• Website
• Twitter account
• Facebook group

You can sign up to our mailing list too – see the sign-up form on the website’s sidebar.

The next Birmingham Social Media Cafe will be on 24 April at the Coffee Lounge on Navigation Street.

The marvellous Rhubarb Radio will be getting the coffees in.

All are welcome, whether you’ve come along to the past seven meet-ups or have never made it down before.

As before, there are likely to be a few people bringing laptops with them so they can spend the afternoon there too, using the space for some ad-hoc coworking. See Pete’s post for info about this.

There are plenty of places to announce that you’ll be coming. Feel free to use all or none of:

• Facebook event
• The BSMC wiki
• Upcoming page

If you want a reminder by email a few days before the event then sign up to the mailing list.

(Pic by Steve Cooper from the Feb meet-up)

• How it started
• Some of the thinking behind it
• What’s happened in the past year
• Where things might go next

Download the Tuttle Club Annual Report.

To go some way to remedying that I’ve dug out a selection – some regular, some not – and listed them on the Other Events page.

There are plenty more to add to that list but, in the meantime, it’s a decent start. If you know of any others that would fit the bill then please help out. Just send:

• the event’s name
• venue
• date
• a link to further information

to birminghamsmc@gmail.com or add something in the comments below this post.

Incidentally, subscribe to the BSMC mailing list and once a month you’ll get a list of the upcoming events sent straight to your inbox.

Speaking of other events, the launch of the Black Country Social Media Cafe is now mere hours away. It’ll be at Alchemy Bar in Wolverhampton (map) at 2.30pm on 7 April. Pete Ashton and myself (Chris Unitt) will be there to talk about what we learned at SXSWi.

Last week, at SXSWi, I spent a lot of my time talking to people who were running coworking spaces and organising meetups in various cities around the world, sharing ideas, plans and notions about this kind of thing. One thing I’ve noticed about Americans is when they get a good thing going they tend to formalise it, BarCamp style, into a set of guidelines or rules so that others can take that knowledge and implement it in their own city. A number of these models are potentially useful for doing stuff in Birmingham but the one that immediately seemed relevant to the Social Media Cafe was Jelly.

The original Jelly took place in someone’s home but the principles are pretty simple. Provide free wifi, comfortable seating, an informal atmosphere and fill it with interesting people. What distinguishes this from the morning BSMC is it’s about getting work done. Here’s a handy video from the New York Jelly:

I don’t think that’s a million miles from what we’ve got going at Coffee Lounge.

So, here’s my proposal. When the networking finishes around noon those of us who don’t have to get back to a specific office stay on for a few hours for some ad-hoc coworking. The idea is we get work done but do so amongst our peers for mutual help, support and advice. This way we can maybe take the energy and passion generated in the morning and rather than let is dissipate turn it into something real.

And then we’ll see where it takes us. Maybe a formal Jelly, maybe something completely different. We’ll see…

When? Tomorrow, 10am to midday.

What? A chance for a whole bunch of people who are interested in social media to get together and discuss, plan, scheme and share.

You won’t even have to pay for your coffee/beverage of choice – Screen WM have offered to provide some support to the BSMC and will be covering the drinks tab tomorrow.

There should be plenty to chat about this month:

• Yoosk has been announced as one of the region’s 4iP projects
• A whole bunch of people went off to SXSW and came back stuffed with knowledge and pancakes
  
• Just as many people held WXWM back home

and I’m sure there’s been plenty more besides.

If there’s anything in particular you want to chat about, or anyone you want to speak to, then say so in the comments and perhaps we can make that happen. I’ll kick things off below.

Btw, if you’ve not seen who’s said they’re coming you can have a look (and add yourself) on the wiki and the Facebook event.

As before, we collected up name stickers and have photographed them for your note-adding convenience (click the pic to do that):

If you were there but your sticker isn’t then feel free to add your details in the comments on the Flickr page.

You might’ve noticed the whiteboard that was left lying around with a few pens. It was an experiment to see what, if anything, people did with it (kinda physical social media rather than the online sort). Not a great deal as it turned out, but Alex Hughes was on hand to turn his cartoon talents to filling it. It might reappear at the next one.

Also keep an eye on Someone Once Told Me to see the photos by Mario (@MarioSOTM) which should start going up soon.

Finally, any earlybirds who want to sign up to the next event on Friday 27 March can do so here:

• BSMC wiki
• Facebook event
• Upcoming

Thanks all. See you again soon.

“Wash behind your ears”

“If you tread on dandelions you’ll need to go to the toilet”

What are the phrases that have stuck with you in your life? Do you have any?

It might be worth having a think because Mario Cacciottolo, a BBC journalist and founder of the really interesting project “Someone Once Told Me” will be popping by to this month’s BSMC meet.

SOTM is Mario’s personal project publishing a black-and-white picture every day of someone with a phrase that someone once told them. He will be there to talk about the project and to take pictures of some BSMC members with the phrases that have stuck with them. So get your phrases at the ready and come say hi!

We are also lucky enough to have free coffees again, this time provided by the kind people at Ward Lovett who will be there to introduce themselves.

That’s a whole lot of networking!

Thanks to everyone for another record turnout to this month’s Social Media Cafe Meet.

Special thanks to our fantastic sponsors Opera Developer Network and to Andy Mabbett who helped make this month’s sponsorship happen.

As many people have said, we may need to look at finding a bigger venue or increase the frequency of meet-ups to fortnightly. Let me know what you think.

Thanks again to Chris Unitt for the video and also for capturing the names of some of those who attended:

If you spot your name on the picture and have a Flickr Pro account, please go tag your contact details.

If you can’t see your name there and did attend, please feel free to add your name in comments here or on Chris’s photo on Flickr.

Also check out the rather excellent photos by Stephen Cooper, which are posted on the Facebook event page.

P.S Due to poor Paul Bradshaw being ill, the editors‘ training was cancelled on Friday. We hope they might be able to make it to next month’s event.

No, not the above neo-post-punk quartet (maybe next time?).

This will be an entirely different but just as pretty quartet of regional newspaper editors from the Trinity Mirror publishing group.

As part of their training here in Birmingham with Paul Bradshaw, they will be popping down to the BSMC this Friday (Jan 30) to find out more about social media and how they might be able to use it at their titles.

They are:

Mark Thomas: Editor of the Liverpool Daily Post
Andrew Campbell: Executive Editor of the Liverpool Echo
Colin Patterson: Editor of the Sunday Sun in Newcastle
Charles Barker: Executive Editor of The Coventry Telegraph

Please do come along and say hello to them – I think they’ll be surprised by some of the opinions you have on the future of the media.

Also, don’t forget the lovely Bruce Lawson, Opera evangelist, will also be at the Cafe to represent this month’s coffee sponsors: Opera Developers Network.

Should be good!