The problem with social media cafe is there are too many interesting people and interesting things to talk about in a short space of time.
We had the second meeting of the Derby and Derbyshire Social Media Cafe last night. It was a great turn out and a really interesting talk about hyperlocal by Will Perrin, Mike Rawlins and Nicky Getgood of Talk About Local and Philip John of the Lichfield Blog.
Will told us all about how he got into hyperlocal blogging, showcased some of the sites they are supporting through Talk About Local and explained their model. We then had a look at The Lichfield Blog with Philip John and there were some interesting points about bloggers being accepted by or even working in collaboration with traditional media.
There were some good questions from the group about the potential legal issues of running a hyperlocal blog, the amount of time it takes, community-generated vs organisation trying to embed in a community (BBC Local or Local People were examples) and some general chat about what hyperlocals exist in Derbyshire.
It’s set me thinking about hyplerlocal again from a personal perspective, but that’s another blog for another day.
Attendee list:
I’m trying to do this from memory so if I’ve missed you off, firstly sorry and secondly just let me know so I can add you!
Sarah Lay
Richard Mackney
Colin Mitchell
Will Perrin
Nicky Getgood
Mike Rawlins
Philip John
Emily Robe
Antoinette Burchill
Darren Holden
Karen Thomas
Nick Moyes
Christine Cawthorne
Hadrian Cawthorne
Bel Harvey
Lee Flanaghan
Lauren Noakes
Sarah Barker
Colin MacKenzie
Emma Bryn-Jones
SubVee
warrenfree
cybrum
Useful links:
There were a few sites and posts mentioned in the presentations and chat which people asked me to link to from here.
You can of course find out about Talk About Local and The Lichfield Blog at their respective sites. Philip John also highlighted a couple of posts on his blog – one about some legal information and one about sharing ideas for hyperlocal sites.
I think we should all check out the sponsor’s site as well – Fish Media - kindly paid for the venue and the drinks so I’m sure we’d all like to thank them for that.
If you liked CUBE at Deda then check out the website for opening times – they’d welcome anyone who wanted to pop in for a coffee, bite to eat and use their wifi!
Tag anything from last night – tweets, blogs, photos – with #smcderby and I’ll aggregate when I get a chance!
Tell me what you want!
Planning is already underway for the next meeting – this will hopefully be earlyFebruary.
Let me know if there is a day / time which is best for you so we can try to set a date suitable for greatest number of people.
And is there a subject you want to talk about as a group like we did with hyperlocal? If no-one has anything in particular we can just have a networking session. Get in touch and let us know your thoughts on last night and what should happen next time!
Until then…
Sorry I wasn’t able to make it last night. Sounds like a good session. I’d be interested to know whether Hyperlocals exist in Derbyshire. Does anyone know of any?
There is the Derby gripe..
http://www.derbygripe.co.uk/
Thanks Daz
Tim – I know of Parwich.org which we looked at last night; Wirksworth.net and hayfield.info in Derbyshire. Anyone know of any other hyperlocal websites / blogs in the city or county?
Anyone thinking of starting one???
Shame you couldn’t make it last night – hopefully we’ll see you at the next one
@Daz
I was already aware of Derby Gripe – though I wouldn’t have classed that as a ‘hyperlocal’ site (I may be wrong!). I had in mind sites for very small locales (a few streets perhaps?) or a City neighbourhood.
@Sarah
I’ll take a look at Parwich. I am aware of sites for other towns and villages in Derbyshire, but my understanding of ‘hyperlocal’ was something more local. Am I wrong?
Tim
I think it can be classed as a community site – so in urban areas I guess a few streets would be hyperlocal. However in rural areas I tend to think of it as being similar to parish boundaries. I guess each community would decide how big or small they are though!
Colin from Fish Media also mentioned the site he set up a few years back for Darley Abbey.
I think the examples of Hyperlocal last night were fairly large and similar to ‘towns and city’ community sites/forums.
Colin set up http://darleyabbey.com but as he said last night, it’s old tech (html only) and ideally needs administration from locals … who are all very very keen!
Rich
@Sarah
Am I right in thinking you’re saying ‘hyperlocal’ is however the (local) community defines it?
@Richard
That’s more how I was thinking of it in terms of cities such as Derby (ie the Darley Abbey example you cited).
I’m not sure in my own mind of what makes a site ‘hyperlocal’ versus ‘community’. Does such a definition exist?
Maybe I should have been there last night!
The ‘what really is hyperlocal’ discussion came up in a local media conference I went to yesterday. After asking a question I was asked what we (‘hyperlocals’) like to be called. I refer to us (The Lichfield Blog) as a hyperlocal but it covers an area with a population of 97,000.
My point to the conference panel yesterday was that some of these ‘hyperlocals’ are just active citizens using the technology to continue to be active citizens. The terms hyperlocal, microlocal, nanolocal etc are really just there to help us refer to them when we speak to them. I don’t think we should get too bogged down with the definition.
Hi,
I would really like to attend the next event. Really sorry I missed the last one, it would have been ideal for promoting a new programme I’m managing UnLtd 4iP Awards. http://www.unltd.org.uk/4ip
please could you contact with details of the next event.
Thanks
Shamiela