So, it’s all over. 2gether08, Steve Moore‘s vision of getting good people from the media, government, third sector, social entrepreneurs and the world of webbies together, was a fantastic couple of days in the (mostly) sunshine. There is so much to talk about, and loads going round in my head.
First up, my session. We had 45 minutes to run the social media game. It kind of worked.
The room split into two groups, one looking at Tracey‘s issue of creating an online umbrella community for local low carbom networks, and one looking at supporting respite carers online. Each team produced a set of specifications, which were then passed to the other team to act as ‘consultants’ – picking out the tools which could be used to meet the challenge.
Big shouts to Lloyd Davis, Tim Davies (I think I got the surname spelling the right way round…), Matt Waring, Mitch Sava and Paul Henderson for their help in guiding the n00bs around what some of this stuff actually does.
One of the cool parts of the game is that not all the tools are techie, and it was soon picked out by both groups that a blended approach of on and offline is required for a successful social web strategy. Pretty much every organisation could benefit from taking the time to play games to figure this stuff out. I’m planning on making the leap into self-employment in the very near future, and I’d like to develop the game, and others like it, into ways of showing organisations that planning can be made fun, and that meetings don’t have to be boring.
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I also handed out a load of paper, which seemed to go down well. Tim’s social media primers were very popular, as was Paul Caplan’s Social Media Guide, and Colin McKay’s marvellous Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organisations.
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the session, and big thanks to everyone that joined in. I’m absolutely convinced that for events, conferences or whatever, doing fun stuff is more important that sitting and listening to people on stages.
Of course the real value of any event of this kind is in the network, which means hanging around during breaks, and while you should be in session, meeting new folk and chatting to old friends. I made a tonne of great new connections and have a wallet full of moo cards to prove it.
As Lloyd says, though, at some point the talking has to stop and the doing has to start:
I feel it physically. It’s painful. I think sometimes it’s the thing that winds me up most about events – the raising of potential and the lack of resolution. I know I’m going to feel it again tomorrow. The only answer I have by the way is something Umair Haque said this morning: “Organise something” Y’know like “just do it” but no, really do it.
Amen to that.
Dave, don’t forget me!
Seriously, I briefly mentioned to you about setting up a day event, putting CE’s and Comm directors of Councils in a room with, well, the kind of guys attending/presenting at the 2gether bash – I know we can bring in the audience, but I need to also find the others (as it were).
Think your media game could play a big part in this – I’ll come back next week with an up-date on how we see it shaping up our end.
cheers
Matt
Matt, sorry! Missed Mitch out as well. Will correct the post.
Am with you all the way on the local gov unconference – it’s a great idea and am happy to play my part!
Dave,
it was a great session, I took away some really useful ideas which I developed for my session the following day. I now have a much clearer idea about how organisers of the Low Carbon Communities Conference in October can listen to what the participants want. Your session really helped me to be clear about how offline tools and online tools can complement each other and lead to greater inclusion. Thank you. Can I also say thanks to the many great people in your session who willingly gave me advice and information. I’ll be following it all up soon on the conference site and will be in touch with my new techie friends
Dave, Thanks for the session. I really enjoyed participating. Good game, good game, as Brucie would say. I think you’re right that many organisations already doing ‘stuff’ in this area could benefit from working in this way. All the best with the future plans. FWIW I’m based in the West Mids by the way and in Coventry relatively regularly. I’d like to see Ning on one of the game cards BTW.
Dave – as Tracey says, that was a really great job in developing an appropriate version of the game, organising the backup materials, assembling geeky (and non-geeky) support – and starting the conversations that will hopefully lead to real solutions.
As you indicate with your link, we’ve been evolving the game over the years, and you can see cousins over at http://www.usefulgames.co.uk.
Drew Mackie and I developed the first version about 10 years ago to help non-tech community groups think what computing and connectivity they might want in community-based learning centres.
We’ve released the game under Creative Commons so anyone can develop it, and put later versions into the public domain – as you have. Thanks!
All this is leading up to the idea of using geek/nongeek collective intelligence to develop a 2gether version of the game. I think you have pulled together a terrific core group … and I hope we could involve others. What do you (and others) think?
It sounds as if Matt might have an audience for us!