However, I am back from Africa, i have emigrated (if semi-permanently) and have a new digital/social role with a pan-European perspective (which is an interesting one) and this cocktail of new experiences is throwing up enough challenges and opportunities to make writing my blog both interesting and cathartic. Hopefully you, whoever you are, will feel the same, otherwise I guess me and my blog will just be digital therapy for one another!

So, posts away!

…therefore we are.

Mentioned it in Safe Haven for Pirates, but wanted to flag up Charles Leadbetter’s ‘We Think‘ book-come-video-synopsis again on two counts.

1. That We Think is a fantastic concept/vision and a credit to Charles’ own ability to innovate, think outside the box and all of those other cliches
2. That I could definitely get into this ‘watch a 4 minute video and pretend you’ve read the book’ malarkey.

Surely there’s an enterprising opportunity there – to make short, digestible, video summaries of interesting texts/docs and ideas, so that the time poor (can’t help myself, dropping cliches all over the shop today) can still be plugged into the founding concepts of work such as this.  Far from detract from books sales, this has actually inspired me to purchase We Think, as the synopsis is sufficiently appetite-whetting to loosen the recession-induced, iron-clad purse strings.

The larger conference atmosphere was broken down after the key note speakers, whom it is worth touching on - Charles Leadbetter was truly inspiring with his call to make the Midlands a ‘safe haven for pirates’ – encouraging us as the Midlands Creative Sector to take in the renegades and the risky prospects and to celebrate what makes Birmingham different, not struggle to provide things that make it the same. I did however suffer an involuntary eye-rolling at the mention of pebbles and boulders. Yes, we are operating on a vast pebble beach, no the geology-driven analagy does not make it easier to navigate or understand!

Toby Barnes also brilliant and appeared to be very much along the same cognitive seam as I was (and it also appears that @peteashton and @paulbradshaw are) – JFDI.

Back to the debate, conference broken down into small debating sects on each table, headed up by BCU representative. I was on Table 18, which had a number of interesting bods all with great opinions about getting stuck in to creativity and digital (which are, as established, very different things). One person found the Birmingham scene very difficult to navigate and become involved with and in the end resorted to an MA as a way in. We agreed that it is cliquey and that the creative sector suffers the same issue as BCU itself – no central hub, instead 5ish demi-hubs scattered around the city, which, when one prospers (such as Fazeley Studios) automatically becomes less penetrable and more pedestal-like from the perspective of ‘everyone else’. This is not to bring down achievement anywhere in the city, just to say that it makes true cohesion quite difficult and what appears as a clique quite common to come by.

My gripe came when some members of the debate appeared to suggest that the answer lied in funding. They believe that the creative sector as well as the digital and therefore social enterprises of the city need central funding and backing, for one spokesperson to be nominated to speak for all and that without provisions to facilitate inclusion, training and unity the answer to the debatable question might be ‘no’.

Personally I don’t understand the desire to paint the WM creative sector (which in my mind is strong and expanding) as a weak link, requiring propping up from public sector funds. We are all supposed to be marketing/PR/digital experts so why not use our own abilities to do this job for ourselves and prove that we are unified, capable and a very viable sector even during recession by DOING it; not waiting for someone to give us permission to do it? I agree that social media surgeries, networking events and shared premises are a good idea – but they are already happening so lets build on that, not go running back for a hand out when we have a huge opportunity to champion pro-activity.

I also think cross sector conferences might be a good idea for the future.  I’m not convinced innovation is ever going to happen by getting lots of media/digital/creative types in a room to talk about media/digital/creativity. Also feel there were quite a lot of people in the room getting frustrated with going to lots of events and seeing the same people rotating around the event circuit (like a carousel of ‘social gurus’). In my mind it was a step in the right direction and will be made more valuable and interesting (ten-fold) by what happens next. Andrew Brightwell had some simple and therefore achievable and useful next steps to making Birmingham a pirate asylum that I think are key.

In the meantime, I will try to get on with JFDI and hope that between this powerful network of communicators we can’t turn some of our talent and focus to building up the Birmingham Creative Sector brand.

Made this for work and thought it was suitably amusing and that, above all else, it’s good to share…so enjoy!

Digg, Netscape and Delicious are just a few examples of social bookmarking tools, which allow users (us) to flag or ‘bookmark’ something of interest – from large corporate sites and news announcements to obscure blogs and the wandering thoughts of anyone who happens to have access to a computer.  Other members of the site community then vote on them (it’s time sensitive, so after about 51 votes within 24 hours on Digg or 10 votes within 10 minutes on Netscape) your story can be catapulted to the stratospheric heights of the home page.

Use it to:

Drive. Lots. Of. Traffic. The catch?  What you’re writing has to be of serious value, well-written and incredibly well seeded.  Perfect for when you’ve written a timely, interesting and relevant article.  If you can upload this and seed the link on all of your social platforms, including your blog and website, providing one-click access to rate your article, you’re sure of a major spike in traffic.

What you could get:

Impressions on your impressions.  Engaged pairs’ of eyes at that.  For someone to read your article and consider it worth putting their name to as a voter or commentator means that they more than likely actually read it (and it’s now immortalised in a massive repository of newsworthy content for more people to find, which sounds like a bit of a Brucey Bonus to me).

So there are thousands of other sites from which you can launch your message and participate in stimulating debate other than just your own website….but there aren’t a thousand extra hours in the day with which to complete the enormous task of staying abreast of the ever-evolving online community.  So exploit your efforts by writing once and posting, tweeting or updating many times simultaneously on your different networks.

Use it to:

Claim back your life!  As much as social networking is a fabulous exercise in brand building, lead generation, customer service, conversion and retention; there is other work to be done in the office, you know like actually developing the products and services you’re generating all this buzz around, strategising, finance plans, meeting humans face to face, that kind of thing.  Between your feed burner and your aggregator you can live the life of a social entrepreneur, continuing to converse, provide information, have an opinion and stay up to date with everyone else’s news, as well as actually leaving the office before midnight.

What you could get:

An online footprint like a woolly mammoth.  Big enough to make you known to a much wider audience and net people that can be drawn in to your social web (by cross-promoting your various channel appearances), ready for you to nurture and over-awe with your valuable wisdom.  Enough said.

Linkedin is your 80’s rolodex…online.  You create a profile to sell yourself (which should do the equivalent of a power suit and walnut desk for your online reputation), including all of your professional qualifications, experience, fields of interest and expertise; and then you add your contacts.  As in everyone you know in a business capacity, who knows when a contact of a contact will become a vital link in your career path?

Use it to:

Link with people you know.  Keep people informed about what you’re up to or looking to be involved with.  But crucially, as with all networking, stay interested in what everyone else is doing too.  Be part of other people’s chains – if you have a colleague who does freelance web design and know the Digital Marketing Manager of a firm you used to work for is looking for support with their new site, introduce them.  Acts of altruism in this context propel you to the front of people’s minds and reciprocal connections inevitably come flooding in.

What you could get:

A widened net.  As in MUCH wider.  Wider than that which you could ever have cast in real life.  Instead of ringing round old friends and colleagues for access to their rolodex when in need of an opportunity or referral, these people become your own contacts, to nurture as you see fit.  The better you do this, the stronger your net and the greater your pool of resources becomes.

One thing to remember: nurture when you don’t need anything.  Then when you do, connections are already established and not on an awkward ‘needy vs bestower of contacts’ basis.

YouTube is online video, online video is YouTube.  Newer sites are popping up and growing in popularity, such as Vimeo, Viddler and VideoJug, as the web becomes more and more closely linked to video production, but YouTube is still a good place to start.  However, don’t be fooled into thinking if it’s on YouTube it’s found an audience, millions (literally multiples of millions) of videos are uploaded just to YouTube every day.  You now have to work harder to carve out a viewership and the best way to do this is to aggregate.

Use it to:

Err…aggregate.  Create your own YouTube channel, brand it, set your status as a Comedian, Musician, Director, or – my personal favourite – a Guru; and then assume the mantle of expert, collecting and sharing content about your area of expertise.  Yep, that’s right, you don’t even need to be creating video content to be a sharer of video news.  A good tactic is to create Playlists.  Organise similar videos, or those that tell a story, teach parts of a process or give a rounded view on a subject together into playlists that form specific watching for a viewer.

What you could get:

A direct feed of engaging and noteworthy video content, maximized for usability by your clever organising and streaming of content into relevant lists – making you a valuable source of information to friends, colleagues, contacts, followers and fans.

Engaging is worth repeating, in an environment when everyone has a web presence and your website is your single biggest marketing asset and communicator of your brand values, differentiation is often elusive.  Although your site might be brimming with goodness, getting someone to browse around for long enough to find it is a challenge in itself, so streams of watchable, specific, engaging rich media is invaluable to making your site stickier than a jam doughnut on the beach.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and (without pertaining to any technical knowledge) allows you to sit back, get a coffee and put your feet up, whilst the news you are interested in comes winging its way into whatever feed burner or aggregator you are choosing to deploy.  It avoids email congestion and means you don’t have the headache of remembering to track all the sites you want to keep up to date with.

Use it to:

Nurture your universe.  Your universe of potential contacts is everyone you, your business, marketing material or reputation has ever come into contact with.  Many won’t be ready to do business, but will value your news for months or even years, whilst you demonstrate your industry knowledge through the interesting and dynamic changing sections of your site – effortlessly.  With the same effort it takes to write your blog, your content is also delivered to the virtual doorstep of your readership.  The challenge then is in promoting your RSS feed and proving its worth.  When the world and his wife has a constantly dripping news feed, despite the relative ease with which readers can obtain the feed, there are still only 24 hours in a day and a finite amount of information anyone can read – so prove that yours should be one of them.

What you could get:

An informed readership.

A reputation as an expert.  Much like with your blog, a good mix of industry and business news, opinion, diversity, conversation, rich media and a slight Devil’s Advocate attitude could get you an engaged, amused and informed audience.

Prime position front of mind – the equivalent of being able to freeze time in terms of marketing super power.

Facebook has been and to some extent still is THE social connection platform that helps over 250 million people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers.  Now with fan pages for business users, vanity URLs and Facebook advertising there are many more ways to grow your network, build awareness and link to new prospects through the news feeds of your loyalists.

Use it to:

Create a hub (yes, much like the way in which your website is a hub) but with the added bonus of being rooted in sociability.  Meaning that you can upload images, videos, thoughts, opinions and links…and other people can upload them too.  Creating a dialogue, a cumulative net of resources, an audience for asking questions and seeking feedback and an organic mechanism for inspiring new prospects to come and take a look.  NOTE:  this is not your own personal advertising platform, one way communication is as ineffective on Facebook as national cinema advertising might be for your local garage.

What you could get:

A friendly network.

A social hub (from which to connect all other social mediums, with an Aggregator if you’re not a fan of spending hours repeating yourself across numerous platforms).

Or…a completely useless page of one-way announcements and dwindling fan numbers, if you don’t invest some energy and backbone into.  Dare to ask, reveal what isn’t yet finished, collect feedback and respond directly to it.