The traditional perception with Birmingham is that we do plenty of creative and cultural things but we don’t like to shout about it. Cllr Martin Mullaney has pointed out several times during this City Of Culture bid that as a city we have very low levels of cultural engagement per head of population. I was determined in my role as Social Media Manager to increase engagement and prove that, given the right platform, we would shout about it.

My first day on the job involved working on the 24hour Blog run by Jon Bounds. We received a phenomenal amount of contribution to the Posterous site in a 24 hour period. Since then our engagement was spread across Facebook, Twitter and the main website.

When monitoring other shortlisted cities social media activities it was interesting to discover their bids were mainly limited to Facebook. We on the other hand had a much larger amount of Twitter followers. Today it passed the 1000 mark.

Only eight people were allowed to present the Birmingham’s case to the judging panel in Liverpool, we wanted to increase our presence. Birmingham had plans to take a Battle Bus which would stage cultural flashmobs around Liverpool on the day.

Public Relations Manager Geoff Coleman mentioned doing something similar to 24hour blog and I pitched the idea of using Cover It Live as a scrolling commentary which could be displayed ‘in the room’. It was important to gather all the different threads across multiple platforms. I also thought it was an ideal opportunity to make a virtual event out of our final submission. I passionately stated at the time,

“Can I just say that Birmingham’s strength as a digital city is one of our greatest assets and it would be doing ourselves a great disservice not to do something really innovative.”

I’m pleased to say that it was a success, there were around 900 messages of support over the period, and the Council Site where Cover It Live was embedded reported a spike of over 1000 unique users.

@Katchoo has blogged about what it was like to be involved in the event. A point well made was that it wasn’t just the usual people mentioning the same things. The real success of the event came from the variety of comments, the amount of people involved and the many cultural things Birmingham offers. We’re a culturally rich city that deserves recognition. And for once we really shouted about it.

Below are all the interactions that took place on the day.

This live blog was also embedded on the Council website

People either logged into the site or used the hashtag #intheroom. Here’s a word cloud of the hashtag courtesy of @cmc1985.

I also blogged about the day here.

My FOI Request of cycling accidents and their locations came through and I was able to put the details straight into Mapalist. I exported as KML and re-imported but for some reason the details about the pins didn’t copy.

So, even though these pins look a bit untidy in the larger map, they nevertheless should help cyclists take more care in accident areas.

The key is on the larger map but the general gist is:
Blue hued pin = cycle incident
Pink hued pin = cycle hazard
Primary colour = fatal accident

View Birmingham Cyclist Map in a larger map

Staying Updated
Through an RSS from FixMyStreet I’ve been tracking potholes that have been reported to Birmingham City Council and also pinpointing any potholes mentioned on the Council’s Twitterstream. I will also be tracking my own cycle journeys and keeping an eye on any other hazards I see.

If you would like to add any hazards please feel free.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I went to Sprocket Cycles, off Allison St Digbeth where Gordon quick-fitted a new bike chain in 3 minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also grabbed a short audio interview with Gordon talked about cycling safety, National ‘Bike’ Service and just what is the correct kerb distance?

If you click through to Details beside each track, you can see I’ve written a short piece on each journey in my Notes section. These act as a summing up of my journey including any safety concerns I see. If you’d like to add your routes and comment on your experiences (and you have an Android or Smartphone) then this App should cost around £5.99. Once you’ve got it if you could let me know below and befriend me.

I’m also hoping to export this data and it will inform my next map based on experiences of people road cycling in Birmingham.

Find out about my first cyclemap here.

It was quite fun but as you can see it collapsed when we used Wave to discuss ‘the process’ of the game. And I couldn’t engage enough people in Wave to make it worthwhile.

It might be more appropriate to run it in Twitter but I think before I jump on there I want to work out how to get people understand how the game runs. I was thinking I might put some rules up either here or on #Brum site.

If it has a click through WordPress page to I might be able to take the game to a second stage and prove or disprove the facts or myths, offering more background and links away from the focus of gameplay. This might be the journalism but the degree of proven truthfulness could be used as a points system of sorts.

Well there’s still a lot to work through… Would love to hear what you think of this idea, or if you have any strong opinions on the following questions then speak your brains below…

Is Twitter the best place to run the game?
Should I be wary of too many rules?
Any ideas how I can get more folk involved?
Should there be a live geo-tagging picture version – and might that get you extra points?
Is there anything we can use to graphically show the facts so it represents a load of spaghetti links?

A few weeks back some ex-BCU students came to talk about their subsequent companies and discuss the process of their entrepreneurial endeavours to a large group of us in the MA Suite.

Due to other course deadlines and an annoying internet connection it took a while to get all material on line. But nevertheless I believe the entire session is worth a look.

First we heard from Daniel Bower the man behind eConversations the company which gave the web-world welovelocal.com and the very successful VoucherCodes.co.uk

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Next was Ruth Ward Director of Rewired PR. She told her story moving from Willoughby PR to setting up her own department in the company (Neon) to finally stepping out alone.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally Justice Williams MBE who has numerous Social Enterprises to her name gave a passionate talk.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

FINAL PART TO COME

This was followed by a Panel Discussion and Q&A Session.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We then interviewed all three people directly. Daniel Bower had a chat with Caroline Beavon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And a clipped interview with Ruth Ward also by Caroline Beavon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And finally Andrew Brightwell and myself interviewed Justice Williams

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found the session not only helped me think more seriously about my Enterprise project but, in the Q&As in particular I think there’s plenty of rich material which might feed into longer features on the Hash Brum website.

I think some of the comments are particularly useful in ongoing discussions we have had about Birmingham’s creativity.

Tonight I’m going to head off to see Efterklang at a new Birmingham venue called The Asylum .

Poster by rainbow_donkeys

I’m still thinking of appropriate ways to write a music review for #Brum. I know that people have done Tweeting events before but trying to stop it being a novelty and integrate it more effectively. If you are going tonight and you will be tapping away occasionally on a keypad, do let me know. If you would rather enjoy the experience but want to get in touch with me via a more traditional route afters then also let me know – although snail mail is probably not the one. All suggestions and comments welcome, even if it’s ‘Why don’t you just enjoy the moment rather than try and flatten it with technology?’

If you have just stumbled across this randomly and you live in Birmingham, you should definitely come along it’s going to be ace! If you’ve found it because you saw them at the Barbican last night, it would be great if you could let me know what to expect.

You can right click ‘save target’ for the MP3 here or you can listen to it below.

Please feel free to engage via the comments box too!