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I very much enjoyed my first presentation to the Birmingham Social Media World today. Held as part of the Fazeley Digital Festival, I was asked to present as a relative novice. 
I have to say I can happily present on many topics to a large audience for as long as you like, but this was daunting. No need, they are lovely people.
Here is some of what I went on about on my first slide share, including successfully embedding it – not quite what I expected, but there it is.:
Fazeley Mind Map @parboo (aka Jaki)
View more OpenOffice presentations from parboo.
Oh, no, how exciting, this is what I expected. Well you live and learn…
On reflection a few things struck me:
The idea of live animation/cartoon annotation of the conversations was fantastic. It didn’t work as well as it could – but we were all relative novices on that point. Drawnalism were great and a few pens in the hands of the audience would sort that for next time…
Children are way ahead of the game on this one and will take this somewhere mind-blowing in the next 10 years. For that reason alone they are a really important part of these conversations. (Oh and I was very proud of my dort, live blogging on club penguin – I wonder how many buddies she lost during the event!)
It would be great to see Birmingham use these kind of informal, free flowing sessions for something other than social media topics. I am confident that all of the events I’ve been to have found great digital ways of sharing and recording ideas. I am quite sure we are all passionate about other topics we could put them to good use for?
Of course, I know the standard response – good idea, off you go then and we’ll be there. That is certainly true and ordinarily I would. But as I accepted a new job in Southampton the same day as I launched by “relative novice” speaking circuit, I’m afraid I won;t be here to do it ;-(
Andy Mabbett quite rightly pointed out that in my earlier blog post “7 things” I was supposed to name 7 more people to similarly do a blog post on 7 “thangs” about themselves. Oops… I pass the gauntlet or indeed baton on to the following fab women:
Happy writing one and all…
My reputation goes before me, my most admired stats to date were irresistible. So I thought I’d save them here, so I can get on with Tweeting again!
Take one Update on Twitter and it’s just fascinating what can follow…
Following a chat with my 9 year old dort about the 10 Plagues of Egypt, I wondered how many “everyday folk” could remember them and which old testament book they came from. So I asked. It’s fair to say a couple of people took me at my word and attempted to list them all. Well done to Abby Corfan for her 9/10 and to Digibrum_Si for correctly naming Exodus. The correct list is of course easy to find on web, I got it from here.
So what of all the other contributions? Well thanks to everyone here named who took a rather more entertaining slant on my query:
- supercoolkp – Kate Parry
- getgood – Nicky Getgood
- podnosh – Nick Booth
- digibrum_si – Simon Whitehouse
- genzaichi – Nikki Pugh
- benjaminbrum – Ben Whitehourse
- graphiquillan – Shona McQuillan
We’ve got a lovely list of 15 modern day plagues, in no particular order:
- A plague of telemarketers trying to flog thou discount kitchens
- A plague of consultations
- Credit running in the gutters
- A plague of consultants
- A plague of ill-conceived and largely unworkable laws which if fully implemented would erode our civil liberties
- A plague of barely caffeinated, freeze dried coffee tasting of decayed rodent droppings
- A plague of drunken yahoos rampaging through the city streets
- A swarm of Flips
- A plague of raging fuckwits
- And lo! He did smite them with toilet roll multipack wrappers that looked like they had rolls in them but were actually empty
- aplagueofpolypocketsscatteredonthefloorsoyouskidonthematnightandhurtyourself
- No WiFi
- A plague of chuggers
- A cake shortage
- A plague of spam
It’s fair to say that although I feel we are living with crises and disasters of a biblical nature, I was thinking more of tsunamis and terrotism, not cakes and polypockets. Neverthelss I thought this was a great list, with some very amusing images created. But, too many. So, I might run a bit of a poll and see who fancied which plague as the one which best captures modern day plagues.
But first, maybe there are more out there. What do you think, leave a comment and I’ll add to the list.
If you want to know what’s happening in the Birmingham Creative Industries, then you could do much worse than bookmark this site:
If you are excited about helping a great Birmingham project win an international award – or just content to trust me and a load of other faithful Brummies and committed creative types, then please click here:
Created in Birmingham is currently in a neck and neck race with Melanie Phillips of the Spectator and Daily Mail. She appears to have a good deal of US support, overnight she’s stolen a nearly 200 vote lead on our lead yesterday. So we need to keep voting and here are the rules:
- Polls close January 12, 2009.
- You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.
- After voting in an individual poll you will be locked out from voting again in that poll (on the computer you voted from) for 24 hours.
- Each poll has its own separate 24 hour lockout control. Voting in, for example, Best Blog will not lock you out of voting in other categories.
- Vote totals are not final until certified.
- Vote totals are subject to periodic correction for identified cheating.
- Cheaters will be banned from accessing the site for the duration of the voting.
- We reserve the right to close some or all polls earlier than the posted end date.
- In the event of identified cheating, the decisions of the judges as to the manner of correction is final.
And the site helpfully advises you to not vote simulataneously from computers on the same home or corporate network – so, don’t forget to do vote on each of your machines in turn…
Oh and if you find out if you can vote on an iphone – please leave a comment telling me how!
I am quite sure we can reclaim the lead during the course of today and tomorrow. So let’s get clicking…
I’ve developed something of a reputation amongst some of my Twitter followers for an obsession with numbers. Indeed it’s a reputation I’ve had amongst my friends for most of my adult life (“Stato Jak” they call me). Some think it wierd, others come to me for advice on their Twitter Stats. For me it’s all about patterns, but the more I look at them the more meaning I want to impart on them.
For example a while ago it became clear to me that every time I posted about 10 updates, I gained a follower. And indeed my total updates were about equal to 10 times my followers. I had develpoed a golden ratio of 10:1. I have stuck with approximately this ratio for some weeks now, slipping behind, then catching up again. I consider this to be what my followers deserve, a kind of value ratio.
Others have asked me to judge theirs. One came in today at fewer than 3 updates per follower. He felt this was lame and should be increased. However I wondered whether in fact he offered considerably more value than I; it takes me 7 more updates to be attractive to a new follower than him.
A number of people have posted blogs on Twitter types [ Alex Iskold, back in March 2008 and the Ed Techie, also in March ] to name but two. They do have a tendancy to concentrate around the volume of followings and followers or the reasons people use Twitter.
| Type | Trait | defined by: |
| Selective interaction | you have MANY more followers than you follow | No good reason |
| Twitter as added bonus | follows noone, tweets little, his followers | No good reason |
| Talker | you have more followers than you follow | readwriteweb.com |
| Listener | you follow more than follow you | readwriteweb.com |
| Hub | you have equal followers and followed | readwriteweb.com |
| Chatty | High Golden Ratio | me! |
I have to say I am more interested in the update ratio than simply the following stats. Although I do like my “follow” stats to look good. By this I mean they are at their best when there is some kind of mathematical relationship between them: the divide equally one into the other, they are both multiples of 5 ( or even better: 10), they are identical etc.
So here I have chosen Twitterers who satisfy, nay exemplify the types above:
| Type | User Name | Following | Followers | Updates | Golden Ratio | Twitter Grade |
| Selective interaction | dwarlick | 50 | 3107 | 1476 | 0.48 | 100 |
| Twitter as added bonus | Downes | 1 | 605 | 503 | 0.83 | 99 |
| Talker | dubber | 140 | 1444 | 3158 | 2.19 | 99.9 |
| Listener | shortyawards | 16876 | 5849 | 17441 | 2.98 | 99.7 |
| Hub | stevebridger | 1083 | 1097 | 3516 | 3.21 | 99.6 |
| Chatty | graphiquillan | 155 | 164 | 3397 | 20.71 | 93 |
| ME | parboo | 183 | 158 | 1657 | 10.49 | 93 |
You’ll see I’ve mainly chosen people with high Twitter grades. For me this is a validity check. It seeks to ensure that they have a habit which is well enough established to confirm a pattern.
There is no doubt in my mind that the addition of the Golden ratio creates a different distinction between different users.
What is your Golden Ratio? Are you happy with it? What does it say about you and your Twittering?
And a final thought, whether or not any of this makes any sense or indeed matters much, it keeps a very simple stato happy!
I’ve been tweeting and blogging for a few months now. As Christmas holidays approach it seems like a good time to reflect on that.
So, some numbers, as of Thursday 18 December [anyone who reads my tweets or knows me at all, will know I'm comfy with numbers].
On Twitter:
- 131 people have decided to follow me on Twitter
- I’ve posted 1,244 updates since I joined in September 2008.
- most, 272, of these have been on Wednesdays
- I’ve sent over 300 of my replies directly to only 2 people!
- My most active hour is after 11pm.
On my Blog site:
- I’ve had 665 Total views
- Thursday, November 27, 2008 was my busiest day, with 83 views
- To date I’ve have published 18 Blog posts, including this one
- and attracted 27 comments
- 67 views have been referred by http://alphainventions.com/
I’ve also joined 1 Ning and set up two others. Interestingly none of these particularly feature in my everyday life. Conversely I have been suffering something of a Twitter addiction and do keep on top of my blogging.
From Twitter I have learnt loads and met so many new people. It was only because of a desire to meet new friends made online that I attended the December Birmingham Bloggers meet at our Frankfurt Christmas Market earlier this month.
One of the features I’ve noticed about this new world is that many things happen just because some folks are interested enough to make it happen and not expect everyone else to do it for them. There is a high sense of achievement. I’m not sure if that is just amongst the people I’ve decided to follow or twitter-land in general.
Another is that professionals and amateurs rub along together very well. So, many of my followers(ings) make a living from the internet and social media one way or another, whilst the rest are keen amateurs or just like to commune. I’m not sure how the pros put up with some of our amateurish nonsense on some evenings, but we have a great time…
I’m constantly pondering how exactly to use all of this at work. How to really embrace social media to engage our 25,000 members beyond Facebook. I’m looking forward to seeing what Ed Walker does at UCLAN SU as he embeds it more there. I’m also contemplating how we go about using the web to “walk alongside” our members, where in the past we may well have demanded they come inside… Looking forwad to where that will take us, I think it may be an interesting model going forward. I feel it will give us a greater chance of building a positive reputation: one of a students’ union who cares enough about what it’s members choose to do, that we join in with them rather than necessarily the other way round.
So what does 2009 have in store:
- It’s looking likely that I’ll host a Birmingham meeting of Twitterers in the not for profit sector.
- More bin blogging [including 1st bins on vacation post planned for Feb 2009]
- More workmen [at least two sites up my sleeve, just need the camera at the right time
- More ramblings
- More Tweets
- …oh, and more time with my family – not sure how they are compatible, but need to find out real soon.
Like now!
Happy New Year
I Twitter, I meet people. I meet people, I join networks. I join networks, I discover ning. I discover ning and before I know it I’m offering to create one, in a national meeting.
OMG says I, I know not what I’ve done.
Ah well, it can’t be too hard and besides, I know one of my new Twitter chums will help. So what do I do? Contact him, talk it through, work on it together? No, of course not, I dive right in… and 5 minutes later, I have a network.
Yes, 5 minutes.
It looks great. http://multimillions.ning.com/ My colleagues can blog, chat, put up photos and images, create groups and all sorts.
I’ve sent a message out on Facebook to some of my friends who were then when I volunteered to do this hard thing. I’ve asked them to join (still waiting?!?!)
I’ve told my new Twitter friends, who have been delightfully supportive of this simple effort.
and all from the comfort of my own living room while my daughter sleeps and hubby works late. Who needs a night out, I haven’t felt this much flow in years.
What can I do next?
I’ve been twittering for about a fortnight. Like every micro-world it takes a while to acclimatise. But this week I think I’ve found my voice. What are the characteristics of this? Well I’ve developed a raft of new skills:
• I can now follow more than one conversation at once
• I can also follow one conversation thread in the wrong order and across many hours
• I can send a tweet to a complete stranger without fearing that they will ignore me
• I can cope with the fact that when I tweet a complete stranger, they sometimes ignore me.
I’ve made contact with some colleagues I may never have met and with a raft of other great people from all round the world. I never expected to follow or, more excitedly, be followed by the Stephen Fry.
But most of all, I’ve made friends with a crowd of folks I’ve never met. People who’ve already helped me out with info and ideas. People who could live anywhere, do anything for a living (although most are social media junkies) and haven’t got a clue what I look like. People who I’m drawn to by what they tweet and vice versa.
It feels like a thoroughly pure way of making friends – just hope they don’t all click “block” once they’ve met the me!
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