Digital Birmingham: A quick tour by a Capetonian

Monday I decided to make a trip to Birmingham to see what the social media scene would be like in that city. Initially I had no idea what to expect but was looking forward to the journey (also the furthest north I have travelled in England). Entering the beautiful city and observing many industrial landmarks it was no surprise to me that my visit would be one that would be beyond memorable as I began meeting with the Brum Bloggers (Birmingham Social Media Community). I was hosted by Jon Hickman lecturer at Birmingham City University and also the course director for the Masters degree in Social Media. I was intrigued by the fact that they would be the first to offer a Masters in Social Media and was good to understand the thinking behind the course.

Meetings with other interesting social media experts working in local charities (Michael Grimes)and with young offenders (Jon Bounds)also proved to be very useful learning how different communities in contexts were using social media. Although we come from different parts of the world we all shared a view that key to social media is the community more than just the tools or technologies. Later the evening I had the privilege to join the Birmingham Social Media Elite (BrumBloggers) where various people in the social media sector came together to share and just chat around the table. Amazing group of people all around the room and was fortunate to connect with the likes of Nick Booth and Pete Ashton who had an interesting take on engaging with social media. Nick with his years of experience in the industry and more so trying to break down barriers within engaging using Social media in the government context reminded me of the same challenges we face with funding being available for certain initiatives yet it never reaches the ground because somewhere the message gets lost in the chain of command. More so the importance of Government when it comes to what is called the Digital Citizen. Really an informative evening having great conversations from what a Social media consultant is to how social media should be more used in the area of social good.

My second day started off meeting Chris Unitt who has an interest in social media in developing countries and was able to share some of our experiences with the Athlone Living Lab and Reconstructed Project. Key for us to social media in a developing context was identifying your champions in the community that could drive the initiatives and build capacity to contribute towards sustainability of such activities. Also did an interview with Nick (a,k,a PodNosh on Twitter and was good to share a little about the work we are doing back home. The day continued with a meeting with Dave Harte who is key in the Digital Birmingham initiative and more so part of the Liviing Lab that could lead to collaborations with our work. I can see how Cape Town who are striving to have this digital citizenship and services could learn a lot from the work that Dave is involved in and where we could share about our experiences with building innovative parters with various stakeholders. The day ended with a Social Media Cafe session in Wolverhampton where the discussion was about "Social Media Non Adopters" (This Post is on its way). The conversations was definitely heated as many had different opinions to how a social media non-adopter should be described and identified.

Overall I am very impressed by the level of creative industries involvement in the space of Social Media and It also showed me that here in Birmingham there is a breed of social media people who have such a vast amount of experiences to share and could be useful for others out there to make the trip or connection with any of these amazing individuals who will add value to your social media experience.

Athlone Living Lab in Southampton

This week the Athlone Living Lab Project Manager and I had the privilege to present the project and solutions to a group at University of Southampton. It was a wonderful experience to share and learn from others who are passionate to see mobile technologies being used for social change. We have gained so much through this week of Living Labs Workshops in the UK and looking forward to applying these new found knowledge in our context.

We will also be deploying one of our social innovations (Advice Support Network) in Southampton fulfilling our vision of having a global impact with the solutions produced in the Athlone Living Lab.

Watching the Michael Jackson Memorial Live

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With Social Media playing such a big role in Michael Jackson's memorial and coverage to the ends of the earth using technology like never before you can follow it through live the stream above.

Social Media is a great leveler

Over the past few weeks I have seen the power of Social Media and how it is a great leveler in a society where status and many other factors separates communities. Through our Reconstructed and Mom2.0 project we saw people embracing life through the use of Social Media where they share stories, give messages of hope and do not feel inadequate when connecting with people across the world.

Through the use of Social Media people who before might have felt disjoint from communities are now able to use this medium as a way to improve communication and writing skills, regain confidence and above all feel that they are part of a global conversation where their voices are heard irrespective of their background, status, race, culture or whatever else generally would bring about discrimination or separation. Social Media in my opinion is a great leveler and we are seeing the fruits of it in the conversations that are floating around and the real impact its having in the lives of people.

Athlone Living Lab: Community Innovation Space

The Athlone Living Lab Space are being upgraded and will be ready by next week. The space will be used for the Advice Support Services, training and development space for social and services innovation. Thanks to the Reconstructed Team for all the hard work in getting the space ready.

Mind Your Language

The above episode reminded me of how important language and community is. Trying to get people who are foreign to the language to understand it is a struggle but always leads to interesting interpretations. This is not so much different to what we are currently experiencing with people trying to understand the Chat or MXit language.

On the Advice Support Network (ASN) service we speak to thousands of youth and it is interesting to see their interpretations of the chat language. Having conversations such as:

Me: Hi. Welcome to DAS how r u doing?
@mxit: hi. gd thx u?
Me. Well thanx. What r u up 2?
@mxit: libl2mnjc

With conversations containing chat acronyms such as libl2mnjc (laying in bed listening to music and just chilling) and wuu2n (what are you up to now) does cause us to mind our language. With many parents who see their children on MXit and even when they do see the conversations they still need an interpreter to try and understand what the conversation is about. We could easily have a Mind Your Language back but this time instead of teaching the international language of English we could be teaching "Chat language" to the millions out there who would like to get a better understanding of it.