EVENT: Connected Generation unConference

If  you work with young people then this unconference (organised by Tim Davies) is “an opportunity to explore big ideas, and practical realities of weaving the web into work with young people”.

Where and when? Saturday 11th July, London

What’s all this unconference business about?

As an unConference, the exact programme is created on the day by the participants, who will convene conversations, provide demonstrates and share their insights.

However, themes that are likely to be explored include:

• Communicating with young people online – from promoting youth services and positive activities, through to hosting two-way dialogues with young people in online spaces.
• Social networks & youth participation – how can Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and Ning be part of the participation workers toolbox? And how does social networking have the power to change the face of participation?
• Digital inclusion for young people – making sure that all young people have the access to technology and the skills they need to get on in the digital age;
• Practical action – how to make sure online engagement is based on safe-and-sound foundations; getting policies in place; and making sure the technology and staff skills are available to make the most of online engagement;
• Hands-on learning – exploring different social media tools that you can use in your work, and sharing tips with other participants about the best way to use them;

Find out more about the event and book your place online at http://connectedgeneration09.eventbrite.com/.

How do you use new media?

Suw Charman-Anderson (the lady behind Ada Lovelace Day) is carrying out an online survey to find out how civil society associations (e.g. voluntary and community organisations, trade unions, faith-based organisations) are using social media / new media / web 2.0 tools such as Facebook, blogging, Twitter etc.

If you are (or even aren’t) using these tools please take a few minutes to complete the survey : http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bGRXu2T_2f_2fpzW0SfmQzr7DA_3d_3d.

This survey is part of a wider programme of work run by the Carnegie UK Trust on the Future of Civil Society, you can read more about it at: http://democracy.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/civil_society.

Collaborative working conference – web 2.0 session

[apologies for this being posted a bit later than it should have been]

Into the first workshop … Michelle McMahon from Ammado is asking us all about if and how we are using web 2.0.  The experiences vary from users who are passionate to users who are sceptical to people who don’t know yet if it’s for them … my only thought at the moment is that I hope that I’m not annoying anyone with my continuous tapping

There’s an interesting range of what people what to get out of this session; there is talk of using web 2.0 to interact with members, to communicate internally and also to get a better general understanding of what all of these tools are and how they can be used.

So, what is web 2.0?  Web 2.0 is participatory, it is about people creating and sharing online.  At the start of the internet it was talked of as the information age, now it should be thought of as the participatory age.

An interesting thought to start the session, how do people communicate with a ketchup bottle online?

Michelle’s favourite examples of web 2.0 sites at the moment are http://wetellstories.co.uk, a Penguin site which used popular authors to create new stories online, with input from the public.  The site had the effect of raising the profile of both Penguin and the authors involved.  The second highlighted site was for the Obama ‘08 campaign http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog/, rallying support of people online – the site featured an Obama ringtone .. I’m interested to hear what that sounded like.  http://worldwithoutoil.orgis a site which simulated what might happen during a global oil crisis.  For once at a conference the internet is working and Michelle is showing some footage from You Tube from the World Without Oil site.

Some of the other examples of web 2.0 in action included …

• Organisations such as the NSPCC using fan pages on Facebook to attract supporters 
• Ebay, working with Mission Fish to administer donations from items sold on Ebay
• Community pages on the Ammado site for various causes, promoting calls to action through widgets which can be shared on other social networking spaces
• The Born in September twitter campaign, raising money for Charity Water by targeting people who were born in september
• powergramo - allowing you to create podcasts using skype
• Kiva - a site which uses donations to fund micro loans around the world

Some of the delegates had their own experiences of web 2.0, which included …

• Using a blog to answer questions that you’re constantly asked so that you don’t waste time repeating yourself – you can also link to other sources of useful information
• Blogging about work which can attract local newspapers in search of a story
• Smaller charities using free blogs (like wordpress.com or typepad) instead of a website, there is some of the basic functionality of websites

As with all workshops in every conference ever we started to run over time and my stomach was becoming quite vocal as lunch approached.  Michelle looked briefly at future trends affecting web 2.0, such as the increasing visibility of charity – company online relationships.

Off to lunch …