A Christmas tale of why community matters

Merlin at home

When our 10-year-old cat Merlin went missing two weeks after we moved house, we realised we needed to act fast to find him.

So the family went into action on two fronts – knocking on doors around our new home and spreading the message online. My daughter put up posters on lampposts on nearby streets and we went out searching, asking neighbours if they had seen him. Meanwhile I tweeted a picture of Merlin and an appeal for information with an #Exmouth hashtag.

The response was quick locally and via twitter. Neighbours promised to keep a lookout for our missing pet and online several followers - some who I knew personally and some I didn’t – retweeted my appeal, getting the message out to potentially thousands of people.

Thankfully three days later we got a phone call from the people who had moved into our old home to tell us Merlin had somehow found his way back there two miles across town. We found him bedraggled, limping and hungry – but pleased to see us after his adventure. He is now home recovering, and we will be keeping a close eye on him.

This story has a happy ending – and it illustrates for me how community works online as well as offline. It was good to get to know our new neighbours, who were all sympathetic and promised to help. That was comforting at an anxious time. And similarly the help online via twitter gave us reassurance that friends and strangers cared. Online and offline, people were going out of their way to help when we were in need.

My point is that online communities can offer action and support in a similar way to offline relationships. The results can be quick and effective in spreading a message and calling people to action. I saw a similar outpouring of concern, alongside practical help, with a Facebook campaign supporting people who lost their homes in a serious fire in Exmouth a couple of weeks ago.

Online communities can quickly extend the reach of help and support, providing reassurance and practical action. And that’s a timely message about our power to do good that shouldn’t be ignored, especially at Christmas.

Has Storify got the X Factor?

I’ve had another play with Storify, the curation tool that allows a user to create a timeline-style story of online content from all over the web including social media. This time I looked at the latest twist today in the saga of Cheryl Cole and her possible return to the US X Factor. Storify proved a flexible way to search related tweets and news stories, and allowed me to merge them easily into a narrative. This is a great way to tell a story like this which quickly creates a wealth of content and responses online. It also makes it easy to find and include root sources and add a commentary. Here’s the link to the Storify page.

Super-injunction fiasco puts judges and MPs on collision course

So the cat’s half-way out of the bag – MP John Hemming today used Parliamentary privilege to name Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs as the man identified on Twitter as being at the centre of the super-injunction saga. He had been named by 75,000 Twitter users as the subject of a super-injunction gagging the press from repeating an allegation that he had an affair with former Miss Wales and Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. Meanwhile, two attempts to overturn the injunction at the High Court in London failed today – even though the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper effectively identified Giggs on Sunday, claiming the injunction had no effect under Scottish law. The Prime Minister has ordered a Parliamentary inquiry into privacy orders, telling ITV’s Daybreak it was unfair and unsustainable to ban newspapers from giving information widely available on the internet.

Digital media helping to change people’s lives

Can digital media change people’s lives for the better? Media Trust thinks so, and is asking for people to come up with inspiring technology projects. The second Community Voices scheme is a one year UK-wide project “which aims to inspire, engage and empower communities who feel disadvantaged, isolated, or voiceless, with the confidence, skills, and access to resources and funding that will enable them to make a meaningful difference to their lives using digital media.”

Another way for journalists to tell stories online

There’s a new online tool to tell stories, mixing content from across social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. It’s an interesting way to curate and combine sources. I had a quick go and created a Storify about the Devon County Show, selecting tweets, Facebook updates, news stories, photos and videos. You can see it by clicking this link (javascript won’t embed in this WordPress-hosted blog).

http://storify.com/ed_oldfield/devon-county-show

How Facebook is at the heart of a communications revolution

A news story last week struck me as providing proof of how far Facebook has been at the forefront of the global revolution in how we communicate. The prosecutor general in Eygpt announced on his department’s Facebook page that former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons would be detained for 15 days for questioning over corruption in the former regime. Apparently the Facebook page was set up to promote communication between the new government and families of the people killed or injured during the political turmoil which led up to the ousting of Mubarak. Much has been written about how social media like Facebook and Twitter have been used by protesters to organise the movements for political change which have swept through the Middle East in recent months. Now in Egypt the authorities are using Facebook to communicate directly with people.

Challenge and change in the media

Trust is key to publishing in the digital media. That was the underlying theme to emerge from a wide-ranging workshop discussion at a session called ‘How to build for the future in media and publishing”. I was representing local media in the packed session in a room at the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter, part of the two-day Like Minds conference on the theme Creativity and Curation.

The ethics of following on Twitter

The row over the off-message tweets of the ditched Labour parliamentary candidate Stuart MacLennan has highlighted a  potential ethical dilemma. Labour twitterati have been criticised for following MacLennan’s rants but failing to rein him in. Exeter’s Ben Bradshaw, a cabinet minister, has denied following MacLennan, who allegedly posted offensive remarks about politicians. But here’s the point – if you follow someone who posts offensive tweets, do you have a duty to challenge them? If it’s a colleague, the answer has to be yes. If not, it’s maybe not so clear cut.

There’s a broader question of whether Twitter is a public or a personal space, and the issue of free speech. In some ways, Twitter is like Speakers’ Corner. If you come into range of a view you disagree with, you can shout back or walk away. On Twitter you can engage with the offender and walk away if you’re unhappy with the response. I’d defend the right of free speech within the law. But I don’t have to agree with what is being said.

Tweets are published publicly, but only to those who choose to follow. That’s a hybrid of public and personal. It’s really a series of public conversations.

I’m all for a healthy exchange of views and robust political debate. Of course not everyone is going to agree. But the public space should be kept clear of bigotry and  prejudice. The best way to police it is for everyone to take responsibility for what’s being said. It’s best to join the conversation and make your views known, but know when it’s time to turn your back.

Like Minds 4: Memorable moments

Like Minds 4: Memorable moments – snippets and quotes from speakers and panelists

Chris Brogan, president of US-based New Marketing Labs, told the conference the excitement around social media as a communications tool was similar to what happened when the telephone emerged in the 1930s and then email at the end of the last century.

He said: “All social media has nothing to do with technology, but with remembering to be human. It is not about the buzz, it is what you do with it. The magic you can have is in seeing people and just connecting with them.”

Conference co-founder Scott Gould: “We are group of like-minded people who understand that what motivates us is the connection to the people that we serve.”

Darren Forsyth, CEO of digital and social media agency 140 characters, said: “Every organisation has to get their head around the fact that we are in a two-way communication world.”

Exeter City Centre manager John Harvey said the public sector faced the danger of being distant from the people it served. Using social media allowed him to communicate more effectively with the public. He said: “We are generally pretty ropey about communicating with real people. What is significant about the connections I have made through twitter is that I am connecting with people who I didn’t know existed, and who didn’t know I existed.”

John Bell, of the Washington-based 360 digital team of communications agency Ogilvy, which works for brands including Ford, Unilever, and American Express, said he had seen a big change in companies who were at first dismissive of social media, then wanted to ‘jump on the bandwagon’, now they  believed and understood how it would change their business. His work was now focused on transforming the way business worked and communicated with their customers.

Adam Stone, managing director of Exeter-based Rokk Group, said: “For us having these superheroes of our trade coming here and discussing their latest discoveries and thoughts is fantastic. It puts Exeter right up there at the cutting edge of our movement.”

Max Nadjm of BSkyB said it took a year to introduce social media widely within the organisation, including Sky News which encouraged all its journalists to use twitter. He said: “We are not there yet, but we are working on it.”

Gemma Went, of PR consultancy Red Cube Marketing, said it was important to create a strategy and guidelines for users. She said: “The key thing there is how you train your staff with the guidelines and policy. Get them to have some buy-in and understanding, get them to have some input so that it gets included in everything they do online.”

Like Minds 3: Playing the game

Like Minds 3: Joanne Jacobs on the importance of location, environment and games

Delegates were told games are becoming increasingly important in business as culture becomes more visual than text-based.

Australian social media consultant Joanne Jacobs said three crucial areas of digital development for mobile devices were location-based applications, which deliver services relevant to where people are; augmented reality, which gives more information about places; and games.

Ms Jacobs said people had less time and were travelling more as work and life became more mobile. This meant services for mobile devices like smartphones were becoming more relevant. And people were more likely to find value in playing a game with a chance of winning.

She said: “We are becoming a society that is much more visual. The new generation is a much more visual culture, the older generation is more text based.

“We actually have to give people the opportunity to win. You are far better when you are doing engagement if you let them win.

“If you want to invest in location-based aps, augmented reality and gaming, the time is now.”