We were invited to the resident involvement day at Soho Community Centre, Birmingham by the Resident University. We were on hand to give an insight into how social technology can be used to support community related endeavours. There’s already quite a burgeoning online presence for Soho, sites like http://sohowardbirmingham.com/ and http://www.sohofoundation.org.uk/.

The Soho Finger Neighbourhood Forum team, who are in the process of developing an online space, seem to be the link between services / information and residents. They are residents too and so have a more vested interest in what is said and wanted by local people. We showed them some of the more direct tools available online such as the range of services available from My Society.

A few issues regarding the community were raised during the introductions so I attempted some hands on examples of how technology could be used for such matters. I recorded a quick interview with local resident, Reg Everall, who was concerned about the growing problem of bird droppings.

He felt this is on the increase due to the lack of awareness of the consequences of feeding the birds scraps of food. If the community was made aware that the not only was it causing an increase of bird droppings but also not good for them, the problem could be eradicated. Reg suggested leaflets in a few languages (Soho has a diverse ethnic community mix) which could be locally distributed. I suggested that maybe having the same leaflet available online along with some audio version might increase awareness as well as provide a resource for other neighbourhoods to use.

So I was using technology for a number of things here. Initially, to record concerns by local residents, which I uploaded and shared with others at the event in a matter of seconds. I also embedded this into a page I created on the day, quickly and easily, using free tools (There are many simple tools to enable residents to express themselves online). I then suggested how technology could be used to help solve the problem. A leaflet could be produced, with a simple sentence in the main 3 or 4 languages of the neighbourhood. “Please! Do not feed the birds”. I found a leaflet used by Stroud MBC for this very purpose (pdf). With the right links, a few other language versions could be reproduced and also replicated online. The message could also be recorded by local residents in other languages and feature prominently on a Soho related website. All this could be produced very quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Here’s the page I created on the day to quickly take a snapshot of what was happening at the time: http://bit.ly/sohocomm

The tools I used on the day were: wrrtn.me for a place to put the content I created, audioboo.fm where I uploaded the interview, recorded on my phone, bambuser.com where I streamed some live video from the event.

Here’s an introduction to social media I wrote for participants in Birmingham’s Resident University some time ago. It’s aimed at active citizens who are new to the social web, but you may find something useful in it.

If you’ve heard myself or Stuart talk about Five Minute Mentors or had a quick go of the beta, then you probably understand the concept (we hope). If not, then this video should help. And if it piques interest then please give us a shout and we can organise your group beta access.

Five Minute Mentors from bounder on Vimeo.

Progress is continuing on five minute mentors, our online mentoring website supported by Becta — here we are using the site to do a quick practise mentoring session. The site isn’t quite user-friendly enough for our liking yet (some tweaks needed — you can for example arrange a session in the past) but the video calling is working really well.

The private beta is involving existing learning groups, however informal — so if you’re a learning provider or group member and think that secure, quick online mentoring could help give us a shout and we can set you up.

Job Top Trumps Template PDF

I’ve started up a new Ning for (West Midlands) organisations and individuals (experienced and new) to collaborate, discuss and explore partnership work and funding. As a relatively new setup (albeit with some experience in bid writing), I know it can be somewhat daunting looking for the right information and people so maybe this could be hub for those links. I wasn’t sure whether to go ahead with setting it up as i’m aware of the increasing number of networks springing up everywhere. However, I haven’t seen anything specific which might spark things in the way i’m thinking. So, let’s give it a go and see what happens.

http://fusions.ning.com