virdi. And John Newson was also down, getting some assistance with his blog for Balsall Heath Is Our Planet from Dan Davies (who, as it happens, also lives very nearby #8211; even if he thinks he#8217;s in Moseley!)

But there were also many new faces who managed to make it down, including #8211; of course #8211; those working at the forum themselves. I spent some time helping Abdullah Rehman and Nowrah Abdul to set up a blog for the forum, which it#8217;s nice to see they#8217;ve been using in the week or so since the event.

Nick Booth was able to help Zainab and Dalal from the Yemeni Women and Children’s Society #8211; and even set up this quick blog post with them on the day. And it was particularly exciting to see Zulfiqar Ali, of the Pakistani Youth Council. Zulfiqar is really good at using online tools already, but he got some help with using RSS feeds and Yahoo Pipes, which hopefully will be very helpful with some of the interesting things he#8217;s doing.

So, all in all, lots of interesting things happened and I#8217;m really looking forward to the next event. Hope you can make it!

To sign up to the next event, on June 2, please visit the Social Media Surgery Plus site.

A village of 300 people has a digital mentor.  Hat-tip  Cataspanglish

May Social Media Surgery

After some very busy surgeries recently, May#8217;s was small, but perfectly formed. Emma Neil and Hannah Severn from The Birmingham Conservation Trust got help from Gavin Wray and Nick Booth with their blogging work for the trust. Both Emma and Hannah are volunteering for the Trust and have been doing some really interesting stuff since coming to the Central Birmingham surgery a couple of months ago.

They#8217;ve both been blogging assiduously for a while now, on a variety of different subjects for the Trust, as you can see here and here. They also write reviews of local history books, which allows the trust to raise small aounts of money through the Amazon affiliate system.

This time they learned, in particular, about Google Analytics because they#8217;d been worried that too few people were commenting on their posts on the site, as this video interview with Hannah (left) and Emma (right) explains.

Emma and Hannha weren#8217;t the only people to come down #8211; even if we happened to pick the moment the UK got its first coalition government in 70 years. Anna Watson, from Localise West Midlands, was down for her first surgery #8211; and seemed to really enjoy it. Heidi Blanton, who was down to help as a surgeon for the second time,  helped Anna to learn about Twitter, WordPress and other forms of social media.

We also had a visit from Dr Monika Metykova #8211; who is a media and communications research associate at Goldsmith#8217;s. Monika is conducting some really interesting research into changes in media consumption and production #8211; and was down to learn about what we#8217;re doing at the Social Media Surgery. She also got a little bit of help from Simon Gray on setting up a Twitter account. Monika said she was particularly surprised how quickly it is possible to make some really significant, useful steps towards understanding social media at a surgery.

In the video she explains a little bit about the context of her research and how her visit to the Social Media Surgery fits into that.

My idea has turned into a blog #8211; Where Can We Swim #8211; that I#8217;m busy trying to develop as a sort of laboratory for the scrutiny of swimming pool provision. At the heart of my idea is a basic belief that we #8211; the public #8211; in all our great unwashed glory, might be able to help to run public facilities #8211; not just as volunteers, but because we#8217;re clever and can actually come up with new ways of doing things.

A reappraisal

When I started the project I hoped to develop a kind of tool kit for scrutiny. I even imagined I#8217;d be scraping data in order to provide really good quality information. But my assumptions were totally off. By posting about my swimming pools idea on Podnosh I#8217;ve learned of the work that Plings has done to find out all the local authorities providing free swimming to under 16s.

The Where can I swim for free site

This has made me think about how this provision will continue in the future. I#8217;ve also realised the mines of local information that exist from websites locally, like the Moseley Road Bath#8217;s excellent updates on swimming pool news in Birmingham and are helping to keep an eye on how the city council runs its pools.

Swimming around the web

And, when I first encountered the daftness of the Active Places data set run by Sport England (the store for all the country#8217;s public sporting facilities), I imagined I#8217;d spend my time trying to unlock the data, but it turns out that the folk at Rewired State have already had a crack at it.

What all this is beginning to prove is that my idea of a tool kit makes no sense whatsoever. Instead it#8217;s pretty simple really: the web#8217;s the tool. The real trick #8211; something I#8217;m only beginning to understand #8211; is learning to use it to make connections between you and other people who have the same idea. And, if you do that, then suddenly all sorts of clever things begin to happen.

The talented combo of Hugh Flouch and Kevin Harris from Networked Neighbourhoods have published the beginings of their  research for London Council#8217;s on very local online media.  At this stage (there#8217;s more to come) it comes in two parts:  A list of the types of sites found in London, how they work, who they reach and what they are for .  They offer 8:

1. Civil Social Networks, such as Haringay Online or Alum Rock Neighbourhood (a bit quiet)


2. Local Discussion sites, such as forum#8217;s for a neighbourhood, like Balsall Heath Online.


3. Placeblogs #8211; like Kings Cross Environment or Pit n Pots (these sites are very focused on holding power to account for a place)


4. Blogazines #8211; are like placeblogs but less focussed on holding power to account #8211; example might include


5. Public Social Spaces #8211; these are areas created on facebook etc to bring together local material


6. Local action groups online #8211; specific local pressure orgs using the web, one like Greener Leith are both focussed on an issue and a neighbourhood.


7. Local Digital News (commercial)


8. Multiples and listings sites (these are big sites that present information locally too)

Interesting way to divide things up.   As I#8217;m certain Hugh and Kevin know many sites are many things.  Ventnor Blog is a  placeblog, a blogazine and a forum at the very least #8211; probably also Local Digital News.

There are also other forms of local media #8211; most of which come in the shape of tools.  Postcode search on google maps,  fix my street is clearly a local site and often Help Me Investigate is a contributor to the local digital environment in a number of places.

Likewise the combination of a placeblog or two, blogazines, a local listing and the input from local online campaigns forms a more realistic understand of what loal digital media is in any one place.

Of course Hugh and Kevin get this:

As our research review indicates, there have been very few studies of specific local sites and the movement barely registers in the local government world. Many sites are growing and changing rapidly. It follows that any classification has to be subject to ongoing revision.

It is good to see the structure helping people understand that his is not neccesarily a substitute for mainstream media, more a movement with it#8217;s own cahracteristics.  So, as the start of a means for prevailing structures to picture and understand local online activity, this break down is a great help.

Their other report on the research context is a really useful overview of what has already been written avout the net, localness and civic action #8211; reminding us that the web as been at this for as long as we#8217;ve been using the web.  I applus thei conclusion

In our view, the area where we should look for impact is in conversational democracy and the mundane politics of the everyday, and how this is converted into civic action. It would be a mistake to expect impact in terms of conventional political processes.

I find myself repeatedly urging local authorities not to think of the web as a way to get more people to engage with their structures and meetings, but as a new opportunity to find other ways to get involved with the people who care about the places where they live.

The Where Can We Swim website

I#8217;ve started blogging on the site, but I#8217;ve also put together a wiki #8211; that still needs some work #8211; where anyone can contribute to a debate over the condition of swimming pools in the city. I#8217;m hoping I can also collect some basic information about swimming pools in the city and use this to compare it to other cities.

I#8217;m interested in seeing how these two very simple tools can add to a debate over the provision of swimming in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics. It seems a long time ago now, but when the bid for the games was made its strongest suit was the sporting legacy it would leave behind. That wasn#8217;t just in London; there was a commitment to improve facilities across the UK.

What#8217;s this got to do with scrutiny?

It seems to me that we should all be involved in evaluating the sporting legacy that the Olympic Games in London is providing. In Birmingham, for example, there was a lot of noise about a project to build an Olympic-sized swimming pool for the city that would be in place before the 2012 games. That noise hasn#8217;t amounted to much at the moment, except a lot of people who are unhappy about where it#8217;s going and others, including the Amateur Swimming Association, who are peeved that it has been held up.

What did the Olympics ever do for us?

Imagine, for a moment, what will happen in two years#8217; time when the Olympics is all over. We#8217;ll be left with a few gold medals and #8211; perhaps #8211; some nice new facilities. But will the legacy, trumpeted by the Olympic Games bid team, have been fulfilled? And who gets to decide whether or not it has been?

Since the facilities have been built for us, I reckon that we should be the ones who get to decide. But how on earth does one go about that? A big survey? A phone vote on Radio 5? And what, exactly, will be the point? If we#8217;ve missed the boat and we don#8217;t get the legacy we think we deserve and were promised who can we blame?

That#8217;s why I think the idea of scrutinising the Olympic legacy ourselves (and when I say #8216;ourselves#8217; I mean anyone who cares) is so crucial. How should the funding we#8217;ve got be spent?  What is wrong with the facilities we have and how would you build new ones?

In a sense, bodies like the Amateur Swimming Association and our own politicians will do this anyway. But surely interested citizens, who care about the facilities they use, could become involved in that kind of scrutiny at a local level. Given that we#8217;re about to get a new government and there#8217;s been a financial crisis, there#8217;s a lot to be vigilant about. That#8217;s what I hope the Where Can We Swim site can start, in a very small way, to be about. It#8217;s really just a very modest exploration of what happens when one person asks a question about one particular aspect of a local service.

Swimming Pool in Balsall Heath - image thanks to Ell Brown on flickr

I#8217;m sitting here talking to Zainab and Dalal from the Yemeni Women and Children#8217;s Society at the Balsall Heath Social Media Surgery.  I#8217;m just showing them how quickly you can publish something to the web, including a link and a picture.