Brrism9 takes place on 19th May at the Pervasive Media Studio and we've got some interesting social media related topics to discuss. As usual we're using our short presentation/long discussion format (5 minutes from each of the presenters followed by a 45 minute "open space" style discussion where you are free to join whatever groups you are interested in). The speakers are listed below. (For meeting time/venue details, and to sign up for a free ticket, please go along to the EventBrite Page when its published.)

Ask Bristol

Social media has increased the opportunities for local authorities to connect with residents in new and low cost ways. This talk will introduce Bristol City Council’s use of social media in the Consultation Team which has focussed on increasing the use of existing e-participation tools at www.askbristol.com and providing new opportunities for two way communication between the council and residents. Discussion will look at what social media tools the council should be getting involved in and if some should be avoided? How can we make better use of the tools that we are using such as wordpress, twitter, youtube and cover it live and should we make more use of facebook? How should the council use social media to increase people’s involvement in neighbourhood partnerships to allow them to have more influence over their local area?

Anna McDermott is a Consultation and Research Officer at Bristol City Council. Over the past 10 years the team has built up a very good reputation for e-participation. Anna was project manager for the Citizenscape e-participation project using web 2.0 for citizen engagement, which enabled the trialling of interactive mapping, video, online discussion and petitions for public participation in one online space which acted as a pilot for the ‘virtual town hall’ approach. Anna has worked in the team to build on this experience making use of social networking and online participation tools.

Election Special - On Friday 7th May for the first time Bristol will be using twitter to announce local election results  and linking to webcasts of the results being announced in the council house.  W00t!

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Social Media Monitoring

Social media is all about conversations but the problem is that there are just so many of them. Its like walking into a cocktail party in a room the size of an aircraft hangar. Who’s talking about you? Who’s having the conversations with which you should engage? And, given the nature of the conversations, what should YOU say? Nigel Legg will be talking about the role of social media monitoring in all this. What tools are out there and how should they be used – both in context of the corporation and the individual.

 

 

About the Speaker

Nigel works with media and marketing agencies, and businesses in the hospitality industry (bars, clubs, and cafes) to help them use social media to promote themselves and their clients, to increase brand awareness, and potentially improve sales. Follow Nigel on Twitter.

 

 

 

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Social Media Systems

We live in a world of systems: financial systems, eco-systems, solar systems, one-way systems and many more. Social media has made this system-soup worse. Most social media tools can be plugged into other tools that can give rise to all sorts of unintended consequences for that big connecting thing sitting in the middle of the system – YOU! Understanding systems is therefore very important and so John Bradford will be talking about systems theory without ever using intimidating words (like “systems theory” or “Weltanschauung”). Instead he’ll be using common sense examples and, during the open space session, marker pens and whiteboards will be provided to allow you to use your new found systems knowledge to work on improving a system that we are all familiar with – that of Brrism itself.

 

 

About the Speaker

Having taught systems theory at the University of Plymouth and developed a systemic approach to change management for his research, John has spent the last 10 years applying his knowledge of systems theory to University-Business collaborations. John prefers the discussions & shared knowledge that arise from developing systems models a lot more than complying religiously to the nomenclature of any particular theory. Follow him on Twitter.