Last week I went to the West Midlands ICT Cluster 2009 ICT Conference. I was purely a punter so it was interesting to go along and experience an event aimed fairly and squarely at small and medium sized IT businesses. The shocker was that compared to a lot of Third Sector/charity/public sector events was the lack of social media around the event.  It was a very traditional (and smoothly run) conference, packed with plenty of tech – for example scannable badges for the workshop attendance and capturing details at the  exhibition areas.

It did fall down in a few places, just simple things like a lack of delegate list and no facilitated networking which means a room full of about 150 suits meant it was difficult to get much out of them. The workshops also were very unworkshoppy (at least the two  I attended) and not very interactive. But the most surprising thing especially being an I(C)T conference was the almost total lack of social media. Twitter was only mentioned during one of the keynotes by Chameleon Net MD Vicky Reeves (I now get the link to someone I have followed for ages on Twitter – Ross Miles) and once at the end by IBM megabrain Clive Harris. There wasn’t a hashtag and I’m pretty sure I was the only one tweeting away. It’s not just about Twitter though, there were some pretty special video cameras setup up, but no streaming of the talks (perhaps they were recorded), and no sense of this being part of a bigger community able to engage before, during and after the event. There are some pictures now appearing on Flickr. Indeed there was the slightly strange sight of one of the facilitators running  round the room so that he he could collect the business cards of delegates, apparently so that he could email the presentations (one at a time because they would be ‘quite big’) to everyone after the event.  Hmm Slideshare might be a fractionally more elegant solution there…

This wasn’t meant to be an event review but the take-home message for me (if I weren’t involved in it already) was that for small/medium businesses ICT has little or nothing to do with social media, which is a shame as I think that there is a level of inevitability of the impact of social media in most areas of life (especially as Clive Harris noted, through mobile devices), and therefore business especially for small and start-up organisations.

One presentation and product I did really enjoy finding out about was Sharedband, a UK/US start-up that enables businesses to combine two or more DSL or cable (even WiMax) connections to gain faster up and download speeds and greater bandwidth without having to take on the hideous expense of a leased line. It also provides redundancy too, making it a good option for a resilient business continuity plan. Most interestingly of all from my perspective, was something they are exploring by sharing residential  broadband connections via wifi – potentially helping out areas where people can’t get a good connection, clubbing together with neighbours to beef up their online options.  CEO Paul Evans talked to me about it in the clip below.

At Chain Reaction today doing a bit of social media surgery and sitting behind me are the guys from Noonan Media who are streaming the video for today’s event and the NFPTweetup tonight. You should be able to see the results of their work below

**UPDATE** now the event is over, the archived footage will be posted soon, I’ll link to it when it’s available.

Next week I’m going to be doing double duty at two great events – Chain Reaction and the 5th NFPTweetup. I didn’t go to Chain Reaction last year, but it immediately erupted across my Twitterstream as lots of attendees were eagerly tweeting about it, so Iwas really interested in going along this year. Chain Reaction is all about getting people together to change things – as they say:

We provide spaces – at ‘real life events’ and on line – in which people can collaborate with others across the boundaries that divide us and commit their energy to new ideas and new ways of working that will change the world.

Big stuff but the line-up of people going is looking great. I’ll be doing a bit of social media surgery alongside the illustrious Rachel Beer, Jonathan Waddingham and Steve Bridger.

In the evening is the 5th NFPTweetup, and fingers crossed we’ll be streaming it live over the interwebs, and I’ll be floating about with a mic and the cameras from Noonan Media, so even if you can’t make it, you can watch and join in on Twitter

Little bit of rebuilding going on.

Normal service will be resumed soon

In the mean time, you can find out more about me and find out how to contact me.

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here, one thing I have been up to is helping to organise the first (of many hopefully) Coventry & Warwickshire Social Media Cafes.

As with many things, it started with a tweet with another Paul (Squires) who I met at the Birmingham Social Media Cafe. We both found ourselves on the train going to the BSMC and thought, why can’t we have one closer to home and the CWSMC was born.

With just over a week to go, we’ve got:

• A venue, the Court Street Creative Arches in Leamington Spa

• A sponsor for the all important coffees, Screen WM

• Wifi courtesy of a WiMax connection put in be Konnex networks (did you know Warwick and Leamington are one of the first places in the UK to get WiMax ? I didn’t think you did)

All we need are some people…actually we’ve got a healthy bunch of early adopters signed-up already, but if you’re around near the station in Leamington next Friday 18th Sept from 10am-12pm – pop down and have a coffee and chat about anything digital and social media, with other interested locals – you might be surprised who you meet.

You can sign-up beforehand which would help us with numbers and see if there is anyone you especially want to meet up with.

Thanks also to Ray Smith at Warwick District Council and Sarah Allen for all their hard work in making it happen so far!

There is a video of Ray talking about the Creative Arches on the CWSMC website.

My first day with my own hat on for a while and in London for Media 140. There are lots of twittery people here – and they will be blogging more than me. But the back channel will be interesting…

I’ve been a bit quiet for a while here but (as I mildly trailed on Twitter) big things have been happening. Today I excavated my desk from 3 and 3/4 years of paper-based sedimentary layering and packed up for the last time at ruralnet|uk.

From 1st May I’m joining the massed ranks of the freerange and unjobbed.

It’s been a while in coming to fruitition but I think the slighty queasy feeling in my stomach isn’t a bout of swine flu, but a mixture of excitement and trepidation tempered by the huge support from everyone that has helped me get here. To Dunk, Brian and Rob and everyone else who I’m leaving behind, I’ll miss you all – it has been a tremendous time but I’m not going far (see below)

What will I actually be doing?

In short – more. More of this social media stuff, more blogging, more social reporting, more connecting up, prodding, poking and trying things out.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow?

Well, literally tomorrow I’ll be rambling (stop it at the back saying I’ve been doing that for ages) to rejoin Mohini and Sameena for a walk around Selly Oak Library as part of the Ramblers’ Get Walking, Keep Walking programme. I’m going to be helping them tell the story of their project and hopefully doing as little as possible, as they’ll be able do it all following our session last week

Why solo doesn’t mean solo at all

Of course the brilliant thing about social media is that no-one is really on their own at all.

So I’m really excited to be working with Nick Booth on more Podnosh projects and looking forward to collaborating with the likes of Dave Briggs and David Wilcox (but I’m willing to consider work even if you’re not called David). And I’ll be back at ruralnet|uk to do some training and get involved in some other upcoming projects.

I might even get round to do some blogging…

I’m doing a bit of social reporting today with David Wilcox at the 2009 World Entrepreneur Summit being held at the (more than) Goodenough College in London.

There is some blogging taking place at the Crowdvine social network that has been set up to support the event and the various videos, pictures, tweets and audios (if that is a word) are being collated over at Pageflakes.

David is collecting little audio interviews using his iPhone and something called AudioBoo -importantly you can capture a picture too, so you can put a name to a face.  We’re liking it here as sometimes a video camera shoved in your face can be a bit intimidating, but most people seem comfortable just chatting – and the sound quality is pretty good, especially in a buzzy but noisy venue.  Check them all out here.

Not so much breaking news, but spraining it – here is my blurb on last week’s excellent NFPtwteetup.

Organiser Rachel Beer, and Justgiving’s (lovely sponsors of the evening) Jonathan Waddingham, brought together about 60 non-profit types to Christian Aid’s HQ in London for a couple of hours of chat about Twitter and all manner of social media tools. We were also lucky enough to be able to boadcast live on Christian Aid’s internet radio station which I found myself presenting for a couple of hours(!). And very enjoyable it was too, once the inital shock had worn off. The collaborative slideshow that was created for the day is below.

On Saturday I went to my first Barcamp and was lucky enough that it was the UKGovWeb Barcamp hosted at the impressive sounding Ministry of Justice.

After whizzing round the room getting names and tags for everyone, Tim Davies gave us the rules for the day, sessions were organised and people just sort of got on with it. People showed stuff off, shared what worked and what didn’t, asked questions and answered a few too. Sessions I went to included Steph Gray’s on the trials and tribulations of DIUS consultation’s over the past year and Guy Dickinson and Simon Wheatley’s Ideas for my Council.

But like Carl Haggerty, (who I met for the first time and shared a Peroni or two with afterwards before he dashed back to Devon to start his new job)  I found the greatest benefit in meeting up with like minded government and non-government types looking to make a difference. I’m not a hard core government webster, but I didn’t feel out of place, I think because the idea of government websites sitting in splendid isolation is not a model that anyone attending felt was viable. It’s the fuzzy bits at the edge I’m interested in.  Where does consultation stop and policy co-creation and service provision begin? Is it a continuous iterative process that is being broken down as we speak, crossing over with local government, the private and Third sectors?

When it comes to consultation for example, tools like Commentariat are making this possible and the plain english Big City Plan Talk show that there is another way, even with a traditional consultation model – so long as a bit of common sense is applied. Overall as Steph points out and Neil Williams builds on, these are exciting times and not just times for talking (and there was a lot of good talking on Saturday), but doing.

Big thanks

Of course despite their apparently self-organising nature, these things don’t ‘just happen’, there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes and the likes of Dave Briggs and Jeremy Gould deserve lots of thanks for putting on a great day. Jeremy is already spending his first night in Ireland having literally left the building for the last time and although I’ve only met him in meatspace a couple of times, he’s obviously a top bloke, and I’ll add my voice to everyone else’s in wishing him good luck for the future – not that he needs it.

• UKGovBarcamp

• Twitter conversations

• Pictures on Flickr