THE HYPER LOCAL GOVCAMP EVENT

To start with, I was terrified when I was told my class had to attend the Hyper Local Gov. Camp event, and with good cause too; before then, I had sat through a class where we discussed Marwick’s “I tweet passionately, honestly and truthfully” and I felt a little out of place but let’s leave that alone shall we?.

In discussing that reading, I learnt that people imagine their audiences (whether personal or professional) and that affects their tweets. That however brings up the argument about authenticity using the Soraya Darabi (social media strategist for the New York Times) example because if you study/pre-empt your audience before you tweet, it’s not ‘honest’ anymore.

Again, the discussion convinced me that indeed Social Media could be used to effect changes, mobilize a people/community to do stuff and even reach out to leaders, a board or the government. Examples include the Elle/Rodarte controversy http://www.elleuk.com/news/Beauty-News/mac-and-rodarte-collaboration-cancelled and the Students Union Facebook page gathering students together. But, I digress.

So we get to this event (thank you @natminter for the ride) and after we settled in, @pigsonthewing gave a brief introduction of what the event was all about and how the sessions would be divided. From the board, I picked the sessions in rooms 309, 100, and 312 and I’ll treat them as headings.

309: SOCIAL MEDIA SURGERIES (Nick Booth and Gavin Wray)

This was my best session. Maybe because both facilitators were warm ( whether  you like it or not, it shows), maybe because they clearly explained what a surgery was about and what you can do with one, or maybe because I was hungry for more ways of exploring this big phenomenon called Social Media. If you’re like me, this would be useful. http://www.socialmediasurgery.com/

100: OPEN DATA.

Forgive me for not knowing any names here, and don’t read any meaning into it too! This was a particularly interesting class because it showed what a government should do (or work towards doing) to qualify as being democratic. The Open Data session also taught bloggers, journalists et al how and where to avail themselves of data and how it not only how makes their work richer, but enables them channel their efforts towards community collaboration in more meaningful ways. Enough said. opendata.warwickshire.gov.uk/pages/community

312: POSITIVE COMMUNITY ACTION

Again I didn’t get his name, and truthfully, not much else. For me the class was supposed to tell us how to utilize knowledge gained from sessions one and two, and I didn’t get that (blame me for going there with a pre-set mind set)! I however liked the gaming console the facilitator was developing, something about citizens playing as though they were in fantasy land but actually being real life(almost like the Inception movie, if you’ve seen it)!

One major lesson I took away from it all is this: there are vast opportunities with Social media and regardless of the limitations peculiar to my country, I’m totally intrigued by it and will grasp all I can! Did I mention that the cakes were absolutely lovely, almost sinful? And yes, I’m no longer upset I didn’t do an interview!

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