We turned up at Blog Action Day a tad late due to other engagements. By this time, things were in full swing. All the tables were full, the surgeons were talking their stuff and the patients were listening intently on the benefits of blogging. This is exactly how it happened.
Again, it proved a healthy demand for this knowledge exists within the community but we kind of knew that. What the group, and more so, Nick Booth for being the lead organiser, proved was a way of making it happen that proved useful to both attendees and hosts. It wasn’t just a case of filling spaces to satisfy funding requirements. One question came up about how the event was organised so quickly and effectively. I heard Nick mention that it happened because “we’re all networked”.
The event worked well, the people who attended came because they knew, or thought they might gain something from attending. This event didn’t really look at the real crux of the Digital Divide. Exchange the people in that room with people who didn’t want to be there, who couldn’t care less – then what do you do? how can you use the technology to encourage them to be more active? get involved with community stuff? improve their education?
Ideally, those who attended the surgery will take back what they ‘learnt’ to their projects and groups and promote the technology. Hopefully it will encourage further exploration. The event was a great starting point though, and proved what can be achieved with a little organisation and belief.

As the purpose of the North Birmingham Social Enterprise will be to introduce social media to the community, we will be using social media in order to raise awareness of what we are doing in making the enterprise happen.  To kick this off, this morning I setup a Facebook group that will allow us to post up meeting dates and discuss items in a more conversational way than what can be achieved on the blog.  Although this blog is not to be in any way formal, the Facebook group will be even more so.  I have left the group open so that anyone who is interested in contributing may come along and do so.  In order to make the group accessible to the whole UK I have set the location to Global (a specific location or Global is required).   Why Global? I have seen problems with using groups before with people wanting to join a group which is only set to a certain geographic region.  I don’t wish to alienate anyone who may be able to give us some guidance on funding or the social enterprise model.

Fortunately Stuart and I, being members of the Birmingham Bloggers group, we have a ready made platform of individuals who are involved in social media and may have knowledge of the social enterprise model.  Therefore I sent a group email round to the Birmingham Bloggers to let them know about what we have planned, provided them with a link to the group and asked if they would like to be involved.