Join us for Net Tuesday London, this month: Resolutions for Learning!

January’s event will ask questions like: How do you manage your learning? How do you connect with others to ask questions, share ideas and try new things? Where do you go to connect with other online who are learning about or interested in the same things you are? The first of the year is resolution time, so this will be a chance to make resolutions about your learning, and get quality feedback about how to make them happen!

Agenda:
5:30-6:00 – Networking
6:00-6:15 – Welcome and Introduction
6:15-7:00 – Learning discussion groups & idea sharing
7:00-7:20 – Collaborative learning grid & wrap up
7:20+ – Networking

We’ll have representatives from LASA’s Knowledgebank, KnowHow NonProfit, School of Everything, and more on hand to help you brainstorm and discover ways to connect online regardless of what your learning resolutions include for 2009 – from new media tools to new business models and everywhere in between. Come with your ideas for what you’d like to learn or how others can learn online!

To RSVP, connect with the group, and learn more about London Net Tuesday, visit our Meetup group!

(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?

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.