Wednesday was an interesting day for me; in the morning I went to a social media book club held by two of the students from Birmingham City University’s MA in social media and in the evening was the Birmingham Skeptics in The Pub discussion by Michael Marshall on How PR came to rule modern journalism (more about the latter in another post I think).  Wow that was a long sentence.

I pitched up to the Social media book club (or #masocialmedia book club on twitter) after Alina and Grace, the organisers, turned up to my book club last month and invited me along.  Sadly the short notice on getting the book and two trips meant I didn’t get to finish the book, but I made a good way through the book of choice; Making Is Connecting by David Gaunlett.

I don’t think it would be fair of me to try and explain what the book is about as I didn’t finish it, but the longer version of the title is a good place to start ‘Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0′.  I thought the parts of the book I read were pretty interesting, although very optimistic and could’ve done with being a little more sceptical at times.  I sort of waffled through something about Apple and approving/rejecting apps and some issues it got into trouble with that I read a while back, which in hindsight the MA social media students were probably in a better position to talk about than me!

Was interesting to see how a non-fiction book club could work.  Seemed everyone (apart from me) read the whole book, with each chapter being given to someone to focus on and lead the discussion, which I think worked superbly and really gave a sense of interaction with everyone.  I’m thinking of nicking the idea for my book club, but I’m not sure they’d be overly keen on homework!

I am continually amazed that even after the internet has pervaded almost all aspects of modern life, at least in the UK, we still have people that just don’t get it.  And by it, I mean applying the quirks of humanity to the internet.

The most recent incident of this I’ve come across was a new club that is opening shortly.  I found out about them when they were tweeting all their followers with identical messages.  Pretty much anyone on twitter or anyone that’s written Christmas cards* to people in the same social circle knows you just don’t do it.  Even if the message is the same you have to switch it up, even when all you want to do is wish everyone merry Christmas or tell them your club is opening.  Generally people want to feel like you’re actually taking time out to communicate with them and not firing off some misguided faceless mass message.  Generic wishes make people feel like you don’t actually care and run the risk of making people feel like they’re not valuable.  It’s why people hate purely pre-printed well wishes in cards and automatic DMs.  If you’re going to be personal, then at least put some personality into it and not just copy-cut-paste.  Otherwise why bother – you run the risk of making people feel less valued than before you sent the cards/tweets.

*It’s very possible I have a preoccupation with Christmas cards and all of mine usually include rambling nonsensical, but personal messages to my friends.

In the last two days something special happened on Twitter. Again. Twitter users in their thousands have this time rushed to defend the NHS against American critics of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms. The Guardian reported that ‘US critics have accused the service of putting an “Orwellian” financial cap on the value on human life, of allowing elderly people to die untreated and, in one case, for driving a despairing dental patient to mend his teeth with superglue’.

But literally thousands of people on the social networking site, Twitter, have come to the NHS’s defence. Using the hashtag #welovethenhs, which allows messages on a similar topic to be linked, people have been posting their experiences and amazing messages of support.

What the Hashtag, a site which tracks trends, counted 20,575 tweets (messages) using the #welovethenhs tag, with 10,909 contributors. And that’s just as of 9:30 today – the numbers are going up. I’ve posted five so you can get an idea, but if you get the chance or need some cheering up, take a look at the rest.

karmadillo I love the NHS because baby Enso (& possibly me) would not have survived labour without them http://bit.ly/zlEOz #welovethenhs
_garys #welovethenhs When my dad’s heart began to fail we were told he wouldn’t last a week. The NHS gave him an urgent bypass and saved his life.
benjamincohen: I have to use the NHS every week because of having Multiple Sclerosis. It has its faults but it’s still great #welovethenhs
deanzielinski: #welovethenhs Without the NHS my uncle would have paralysis to his right leg and be in a wheelchair. He now stands and is a paramedic.
deanzielinski: #welovethenhs -may not be perfect, but you can rely on it when you are in need, no matter what your financial status is. We are spoiled!

Social networking sites, like Twitter, get accused of being a pointless waste of time. But to me this highlights one of the great ways they can be used; they hold people to account, they allow ordinary people to speak their mind and counter lies. The stories people have told in 140 characters about the NHS have been genuine messages of support from regular people. It’s been amazing.

And yes, I work for the NHS, so I may be biased towards thinking it’s something that should be applauded. But it’s nice to see it regardless!

*This was originally posted on my old blog BeanHeartBatman*

“It’s not a revolution if no one gets hurt” – Thomas Friedman

On Friday I attended JEEcamp – an ‘unconference’ aimed at journalists and publishers to look at how the industry could deal with the decline of regional journalism, effects of the recession, citizen journalism and general online media.

The keynote speech by Kyle McRae, the founder of Scoopt.com a photo-agency that attempted to trade citizen’s photographs to the papers, was fascinating.  Scoopt was a brilliant concept to hear about, which never really worked because it lacked fundamental networks and resources.  He spoke of the lessons learnt and how the concept grew from an idea to a company to then be sold to Getty and subsequently closed down.

The failing business models for newspaper publishing were heavily discussed.  One attendee was a woman who’d volunteered for her local paper for years, unpaid, was now moving onto a qualification and away from regional journalism because she felt there was no hope in regional press.  From what I’d heard we weren’t the only group to discuss work experience, although members the break-out group I observed felt this woman had been exploited, others have posted to say that one newspaper publisher was looking to charge people for work experience.

The Friedman quote above (which is actually talking about the green revolution) summed up the feeling I got from the event.  There was a great deal of concern about the decline of regional journalism, something which worries my colleagues in hospital communications, as regional journalism is our “bread and butter”, to quote the head of my department.  But the journalists at JEEcamp were understandably more worried about it.  There have been large numbers of job cuts and reshuffles in regional journalism recently and this seems to be a continuing trend.

JEEcamp didn’t seem to give any concrete answers to what the new course would be but it did give some fantastic ideas.  Particularly a view to hyper-local media that would focus on a further niche market than current regional journalism and a need for a new, sustainable business model.  Something that is particularly topical as Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp (owner of The Times, Sun and News of the World), announced that they were considering charging for more of their Internet content.  Whatever the model becomes, the influx of citizen journalism and social media in recent years can only serve to force journalism and their publishing houses into a more robust model that knows it cannot rest on its laurels and has to be better.

*This was originally posted on my old blog BeanHeartBatman*

It’s been well reported that the hospital I work at has been preparing for things just in case there should be an outbreak of swine flu. And between delivering leaflets to wards to let staff know just how this would pan out and researching online communications, I’ve seem how both things work – and don’t.

There’s always been the issue of whether staff on the ground get access to the computers to read the things we’ve put out online, so we do both to make sure – put it online and provide it in paper form. Something that even with all the advances in social technology will not alter any time soon. Frontline staff don’t sit in front of a computer all day like those of us office based and may not always be able to read the things online as soon as we put it on. I know when I worked on the frontline in another job I would scan through emails once a day if I was lucky.  Other people did it once a week and a select few monthly.  Social media is great for getting things out, but not if the people can’t get to it regularly.

Then, on the other hand, until the information about the Redditch woman infected with swine flu was confirmed we had numerous calls from journalists trying to find out if the Prime Minister’s announcement of someone infected in Birmingham was at our hospital (She wasn’t. Redditch isn’t even in Birmingham.  Most sites have now updated to show this). We fielded calls from all sorts of news outlets all asking the same question and we had the same answer for them. This information could’ve been released once on social media sites like a Trust blog (and/or Twitter) and prevented having to repeat the same thing. We could always alter the information as and when it changed – like we’ve been able to do with linking to the up to date Health Protect Agency’s algorithm when the World Health Organisation upped the pandemic level.

I think it’s pretty easy to see that both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. Online media allows rapid, regularly updated information to be disseminated to a large number of people, but only if they have access to it and you don’t always know who has read it (I know there are trackers, but still). Paper-based and/or one face-to-face conversation means you know people get the information but it’s stagnant and updating it can be time consuming. This is not exactly a groundbreaking analysis, – I know that. But seeing this in the space of two days has been really quite fascinating.

*This was originally posted on my old blog BeanHeartBatman*