Social Media Café » Event

Social Media Cafe – February 2012

Sarah Lay — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:29:55 +0000

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

Round up of October cafe

Sarah Lay — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:36:01 +0000

It was great to get the Derbyshire Social Media Cafe back underway last night with a meet in the cafe bar at Quad in Derby.

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:

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

Social Media Cafe in Derby – TONIGHT!

Sarah Lay — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:29:46 +0000

Just a quick reminder that there will be a social media cafe tonight in Derby.

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.

December social media cafe

Sarah Lay — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:22:31 +0000

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…

The first meeting

Sarah Lay — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:25:52 +0000

by Sarah

So, yesterday the idea that Tim, Paul and I had to start a social media cafe in Derby (and indeed around the county) became a reality.

The first meeting of was held, informally, in the cafe bar at Quad Derby yesterday (1 October 2009)- and a big thanks must go to them for hosting us and supporting this idea.

The conversation was flowing, just as we hoped it would, and we’ve had a great response so far – there will definitely be more meets!

Some of the things I talked about with people and found really useful / interesting included: Google Sidewiki and Wave; promoting and getting organisations to move forward online; monitoring social media both from a ‘knowing your audience’ and a ROI point of view; managing reputation online; being and managing online workers and of course, how the social media cafe is going to continue.

How is the cafe going to continue?

Well, it will definitely meet again in Derby and at the moment I am thinking it might be nice to meet in early December.

I’d propose we meet in a dedicated space this time and have something more formal to head up the session – a case study or debate for example – with an informal networking event afterwards.

What I’d like people to let me know (either comment here, tweet me or through the Facebook group) is:

What day of the week and time is best for you? A few people have said evening would be better – how do people feel about this?
Do you have any suggestions for the ‘formal’ part? Would you like to volunteer to run a session on something?
Is there anything else you would like to do to be involved with the cafe?

I’ll set up some sort of event listing where people can register their interest and then we can look at a suitable venue and get the date and time organised.

The Derby meet will be alongside taking the cafe out around the county. There will be a meet in Matlock on 3 December and I’d really, really appreciate hearing from anyone who would be interested in coming along or help organise this one!

Who came yesterday?

I said I’d post the attendance list up so people could follow each other and continue conversations online. If I’ve missed anyone please forgive me and give me a nudge to add you on! Most people seem to be using Twitter as their main online identity at the moment but if you have another space you’d rather use (or think we should look at) then let me know. Here’s the list:

I’d like to say a massive thanks to everyone who came and turned our idea into a reality. I look forward to continuing the conversations online and seeing you all (and more people too!) at the next meet.

It’s all go

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:26:38 +0000

Thank you to everyone for coming along to the Social Media Cafe event today at Derby QUAD. Lots of interesting conversations and ideas – as well as coffee and cake!

If you have any photos you’ve taken and are prepared to share with us, please leave us a comment with a link to them. We’ll then add them to the blog.

A big thankyou to QUAD for their support and allowing us to use their facilities. Here’s to the next time in Matlock.