Periodic Fable

The second Media Camp Nottingham on 27th March was at the excellent venue Lace Market House on High Pavement. One might think from the lack of funding and traditional media and other interest in digital and creative industries that there wasn’t much going on in Nottingham. This second event organised by Caron (CJ) Lyon @pcmcreative proved that the sector is really hopping and can make its own waves.

First I listened to Mike Beardsmore @Mikethebee talking about mixing first and second lives: he was also proposing an interesting idea of pairing up mature workers with new graduates to fill “job-shares” in e.g., engineering, so that the older worker eases out gently while contributing their expertise and learning the newer skills, and the younger one is given the benefit of a mentor: meanwhile the employer wins in many ways.

Creative Nottingham with Susi O’Neill and Camilla Zajac and more are the social media partners for the MediaCamp and it was great to hear about how far they had got as an online hub for arts and creative activity in the city of Nottingham without any funding. Volunteers support the project, and it looks like it’s well worth following in every sense. @creativenotts. They were pushing their “community” – a Posterous page – while it is very much user generated content and Web 2.0 I don’t think Posterous can really be described or even effectively used as a community platform – perhaps Ning would be better – on which topic…  Camilla was liveblogging throughout with CoveritLive – looks like an excellent tool for the purpose.

Shaun Belcher spoke about Ning and despite the fact that I’ve run communities in Ning for years(e.g., ELESIG)  and taught others how to use it myself, I still learned from his talk. He has used Ning almost subversively in a variety of personal and academic contexts and had many useful tips to share. Thanks Shaun! @shaunbelcher

Really interesting social uses of social media from the Amplified Leicester people including @bear-faced and @farhanashaikh. How to enhance your community activities and make people sit up and take notice, and all from three people who didn’t know how to use social media effectively before they became part of Amplified Leicester. It does get you wondering though – communities who use tools as early adopters and innovators get noticed and are effective very much because they are early – if every community used such tools would they be as effective?

My session on Hypertext Haiku and Kids on the Net went well and everyone enjoyed creating a hypertext haiku on the spot: find it here Thanks to @giocutts for fixing the data projector!  All that computer science training wasn’t wasted!

Finally, it was the elegant AlexiaL from BBrands who gave us a quick primer in personal branding and how it’s different from both corporate and product branding and website branding (and how some things are the same).  Personal branding is about the space in people’s heads that one fills – being consistent in how one presents oneself and one’s values. For those at a loss where to start with their personal brand, she suggested starting with what you don’t like or don’t want to do which will give some insight into what you DO want to aim for.  One can use the online quiz tool at the Authentic Happiness website to measure character strengths and aspects of happiness.

A great day and I look forward to MCN3!