We ran the first Internet surgery on Sunday, and while it was quiet, we still managed to discuss some stuff and throw out some ideas to those who attended. We have decided to make the surgery a fortnightly affair which gives everyone a bit more time to promote / organise etc. The next one will be on Sunday 7th December, same venue, The Red Couch cafe, Erdington from 11:00 am.

We mentioned, a short time ago, about our plans to hold a regular surgery for voluntary and community groups, assisting and supporting them with all the gubbins that the Internet has to offer. Well, we now have a launch date, 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. If you want to let us know in advance of any particular things you may be interested in, or just to let us know you’re coming along, please add a comment to this blog post or give us a quick call. We look forward to seeing you there!

We Share Stuff is chuffed to announce that we will be running a free Internet surgery every Sunday morning at the Red Couch Cafe, Erdington. We have taken the blueprint established in the Custard Factory run by Birmingham blogger extraordinaire, Pete Ashton. We will be available to answer questions and support community groups, businesses and individuals on the wonderful world of the Internet. Blogging, websites, micro-sites, youtube, facebook et al.. they’re all up for discussion and how they can be used to increase activity, awareness and what not. The sessions will start off as a first come first served basis. The cafe serves a wide range of food and drink and is located on the High Street in Erdington.

Many thanks to Cafe manager, Taf, for letting us use the premesis. In fact, The Red Couch will probably be the first business to use the service after briefly experiencing what we have to offer, they’re keen to get a blog going and get involved…which is what it’s all about… The surgery plans to start early November, we will announce more details on here as and when we have them.

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Time for another quick update on things here at ‘We Share Stuff’. As you can see, we have finally gone live with the website – we had a makeshift photo shoot so you can see who we are – yes real human beings not robots (debatable?) Anyway, the whole web site thing will evolve over time, just like the ‘Net does! While we have the usual web site stuff going on, we also have a nifty blog system set up allowing us to provide blogs to organisations, individuals etc – anyone we work with basically! It’s a really simple system, great to use and was set up by Mr Jon Bounds. Bravo, Sir…

A quick mention on Blog Action Day, Wednesday 15th October. We were planning on attending as one of the social media ‘surgeons’ to offer advice but it seems we have been included on the ‘patients’ list! which is cool, because we can quiz some of the ‘experts’ on some of the finer details of blogging! We hope plenty of organisations get involved here, the technology can really help make a difference. Maybe it can be a platform to providing more frequent, similar events too.

Last, but by no means least, Some awesome work being done on the Digital Mentor role, by Dave Briggs – From recent consultation he has already set up a blog and a wiki, encouraging social media types to get involved with the discussion and possible direction of this role.

Birmingham bloggers get involved in Blog Action Day. We’ll keep a track of ongoings and post any relevant stuff as and when.

I’m finding that the more meetings I have with interested groups or individuals, helps me define the We Share Stuff aims, provision and what not. An example is the meeting we had with Service Birmingham over at the Aston Pride Project. I was explaining how our service users would connect to our programme, be it a single blog or a range of Internet applications and how to do this simply and possibly, most effectively (thus far) was to sign up for an online email account such as Googlemail. As so many online applications now require an email address to use them, this would provide a gateway to all the online stuff that would be needed. Mike Farmer from Service B’ham picked up on that we were using an email account for this specific purpose and not for what email was originally intended for – communication by sending emails to one another.

I didn’t realise at first that we were doing this, but it’s all part of resourcing applications to meet the objectives. Over the past five years I’ve found myself using Internet resources for many more things than they were intended for. Another recent example would be the Birmingham created I So Wish. This little online application lets users enter their name and make a wish. Really, really simple. I added it my list of online resources in helping me identify possible Literacy issues with low IT skilled service users.

Since starting this project we set up a delicious account and began tagging applications that might be of benefit.  Always a work in progress but this will get included in the main We Share Stuff site as a shared resource.

Informal meet-up with Jon Hickman at the Station, Sutton Coldfield last night. He’s coming on board the project in some shape or form as it develops. I bumped into Jon via twitter and the Sutton Festival of Arts which he chaired this year. I went along to the festival to take a few pictures but as it turned out, we have a few similar goals in the community / education fields too. Jon currently works for BCU and has worked in the community delivering IT / media training. His background also extends to web design, printing and marketing.

I met with Sue Barton at OCN in Stoke last Friday to discuss the project and how OCN fits into the whole set up. Again, the project got the thumbs up from Sue and we found ourselves agreeing on many things specifically around the whole Adult Education / IT / Learning areas. Initially, I was keen to explore the potential of new courses / units based on our Web2.0 platform but found myself having a “a-ha!” moment when Sue suggested utilising the existing portfolio. Having looked at the unit requirements and outcomes I am more than confident that we can use their framework to deliver recognised and relevant qualifications. I am still keen to explore the development of a new course(s) but at this stage of the project, I think the OCN route seems feasible.

First thoughts are that the project aims to deliver the NOCN Entry Level Award for Progression (Entry 3). This qualification has a certain flexibility in it’s delivery options and can easily map the projects aims / issues such as engagement, worklessness and confidence. “These quals develop the skills and knowledge that will enable people to progress to further / higher education or employment” (OCN). Without going into too much detail, each participant would undertake a series of sessions totalling approx 30 hours. In these sessions, they would cover areas such as personal learning programmes, job seach skills, interview techniques, internet & email usage (There are many existing units to choose from and as a project, we need to decide which will be most suitable) but with our project twist of everything delivered using social media / web2.0 applications, including all the evidencing and reporting plus anything else we can think to chuck in to the mix.

So while we have that task to work through, we also need the project to become a registered OCN centre. So apart from the usual form filling stuff, this is actually taking us somewhat down the route of a real structure for the project..marvelous! These things obviously don’t happen for free, but we built in the centre recognition costs into our project startup bid through UNLTD, which we’re still awaiting news on.

A meeting was held to discuss any possible direction for the project and we came out of it with a few things to look into. For me, these early sessions are all about gauging interest in the idea and I now think we have a core of people ready to start moving things forward. Last night Kev, Jon and myself discussed a few ideas and straight away, I wanted to highlight the issue of participants in the project. For many different reasons, a lot of people who have expressed an interest in NBSE, simply don’t have the time to commit to what looks like a pretty big project. All three of us last night commented that we too have time and commitment issues and therefore, are looking long term for the project. As we are blogging our progress, it will be open for people to come onboard and contribute as and when. There’s a lot of experience and skill out there that this kind of project would benefit from and we’ll keep the facebook group open for those to be involved as we progress.

Location & transport
One of the first subjects raised was that of premises and location. My initial thoughts were to have any activity centralised at a possible N brum training centre. Both Kev and Jon saw the delivery as being more mobile and definitely saw the project as more of an outreach service. Both, of course, sounds ideal and this gave us something definite to start visualising and forming ideas. Jon then raised the issue of the lack of transport within the area, especially where buses are concerned. This led us to discuss Nbrum boundaries and how far and where we should provide our service to. Task born: geographical area of N Birmingham, council borders, transport links,  etc. Also, places with internet access / courses / training ongoing (libraries, schools, community centres, churches etc)

Content & Delivery
We touched upon how social media taster sessions could work for different audiences / areas such as unemployed, probation, health etc and how we’d use a selection of different applications to approach any engagement / learning / informing objectives. We thought it might be useful to try setting some taster sessions up during the summer at various locations to experience how it could work in practise, so another project task was born: To source local training providers to see if we could possibly run some social media taster sessions or even “piggy back” current courses (hijack the lesson)

Meetings
We have a few meetings lined up to help us with the business side of things. A meeting with Unltd takes place Friday 27th and we’re looking to set up a meeting with some of the NIACE folk in the near future. No set date for a progress meeting as yet for members to get together again, but we will probably be looking at something monthly. Of course we have the internet to keep track of everything!

There will be an informal meet up to discuss some possible direction for the NBSE project and to meet fellow interested types. It will be on Wednesday 18th June at The Dubliner pub, Digbeth. from 7.30 pm.

Look forward to seeing you there!