This new white paper captures just a few of the stories and the qualities that make up the special place where we all come together. Whether it’s small communities coming together offline to train and share knowledge about using technology or it’s innovation projects competing in the same contest working together instead – we hope you’ll find this short paper compelling and share it with your networks. We hope you’ll add your story to the mix, too!

You can download the paper directly here.

Full size image here

The Social by Social Game really took off at Net Tuesday this week when some 20 participants invented a south London borough, created a set of project ideas for better health, happiness and the environment, and then went on to plan how social technology could yield these social benefits. All within 90 minutes.

We did have the benefit of a set of props – more on that later – and lessons from the session that we ran at the SHINE09 conference a couple of weeks ago.

The core team was the same: David Wilcox, Andy Gibson and Amy Sample Ward – all co-authors, with Cass Business School of the forthcoming Social by Social handbook. More on that here.

This time around Andy had added some improvements in both props and procedure. As you can see from the summary sheet above – click here for larger – the sequence was:

• we all brainstormed the characteristics of a south London borough, with its share of unemployment, health and housing issues, transport problems plus some very positive community activity on the arts front.
• groups formed around the issues, and developed ideas for project. We then handed out two sets of cards to each group: one about social technologies, the other about ways to engage individuals and groups  online, face to face and through traditional leafleting and other methods.
• each card had a image, a brief description, and  budget of one, two or three points. The task was to choose cards totalling only 10 points from each pack.
• the final task was to use a set of money and resource cards to balance the budget … and then report back to everyone on the proposals.

It was a lot of fun, and since Andy was doing an excellent job of facilitating, and Amy was mentoring the groups, I was able to capture proceedings on video. Here’s the first sessions:

And the the report back:

The game is a development of others Drew Mackie have created over the years – as you can see here – with the social media element added through work with Beth Kanter in 2007.

The greater value in the Social by Social Game as it has now developed is a clearer sequence for engagement, tech planning and funding, plus lots of new cards. Amy summarised it for me:

The grid sequence helps ensure that people consider first the problem they are tackling, then the way the audiences, community, or “people” will be engaged. After the problem and the people are addressed, then it’s time to consider the tech tools.  Lastly, we have added the budget cards to bring everything back to a realistic perspective, not to ruin the fun but show how these kinds of projects are still doable with the appropriate planning.

Our aim is to use the game as one of the ways to introduce people to the substance of the Social by Social Handbook. We’ll evolve versions for organisations and networks as well as localities, so it will be possible to play the game “for real” and then follow through with support from the handbook and our team.

As one option we are thinking about workshops that could run for a day, with game-playing to start things off, some hands-on exploration of different social media tools, followed by more detail on who might do what to put things into practice.

The clear separation of engagement and tech cards in the game was a big improvement … with several of the groups putting emphasis on the use of face-to-face as well as online methods. That produced one good talking point … which is the main purpose of the demonstration version. It’s a great way to start conversations in a neutral space where people feel free to ask each other for help on things they don’t understand.

Here’s the cards we used (with a couple of changes we made afterwards. Feel free to download from Scribd and try and game for yourselves … we would really like to know how it goes. Alternatively, you can of course  hire us to come and run a session! Either way, if you find this interesting, do drop a comment or question below.

Social by Social game cards

In April, we’ll be focused on creating and managing online campaigns. There are a lot of tools out there and only so much time… Come discuss some great examples of successful campaigns and how to build strategy and tactics for your own organization’s work.

Paul Massey and Phil Jones from the we20 campaign will be presenting on the strategy and execution of an integrated online campaign. And we’ll have a Q&A session following the presentation. As always, there will be plenty of networking, too.

Agenda:

• 5:30-6 doors open & networking
• 6 – 6:15 welcome & intros
• 6:15 – 6:45 Paul & Phil presenting about online campaigning
• 6:45 – 7:15 open Q&A
• 7:15 – 7:45 networking

See if there is a Net Tuesday in your city or find out more about starting your own!

(Video by David Wilcox after the event.)

Social Media Exchange

How it worked:
The room (which was a round cafe with an upstairs) was set up with four designated sections downstairs and two upstairs.  These topic areas were marked by labels on the wall and included:

• blogs & Twitter
• photos / Flickr
• voting & e-democracy
• tagging & social bookmarking
• social networks & communities
• videos / YouTube

Everyone was given a game board of sorts to fill in while filtering throughout the room.  For 45 minutes, participants were able to move from section to section and join in or start conversations with others in that topic area.  The game board had prompts for notes and questions including:

• Best example of tool in use
• Best lessons learned
• How to evaluate for success
• New idea for my organization
• New contact for questions/ideas

The participants in the Social Media Exchange had a chance to:
– hear about examples of social media in use
– get new ideas and contacts
– share their stories, lessons, and ideas
– have fun!

Collaborative Roundup

After the free exchange period, the group came together for a roundup of the conversations and ideas.  I had a piece of paper on the wall for each of the six topic areas and the group supplied examples of organizations, events, conferences or individuals using each tool to be captured on the paper.  We also discussed lessons learned and things to keep in mind.  This gave people who hadn’t made it to one of the topic areas a chance to gain some of the key take-aways and ask questions.

You can see photos of the 6 collaborative roundup sheets on the London Net Tuesday meetup group!

Have you participated in a similar exchange event? What did you like most/least about it?

Were you at London Net Tuesday last night? What were some of the best conversations or ideas you went home with?

Each month, social changemakers and technological forerunners come together at Net Tuesday events around the world to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and reinforce our online NetSquared community.  These monthly events offer a great opportunity for people from all stretches of social change and social media to collaborate, whether you’re a developer, innovator, programmer, entrepreneur or part of a nonprofit organization.  The Phoenix Net Tuesday is looking for a new organizer and hoping you’re it!

Are you in Phoenix or know someone who is?

The Phoenix Net Tuesday group has over 50 members and needs a new organizer to help drive momentum and faciliate events.  Organizing a Net Tuesday group offers a great chance to network and get connected to social changemakers in your city as well as be part of an innovative network of on-the-ground collaborators with NetSquared.  Net Tuesdays are currently taking place in 22 cities around the world with more groups starting each month.

Get involved!

Are you interested in learning more or stepping up?  Connect with the Phoenix Net Tuesday group online and contact the current organizer, JD Godchaux, to find out more.  Phoenix would love to have you!

Our first event focused on blogging with a head-to-head competition of sorts and the building of a blogging strategy.

Head-to-Head Blogging

Brave and beautiful participants volunteered to represent some of the main blogging platforms including Community Server, Movable Type, Typepad and WordPress.  We had a cheat sheet with pros, cons and comparisons (if you weren’t there, you can download the cheat sheet here) that was created via crowdsourcing before the event.  I posted the structure and basic content in a Google Document and then published it for others to contribute to – sending them the link via email and Twitter.

Our platform reps fielded questions from the crowd and shared stories from their personal experience using the blogging tools.  Questions included:

• How much do you cost?
• How tech-savvy do I need to be?
• Can I monitor comments?
• Can I control who sees my posts?
• How quick can I get set up?

A winner?  Well, there wasn’t an official vote (though a very important vote was happening back in the US!), but the majority of bloggers in attendance used WordPress.

Blogging Strategy

After our lively ‘debate’ of platforms, we took a step back to discuss what is most important for organizations to consider when just starting out with blogging.  We came up with lots of great things to keep in mind, questions to ask, items to identify, and so on.  After the big brainstorm, we picked out the five most important aspects of starting a blog:

• Identify your goals (goals for content, goals for relationships, goals for measurement, etc.)
• Write about what you are passionate about and know about
• Practice writing blog posts for a month or so without actually posting (you’ll be surprised how much your posts change just in that first month, and you can identify if you are ready to go live or not)
• Use your community (invite staff, volunteers, donors and email subscribers to read and comment)
• Integrate your blog (link and content) with everything you do (email newsletters, handouts, business cards, other social media presences like Facebook)

What would you add?

London Net Tuesday

If you missed last night’s event, that’s okay.  Connect online to be sure you make the next one! If you were there last night, what would you add to this run down?

• What was your favorite conversation?
• Who did you meet?
• What questions did you not get to ask?
• What ideas do you have for future events?

UPDATE:

Miko has posted her terrific run down of the platform comparison.  And here is her post about our strategy conversation.

UPDATE:

Farhan has a great post about the event and blogging here.