Last night I went to the 3rd Birmingham bloggers meet. Organised by Nick Booth, Podnosh. Overall I have to say it was kind of fun, and interesting too. First of all I thought I would share the rather mischievous notes/observations I made (verbatim) at the event and if I have time I'll expand on them sensibly.
- SXSW(M) bit- tech savvy scale?
- Birmingham Bloggers appox 30
- Women 2
- Dubber - very smooth camera holding/beer reaching action
- Digital media passé - apparently
- Applying what was learnt at SXSW to other areas beyond creative inds - (Re: Michael Wolf)
- Strikes me - I must invite my single girlfriends next time (1/15) "Girls I found where all the men are!"
- Co-working movement - Re: San fran
- Man from London – ‘wanted folks to know how 'cool' this stuff was.... ‘
- Refreshing to know, that at least in this area London doesn't appear any cooler
- Social Media cafe and co-working space (sounds kind of familiar~)
- Bert and Ernie
I'm humming YMCA while I type - wierd....
- CUBIT....back in da day, 90's and custard factory - also thing in Wolverhampton
- def recalling research around co-working spaces etc empty spaces
- Increasing chance of serendipity
- Appreciating canteen at work in a whole new way
- Thinking how great in some ways working in a University can be - constant opportunities to network cross faculty/collaboration/serendipity ago go
- 'Evangelist' totally soo 90's - no?
I couldn't help pointing out that the group was seriously lacking in diversity. All but, I think, three were white, male and around the late 20's early 30's mark. In the pub afterwards it occurred to me however, that as a community it was as much my responsibility to help diversify the group as it is anyone else’s. But I do have some confusion about the purpose of the group.
Is it a group for folks that happen to blog and live in Birmingham?
Is it a group for folks that blog about technology and live in Birmingham?
Is it a group for folks who blog, have an interest in new media/social networking/digitally stuff and live in Birmingham?
Is it a group for freelancers working within new media sector to come together?
It was interesting for me to see how this is developing. From the Creative Enterprise perspective there was a definite focus on how small businesses, sole traders and freelancers can make use of social media both on and off line and I could sense a business plan or proposal to an RDA percolating from some of the group. One thing I would say is a lot of this stuff had been tried before. It is not new that there are a lot of freelancers (particularly in the creative inds) about, who seek out space to network, work, share space and collaborate, even the internet as a conduit to this collaboration isn't all that new, the tools may have changed a bit (was email, newsgroup, discussion lists etc - now blogging, facebook, twitter etc) but not necessarily the application.
I'll expand on some of my bullets at some point.
Homework done 517 words ok Pete?
Oh and just noticed Stef Lewandowski has some pics up
