Following the first #WarwickTweetup there are plans for more so check out the new Warwick Tweetup website for details.

Next week also sees the third installment of Pecha Kucha Night Coventry on Tuesday 22nd  March at Taylor John’s House.

Speakers include CWSMC stars Siobhan Harrison and Paul Squires giving talks in the 20 slides x 20 seconds format. More at the website or follow  @PKN_Coventry on Twitter.

Further afield March’s Birmingham Social Media Cafe is on Friday 25 March 2011, 10am-12pm at their new venue of the Town Hall Foyer, Victoria Square.

Finally there is a Social Media Surgery on 17th March, 5.30–7.00pm at Warwick Library.

See you soon. For more info follow @cwsmc on Twitter.

In a busy week for @smudgemagazine while they were putting the March edition to bed, Leon Smith gave a terrific insight into starting a local, high quality magazine and the crucial role that social media played in making it happen.

In a few short months Smudge Magazine has gone from a germ of an idea to a magazine with a 5000 copy print run, distributed to businesses and homes across Leamington and Warwick.  Despite having no prior experience, Leon and his partner have used social media to not only promote but source content for the magazine.  Models, photographers and writers have all been found online, especially through Twitter, which they use to get ideas for upcoming issues and respond to articles in the magazine (and on the website) once they are published.

A presence on Facebook has been essential for connecting with consumers and LinkedIn has been a great focus group for engaging with businesses, but overall Twitter has been king. Even the name was thought of with Google in mind – distinct and search-engine friendly – Smudge Magazine stands out, but both online and print rely on each other.

The future for Smudge Magazine?  Well apart from world domination in the form of franchising the brand, it could well be apps and content for mobile devices, but even if it does go national Leon is keen for it to be based on high quality local content. He talked to us afterwards.

Big thanks to Leon and our hosts at Coventry University’s ICE building – they have some new Final Cut Pro and Adobe InDesign professional accredited courses with superb facilities so check them out.

Next CWSMC

We are back at Coventry University’s ICE on Friday 18th March from 10am-12pm – you can sign up using EventBrite. The topic is going to be business and the new Coventry and Warwickshire LEP so sign-up and come on down.  Don’t forget you can stick around afterwards and take advantage of ICE’s Free Fridays if you want a space, wifi and coffee to work with.

Other news – Warwick Tweetup and Social Media Surgeries

The irrepressible @underwoodwines (mentioned by Leon in his talk) has got a great buzz going for the first #warwicktweetup taking place on Monday 7th March at 7.30pm at Lanes Bar & Restaurant – more info on the Underwood Wines blog or just tweet @underwoodwines for an invite.

The next batch of Social Media Surgeries in Warwickshire are coming up on the following dates:

• Thu 17th March, 5.30–7.00pm at Warwick Library
• Thu 14 April, 12.30–1.30pm at Warwick Library
• Thu 12 May, 5.30–7.00pm at Leamington Library
• Thu 9 June, 12.30–1.30pm at Warwick Library
• Thu 7 July, 5.30–7.00pm at Kenilworth Library

What’s a social media surgery?  Well if  you work for a voluntary, arts or community group in Warwickshire and you’re interested in finding more about how social media could help your organisation, then come along and get one to one advice from a volunteer ‘surgeon’.  If you do know your Facebook from your Twitter then sign up to help out too. Have a look at the links above or contact @808kate for more info.

Lots going on! So see you at this month’s CWSMC and the other events going on. For more info follow @cwsmc on Twitter.

This month’s Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is on Friday 18th February from 10am-12pm – you can sign up using EventBrite or Lanyrd.

Our guest speaker will be Leon Smith from the new local monthly magazine for Warwick and Leamington, Smudge.  Launched in December it’s a glossy community lifestyle magazine that aims to bring back community spirit and create link between local businesses and the community.

Three issues in and Leon will be talking about the challenges of launching a print magazine in a digital world and how the Smudge approach combines print, web and social media to reinvent local press.

If you’d like to speak at a future CWSMC about anything digital and local then come along on Friday and have a chat, leave a comment or get in touch with either Paul Squires (@paulsq) or @cwsmc on Twitter.

For all the latest information follow @cwmsc on Twitter and don’t forget to sign up now on EventBrite

See you on Friday!

We had a great  turnout for the first CWSMC of 2011 and everyone was keen to hear from BBC Coventry & Warwickshire’s Siobhán Harrison to talk about  Beyond the Blitz – a commemoration of the bombing of Coventry in 1940. From the initial idea of collecting 70 stories for 70 years for broadcast on the radio, the project grew and became a multiplatform affair incorporating many different parts of the BBC.  One of the hightlights of the project is the interactive map where memories, photos and experiences are plotted where they happened, adding a new dimension to the historic record.

As well as the recordings, the project also tried an experiment in social media with the @BBCCov1940 Twitter account. This ‘real-time’ newsroom reported events as they would have happened 70 years ago and included links to Pathe newsreel and audio news reports re-recorded but taken from scripts that had been used at the time. The culmination of the 14th November was a steady stream of tweets that reflected the events on the night and clearly engaged a new audience of followers.

Siobhán talked to us afterwards to give a flavour of the presentation (which is above, minus the audio/video clips) and as always a big thanks to our speaker Siobhán for the fantstic presentation and insight into a really amazing project that hopefully has a lasting legacy online.

But thanks to Steve Rumsby’s mighty forearms you can also see the full presentation below or on Vimeo

February news

We are back at Coventry University’s ICE next Friday 18th February from 10am-12pm – you can sign up using EventBrite…but at the moment we are struggling for a speaker, so if you’ve got any ideas or want a captive audience to talk about anything digital next week then leave a comment or get in touch with either Paul Squires (@paulsq) or @cwsmc on Twitter.

More pictures

Full presentation on Vimeo

January’s Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe  of 2011 will be this Friday, the 21st  January from 10am-12pm – you can sign up using EventBrite.

As usual there will be a chance to meet and chat with other people involved in anything and everything digital locall. So come along and meet some new faces and renew some old connections if you’ve been to a CWSMC before.

Our guest speaker will be BBC C&W’s Siobhán Harrison to talk about  Beyond the Blitz – their use of Twitter as if they were a newsroom in 1940, tweeting in real time and sharing news of the day leading up to the Blitz of 14 November 1940.

About Siobhán

After training in Stage Management Siobhán started her career at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and then moved on to Leicester Haymarket Theatre. She left the bright lights to work at East Midlands Arts and then Creative Partnerships in the Black Country.

In 2005, Siobhán joined BBC Coventry & Warwickshire as Creative Programmer and has led and delivered projects such as Big Bard, Singing City Choir, Coventry Market the Musical, Eat your ART out and most recently Beyond the Blitz.

Singing City Choir received a Gold Frank Gillard Community Award. Coventry Market the Musical was nominated for a Sony Award and received a Gold Frank Gillard Award for Multi-platform programming and a Silver Frank Gillard Community Award. It was also nominated in the Midlands Media Awards in the Community Category.

We’ll Tweet Again

As well as serious news, the newsroom tweeted about what daily life was like, including what was on at the cinema and blackout times. The project attempted to be historically accurate and included links to British Pathe newsreel and audio clips like this description of the fall of Coventry Cathedral.

Please note the change of venue – unfortunately the Digital Lab is being refurbished, but we’re delighted that Coventry University’s Institute for Creative Enterprise has stepped into the breach and will be hosting us in the Brick Room as usual.  Parking is limited on site but get there early and you should be fine.  If you can’t fit into the car park, you can park over at the Tech park and have your ticket validated.  See directions on the Venues page.

For all the latest information follow @cwmsc on Twitter and don’t forget to sign up now on EventBrite

November CWSMC – Andy Piper, Stepping out of the online echo chamber

We had a great guest speaker Andy Piper (Twitter) who came to talk about about social media and business.  And they don’t get much bigger than Andy’s employer IBM and he took us through their learning from simple internal blogging to full blown collaboration tools over the last 5 years.  We explored the issues of using tools like Twitter on both sides of the corporate firewall and the role that guidelines play in enabling organisations to help trust employees to use social media at work. A version of his presentation is below.

We also had a chat about it afterwards in this video

2010 review

We had 10 sessions in 2010 in three venues with a wide range of guest speakers to help stimulate the usual conversation.  In April we had Christian Payne (aka Documentally) with a whistlestop tour of gadgets and experiences that have shaped his life in social media.

In June we had the team from Coventry City Council to talk about their Facebook page and their steps in social media and engagement.

With September’s CWSMC came our first birthday and Jennifer Jones’s presentation on the Olympics and social media.

Our penultimate session in October was the space for a discussion on transparency with Sylwia Presley.

A big thanks to all our speakers for their contributions, and to our venues for providing us with space,  coffees and cakes.  Most of all thanks to everyone that has come along and we hope that you have enjoyed the conversations and links that you’ve made over the past year.

CWSMC in 2011

Our first Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe  of 2011 will be on Friday 21st  January from 10am-12pm – you can sign up using EventBrite.

Our guest speaker will be BBC C&W’s Siobhan Harrison to talk about  Beyond the Blitz – their use of Twitter as if they were a newsroom in 1940, tweeting in real time and sharing news of the day leading up to the Blitz of 14 November 1940.

More information later this week, but for all the latest information follow @cwmsc on Twitter and don’t forget to sign up now on EventBrite

And now for something completely transparent

For October’s CWSMC we had a really interesting guest speaker in the form of Sylwia Presley (Twitter) from NFP Voice. She gave great account about transparency projects in Europe and triggered a fantastic conversation which continued on Twitter. Her presentation is below and there is more on the NFP Voice blog.

We also had a quick chat about it afterwards too.

Sylwia is also organising Barcamp Nonprofits taking place on Sat 20th November in Oxford, so get down there if you’re interested in social media and charities, but not until you’ve registered for…

November CWSMC

We are back in Leamington for Novembers’s CWSMC where as usual it’s a chance to meet other people involved in everything digital and social media.  Feel free to arrange a meeting or use it to find out more about the venue at the Court Street Creative Arches.

Our guest speaker this month is Andy Piper.  He’s been with IBM Software Group since 2001 and is part of the Software Group Development Laboratories and also a key ambassador for IBM’s internal BlueIQ social software community. Andy has been championing the use of social media inside the enterprise for a number of years. He is also one of the founding members of IBM’s Virtual Universe Community.

Andy is probably best known online as a “social bridgebuilder”. His main weblog The Lost Outpost reflects the diversity of his skills and interests: development, design, communications, everything social, community building, marketing, gaming and digital imaging.

He’s going to be talking about  ‘Stepping out of the online echo chamber: how companies can be more social in business and why they should’.

He says

I work for a large organisation where I’ve had a bunch of “social @work” experiences – and where we’ve built a strong social collaboration culture essentially from the grassroots upwards and outwards. In my opinion, organisations need to be more outward-looking… by blocking off the outside world and constructing an “echo chamber”, they will stagnate and lose touch. This talk tells the story of one man’s dramatic struggle to be more social in the face of corporate culture (!!!).

So come on down on Friday 19th November 10am-12pm – for all the latest information follow @cwmsc on Twitter and don’t forget to sign up now on EventBrite

Of course you can turn up on the day, but it does help to plan for the all important pastries.

PS If you’re interested in sponsoring CWSMC, then either:

• leave a comment
• email info@cwsmc.com
• or drop a tweet to @cwsmc

Sylwia Presley by Garrettc on Flickr - used under Creative Commons

The next Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is this Friday, the 15th October from 10am-12pm and you can sign up using EventBrite.

Join in the fun as we return to Coventry University’s Institute for Creative Enterprise or ICE (venue info) for October’s fun, lively and intelligent social media cafe. If you want to stay on and enjoy ICE in the afternoon then you can with Free Fridays, where anyone can come down, use the free wifi and coffee after CWSMC.

This month our guest speaker is Sylwia Presley (Twitter), a well-known social media practitioner who works with not-for-profits specialising in web ethics, activism and marketing and is part of the successful NFP Voice. She’ll be taking a look at charities and not-for-profits use of social media, so come along if you’ve got any questions or just want to find out more.

***UPDATE***

Sylwia will be focussing on various aspects of governmental transparency by looking at projects based on new media and new technologies in across Europe and sharing insights of  the Technology for Transparency network, as well as new insights from Personal Democracy Forum Europe. She is also going to be discussing current UK access to data, government transparency, government visibility in social media, potential and threads of on-line presence of citizens, and civic engagement itself eg FixMyStreet and other MySociety.org projects.

Make sure you’re following @cwsmc on Twitter and tweet away using the hashtag #cwsmc to let us know you’re coming – See you on Friday!

She whizzed through the Prezi below giving a great history of social media and ‘mega-events’ especially recent Olympic games where the idea of independent coverage has been recognised and now blossomed – sometimes chaotically, but always excitingly.

The blueprint (and updates to the plans) are available on Jennifer’s supervisor’s website (Prof. Andy Miah -http://bit.ly/media2012) and she has blogged about the session here. Wwe had a quick chat about the talk in the video below.

After Jennifer’s talk we celebrated CWSMC’s first birthday with some cake and carried on the conversation in the Digital Lab including a play with their Surface table. Big thanks once again to the University of Warwick and the Digital Lab for hosting us and Ellie Lovell for making it happen, and everyone who came along.

Next month – October:

We’re back at Coventry University’s Institute for Creative Enterprise on Friday 15th October from 10am-12pm and (sign up on EventBrite).

Our guest speaker is Sylwia Presley (Twitter) a social media practitioner who works with non-profits specialising in web ethics, activism and marketing and is part of the successful NFP Voice. She’ll be taking a look at charities and not-for-profits use of social media, so come along if you’ve got any questions or want to find out more.

The next Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is on Friday 17th September from 10am-12pm and you can sign up using EventBrite. We’ll be back at International Digital Lab as we are being hosted and sponsored by the University of Warwick (find out more about the venue and how to get to it here).

We’re delighted to have Jennifer Jones (Twitter) who is going to be talking about Media2012 in preparation for the 4th of October launch (at the Manchester Cornerhouse) of a network of independently ran, UK-wide media hubs for the London 2012. It will track the ongoing history of Olympic media (accredited, non accredited and the independent) and situate media 2012 in the context of emerging technologies and the evolving media landscape.

About Jennifer

Jennifer is a PhD researcher within the School of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of the West of Scotland and a Visiting Lecturer within the Media School at Birmingham City University. She is working on projects closely tied to the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games, in the context of emerging media landscapes and changing labour practices within the creative industries. She specializes in new media methods for data capture, collection and archiving, in particular around social media and mega-events, whilst focusing on the continuous link between digital practice and theory. Jennifer is the web editor and staff writer for “Culture @ the Olympics,” a hybrid academic magazine which covers ‘anything but sport’ relating to the Olympic movement.

It’s our birthday too!

Picture from Flickr user cleverboy68

As well as Jennifer’s talk, we’re also going to have the usual chat, coffee and pastries and celebrating CWSMC’s first birthday! Don’t worry about presents, but anyone who brings a cake along will gain extra social media brownie points. See you next Friday and don’t forget to follow @cwsmc on Twitter for all the latest updates.