We’re back for 2012 and the first date for your diaries is the evening of 24 February.

We’ll be finalising the details of this meeting (like times and venue!) over the next week or so, so keep your eye on here, the twitter account or the hashtag (we actually have two but tend to use #smcderby rather than #derbysmc!)

Never been to a social media cafe before? Here’s what you can expect…

• An informal network and conversation event for anyone who works with or has an interest in all things digital in Derbyshire
• Coffee and probably cake – although sometimes you do have to pay for this yourself
• To learn something or to share something with other people passionate about this stuff
• To find out how social media and digital are being used outside of your sector or work or area of experience – this can be quite eye-opening!
• What you won’t get – the hard sell from any companies as we ask people not to push their products, companies or services although talking about what you do and discovering opportunities is A-ok!

We’ve also had word that the very first Derby Social Media Surgery will be taking place at the start of March. This is an opportunity for not-for-profit organisations, community organisations and charities to get free advice and practical help from people with experience of the tools and tips needed to get on online.

More details on this soon too but you can follow the hashtag #derbysms if you’re interested in being either a patient (needing help or advice) or a surgeon (available to help out).

In the meantime spread the word that the cafe and surgery are on their way as we head toward spring and we’ll see you there!

Sarah and Nigel

A small group but big conversations about digital in Derby – and plans for getting SMCDerby back on the rails fully in 2012.

Thanks to Nigel for organising and Quad for letting us perch in the cafe.

Here’s a list of Twitter handles for the people who came:

• @Mannaz
• @sarahlay
• @laurennotes
• @crocstar
• @aidenmkelly
• @kaygeeuk
• @datchux

And here’s a flavour of where the converastion went:

• QR Codes – especially about how Derby Museum and others are using them. Could have done with Nick Moyes or Andy Mabbett to explain more really!
• BitCoin
• Digital activism
• Building and managing networks and flows of information
• Freedom of Information requests via social media
• social media surgeries
• the future of the Derby and Derbyshire Social Media Cafe!

On this last topic the decision was made that the next meet will be in January (date, time and venue to be confirmed) and then every other month from there. I’ll be digging out the results of the survey we ran to see if we can get a handle on format etc but any ideas / requests / offers of sponsorship do leave a comment, tweet me or Nigel or email us!

We’re also hopeful a social media surgery will run in Derby soon – if you’re interested in being a surgeon or a patient leave us a comment and we’ll make sure you get the details.

Until next time – see you online

So, if you do digital in or around Derby and fancy a coffee and chat with other people that do it too come along to the cafe bar at Quad from 6.30pm.

It’s all very informal so there is no agenda – all we ask is that you don’t directly pitch your services to people attending but rather come along and talk about industry issues or opportunities to collaborate. If you’re a non-profit or community group then there will be people at the cafe who can offer you advice on how to use social media and digital too – although again, this is very informal and not an organised social media surgery!

I’m looking forward to seeing lots of you tonight (and hopefully the cafe will become a more regular event again too)!

And if you do do digital in Derbyshire here are a couple of things I spotted which I thought you might be interested in:

Derbyshire Broadband Survey

Derbyshire County Council have two surveys open for residents and businesses to share their experience of internet and broadband in the county.

You can take the survey/s on their website and the information will be used to gauge demand for broadband as well as the current level of provision.

Might be five minutes well spent if you think broadband could be better for your home or business in Derbyshire.

Take the survey on the Derbyshire County Council website.

Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times (15)

This film, documenting a year behind the scenes at the newspaper, will be showing at Quad 21 – 23 October 2011 and shows their media desk correspondent covering the advances which may make print obsolete.

Looks interesting if you’re interested in the past, present or future of journalism and the media.

More info on the Quad website about Page One.

It’s been a while but thanks to Nigel doing the organising we’re looking forward to a get together and hopefully kicking off more regular meetings of the cafe from here forward.

We’ll be meeting in the cafe bar at Quad and all are welcome – it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been along before or not. If you’re interested in or working with social media and online then come along for some informal networking and chatter about digital in Derbyshire.

Spread the word and we’ll see you there!

It was great to catch up with so many people who are involved or interested in digital around Derby and Derbyshire. I wish I could have stayed longer for proper chats with people!

Anyway, special thanks to Nik Hewitt for organising and to Lou Lou’s Cafe for hosting us (and supplying the very welcome warming mulled wine).

I hope I’ll get a chance to organise some more SMC Derbyshire events in 2011 – hopefully looking at some of the themes which came out from the survey earlier this year.

Until then – stay in touch via @smcderbyshire, the Facebook group and the hashtag #smcderby!

See you all online!

Friday 26th November, join us at LouLou’s Cafe in the Cathedral Quarter, from 4:30 until 10:30pm, for a seasonal #tweetup and glass of mulled wine (c/o Lou Lou’s) to chase away the Winter chills.

If you’re a Foursquare fan, why not stay logged in at Lou Lou’s for the evening. Try and be checked in around 7pm – wouldn’t it be great if we could all grab a ‘Swarm’ badge! It only takes 50

If you’re new to social media, or looking for advice, this is the perfect time to meet some of Derbyshire’s SMC members and to pick our brains over a glass of complimentary hot spiced vino. Oh, and if you’re at Lou Lou’s, anytime, mention you’re on Twitter and they’ll give you a 15% discount.

Please spread the news around, blog it, tag it, retweet it, and let everyone in the area know. It’d be great to see as many folks as possible, before the New Year, plus meet some new people and hear what every one’s been up to. It’s been WAY too long.

Keep an eye on @smcderbyshire and the hashtags #smcderby and #derbytweetup for up-to-the-minute news. Wrap up warm, and come say hi.

Big thanks to Nik Hewitt for organising this!

Thanks to everyone who took a few minutes to complete the survey and give me ideas and feedback on what would make the Derby/shire Social Media Cafe really useful to the community.

I think a couple of interesting things to come out of it was a strong desire for social media surgeries as well as cafe meets. Surgeries have been established in other areas of the country where people with experience online in some way ‘surgeons’ can offer free guidance and practical help to ‘n00bs’ in getting started. I think this would be an interesting area for the group to look at going in alongside developing the meets we have now.

So – here are the results anyway:

1. How often do you think the cafe should meet? 46% said monthly, 39% said every other month, 14 % said quarterly.
2. When should it be held? 78% said evenings, 18% said during a weekday, 3% said on the weekend
3. Where should it be held? 85% said central Derby (where all the meetings have been so far) but favourites after that were Matlock, Chesterfield, Alfreton and Belper.
4. What format should it be? 96% said they liked a mix of themed discussion and informal networking
5. Suggested topics. There was lots of interest in all of the topics listed with Digital inclusion and hard-to-reach groups online and the future of news coming out top. Other suggestions put in by recipients included; social web for social change, social media for business and commercial use, usability, writing good web content, citizen journalism and the future of social networking.
6. Would you be willing to lead a session? Nice to see that so many would and had an are they felt they could share something with the group about.
7. Sponsorship opportunities. There were a few replies saying they’d be interested in sponsoring the cafe – if this was you please get in touch with me (sarah l lay (at) googlemail (dot)com)
8. Offers of help to organise. Again, there were a few people saying yes so if this was you please (please) get in touch!
9. Anything else? Lots of good comments here and encouragement too – thanks.
10. Overwhelmingly the group voted for cake rather than death.

What now?

Well, with a full time job, final year of part-time Masters, freelancing work, a husband and three-year-old child I’m going to need A LOT of help to make the cafe / surgeries happen more often than they do at the moment.

It’s been pretty tough going to make the first three happen although very rewarding when they do.

I guess the first thing for me is finding out who is interested in happening and how then we can take it from there. It would be nice to get some dates and locations down in the diary with a rough idea of the themes or surgery opportunities and then run from there I guess.

So – over to you guys again!

But it isn’t really up to me – it’s up to you, the people who make up the SMC group! I want it to be something that is interesting and of value to you so I need your views!

I’ve put together a short survey (only 10 mainly multiple-choice) questions that I hope you will take a few minutes to complete.

I’ll keep it open for a few weeks to give you lots of time to respond and hopefully this will show what the group could or should become.

You can take the survey here and I’ll summarise the results in a few weeks time! Thanks in advance.

The conversation flowed all evening and we touched on  online communications in the public sector; digital natives and how they approach privacy and online identity; blurring of lines between professional and personal online identity; online personas and being your own brand; viral, apps and the stupidity of the internet; micro-payments and cashing in on stupidity; ConkerTU and hyperlocal; Evernote; the battery life of the iPhone; iPads, Google Buzz and Wave.

We ended the night with a round of cheesecake and a chat about body modification for online life – bionic eyes, harnessing kinetic power to extend battery life of phone, solar-power jackets etc.  All in all a great group of people and some really interesting topics and views.

Big thanks to sponsor Carl Bembridge for keeping the tab open and to Deda Derby for the venue again.

Attendees:

Sarah Lay
Carl Bembridge
Paul Cole
Nick Moyes
Richard Mackney
Martin Eady
Rob Beckett
Frieda
Emma Morley
Nik Hewitt

If I’ve missed you off or you’d rather I linked elsewhere just give me a shout

What next?

I’m going to pull together a short questionnaire in the next few days to try and find out what YOU all want from this group in the future. When we meet, how often, whether we have set topics, where we meet – and whether you want / can be involved in helping to organise or sponsor!

I’ll send the link out when the survey is open and hope that you’ll fill it in so we can get organised with the next dates asap! In the meantime if you have any thoughts on the future of smcderby just get in touch with me through Twitter, commenting here or on the Facebook group!

There will be free drinks thanks to sponsorship from Carl Bembridge and the Race for Life Get Social team are hoping to drop in to share how they are using the social web to support women taking part in this year’s events.

Generally it is a chance to network and catch up on all things digital in Derby/shire so come along! See you on Tuesday!