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!

Just a couple of weeks to go now until Derby and Derbyshire Social Media Cafe meets for the first time. This is a bit of a round-up post of things you might be interested in and a couple of things which have merely been passing through my mind.

So – first off – Emily Robe, a social media virtual assistant from Derby, gave a great interview on Radio Derby‘s Aleena Naylor show on Wednesday 16 September. They talked about Emily’s job, how social media can help businesses and marketing through platforms such as Twitter. Emily also gave the social media cafe a mention – so if you’re checking the blog after hearing her on the radio, welcome!

If you missed it you can hear the interview on Listen Again until next Wednesday. Emily’s interview starts at about 1 hour 11 minutes in. Enjoy!

Elsewhere there have been a number of new social media cafes getting off the ground. Lichfield and Devon both held their first meetings on Tuesday 15 September and the Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe will be launching on Friday 18 September. All three are linked in the Other Social Media Cafes section of this blog.

It’s interesting to see the social media and wider community gather at these events – each run slightly differently on a localised version of the Tuttle model. I’m sure if you are in the area when one is taking place they’d be only too pleased to welcome you to a meeting – take a look at their blogs to see what they’re talking about.

Both of these things got me thinking about what the Derbyshire version of the cafe is, and perhaps even more importantly is not. I’m keen to let it grow somewhat organically from these early days but there are few things I’m pretty sure on in my head. So here is what I think the cafe is and is not. Would be great to have views from other people coming along.

It is:

• An informal networking event.
• Open to all sectors (public, private, third) and both those who work directly with online communications, digital and social media and those who want to find out more about it for personal or community use.
• Mainly for Derby and Derbyshire but welcomes others from outside these geographical boundaries as the experiences and knowledge they have to share.
• (More a it should than an is) Try to capture knowledge relevant to us all and shared at the cafe through this blog and other online spaces. Let us know if you have any ideas about how / where we could do this.

It isn’t:

• A place to sell your product – there are conferences and better places for that. The cafe is about sharing and collaborating not getting a sales pitch
• Affiliated with any one organisation or agenda.
• Over-organised. To a certain extent each meeting will be decided on by the group. I’ve set out some rough ideas about frequency and location in previous posts but it’s one of the things I’d be interested to hear your views on at the first meeting.

So, if you think I’ve missed something vital off these lists let me know. Don’t forget to pop over to Nurphy to join the introductions conversation and see what you think of the platform. Otherwise the blog is open to comments, the #smcderby stream on Twitter is running and the Facebook group and event listing is available too.

Word is getting out – the Derby and Derbyshire Social Media Cafe launches on Thursday 1 October 2009 in the cafe bar at Quad Derby.

I’m really pleased with the interest we’ve had so far and am looking forward to chatting with so many different people (drop-in any time between 2 and 5pm!) on the day.

I would be eternally grateful if you could reply to this post or sign up on the Facebook event page if you’re intending to come along. While everything is pretty informal – the cafe won’t be exclusively for our use, you’ll have to pay for your own coffee, we have no agenda other than to meet and chat – it would be great to have an idea of numbers!

For future cafes we’ll probably make sign up easier via a wiki or eventbrite (or let us know if you know a better way) but if you’re coming just let me know!

I’d also be interested to hear from you if you’d like to have come but can’t because of the day, time or location. We can then take this into consideration as we plan future meets.

Quad has lots of advice on their website about getting to the venue by car, train, air, foot, bicycle or bus as well as information on accommodation if you want to make a night of it. Take a look at their directions page.

Look forward to seeing you on the 1 October!

I’ve been playing with the idea and various possible set-ups for a while now (not very JFDI but maybe as long as a year). I’ve really been spurred into action though by the inspiration I drew at LocalGovCamp.

I’ve spoken to a couple of other Derbyshire social media enthusiasts and the feeling from them is very positive. There is a feeling that there is a need for an informal meeting place to discuss what we’re doing or what we want to do with social media and online communications. Not only would this be great, from my point of view, for local government and our partners in Derbyshire as we don’t even have a formal setting for these discussions at the moment. But it would also be great to chat with people from the private and third sectors as we can all learn so much through sharing.

So, the rough plan at the moment is to get some time and a venue for sometime in September and start getting people on board. I want to be fairly fluid with where this goes so there will be no agendas and people bring / take what they need to and from each cafe in terms of things to share and actions. More medium term I would like to see it move around the county to take advantage and meet with people from our pretty big geographical area.

It’s still in the early stages but with summer underway the ideas are about to be solidified into plans. I’d welcome any advice from those who’ve already set up a café (particularly looking at your Birmingham), anyone in Derby/shire who wants to work with me on this and generally opinions on what folks think of this.

Watch this space for progress…