Last night was the third of the Birmingham Bloggers Meetups, and it was an even bigger affair than the last two probably put together.
April 1st comes early - “Nick Booth Gets Rickrolled”
About thirty of us turned up which made for a lovely crowd of people at Rooty’s in the Custard Factory. I was really pleased that when I went and asked the owner if they’d stay open for us to run an event with no guarantees of numbers that they were really interested and were really warm to the idea. (Thanks for your mtrust guys!) I think we’ll be welcome back too.
It was more formal than the previous two events, with this format:
- Pre-event chat. It was billed for a 7pm start, Nick Booth and I were there from 6ish and met up with Josh Hart (ex-Made Media) to talk about his BrumLive project.
- Gather. From 6.45 there was a steady flow of new arrivals and some of us used stickers to namebadge ourselves. A few drinks, chatting.
- Discussion. Then we had the option of going and sitting in the second room or staying in the main cafe for a post-sxsw chat and to hear what Lloyd Davis had to say. I think that meant that pretty much everyone eventually followed.
- Chatting. Then we dispersed for more chatting until 9.15
- Off to the pub. A bunch of us (perhaps half) then headed up to the Rainbow for a while.
The discussion
Pete was streaming the discussion on Bambuser (but I think the sound was dropping out), Dubber was videoing though and you can see the whole thing here:
What were the hot topics?
SXSW wasn’t about tech - it was about using tech to do interesting things. Which means we came back thinking about:
Coworking spaces. Do we want one? Seems to me the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. I’ve already had some interesting chats with people who may be able to help ‘resource’ it… Who’s up for helping on this?
Sharing content widely. With all of us producing content, what do we do with that and what can we make happen through sharing ideas? There are interesting ideas coming through from Screen West Midlands about supporting ‘content’ - we need to find out more about that.
Social Media Cafe. Something that a few of us have talked about a lot is some kind of space or ‘moving meetup’ in the form of a cafe. Am I confused? Don’t we just say ‘we meet up every fortnight at Rooty’s on a Monday’ and that’s that one solved? Ooh - Idea. How about we make Rooty’s a website in exchange for a bit of help organising?
Barcamp / Wordcamp / Brumcamp. Basically I think we should fly someone like Kathy Sierra over to talk to us about the future, and base a nice unconference around it. Wordcamp has been mooted, as has another Barcamp Birmingham. Who’s up for it?
All in all it was good just to meet up and bounce ideas with people doing similar things.
I say we do this more often. You?
15 Comments
Sounds like a very eventful meetup. Wish I had been able to come along.
I certainly like the idea of coworking spaces, and the social media cafe, both sound like what I was thinking about on my recent blog post. I’d love to have a place to go and chill out, and work on my website, just read email, or just meet friends.
I’ve wondered about a Barcamp thing too. I missed Podcamp UK last year due to moving house and only realised it was on the day before. I like what Dave Slusher is doing over in Carolina with CreateSouth and think that something like this could really grow into a great even, not just for Brum but the West Midlands.
I’ll have to try harded to come along to the next one.
P.S. Did I see someone in that slideshow in a Wordpress hoody?
A little observation from someone who didn’t make it down but who watched some of it on Bambuser - are there any female bloggers out there who would like to join in?!
I couldn’t make it last night because we couldn’t get a babysitter at such short notice. I am hoping to make the next one though, although I am rather put off by it looking rather male and geeky!! I’m not sure I’d fit in…and might feel like I’m tagging along with you (Stef) rather than being there as a ‘blogger’ in my own right. I use that term in quotation marks because I blog but don’t think of myself as a blogger - is that perhaps a more female view of blogging perhaps? Is that why we are not represented very well here? I’m not sure and would hate to generalize. But I do think that more women should be at these meet-ups, otherwise we will risk losing our voice in this city/space/place.
In fact, writing this has made me determined to go to the next one. Let me know asap when it will be!
podcampuk v2 anyone? - as one of the original organizers i think it would be a great thing to do again. i have all the original contacts. we need to break this west midlands/brum deadlock thou.
“the midlands” should be covered.
Hi Emily
The ability to get babysitters was my problem too. But I certainly wanted to to go and will try to next time..
C
I did notice there were no women at your meeting, is it a man’s night out thing?
@lom, Clare, Emily - It’s definitely not a ‘man’s night out thing’ - there were about four women out of thirty people there, which Charlotte raised on the night.
It’s open invite so come down next time and redress the balance.
Emily, Clare
As Stef said I mentioned this on the night and have briefly blogged about it.
http://creativeenterprise.blogspot.com
I think there are bigger issues here around how women relate to technology and which language they respond to and whole host of other things.
I’ll blog about it in more depth but certainly through the research I come into contact with there is a serious short fall of women working in new technology areas, research refers to ‘new boys club’ (like old boys). It can appear very exclusive.
def the whole ‘Birmingham Bloggers’ and folks talking about being ‘geeky’ (in a positive way) isn’t that sexy.
My personal experience of becoming a mummy had a big impact on my feeling able to stay on top of the rapid tech changes (not sure if this was real or percieved) and at the time I worked directly in that sector.
I think Emily’s point about risking loosing our voice is very important, I guess this was just the physical meet up and in fact there were also many other ‘voices’ missing.
Charlotte
I’d definitely have been there had I still been living in lovely old Brum.
That would make um, 6 of us, yes? Trouble with this ‘redressing the balance’ issue, is that you can’t. Women are still massively under represented in most online/tech/geek activity, and the more meets there are, the more generally blokey it all looks.
Thing is to make special efforts: if it’s a childcare thing, get some of the blokes in a rota to offer babysitting (one a year each, say), and seek out women bloggers to ask them individually, don’t just expect them to turn up. It can be way scary anyway turning up to something like that, without the thing being full of people of the other gender.
Also, Charlotte: why not have some women blogger’s meetups? I’d maybe even come to one of those, I’d definitely host one. I live by the seaside.
Brenda - I did consider the women/parents bloggers meet. I’m thinking Kitchen Garden cafe in Kingsheath and bring your kids. But to perhaps have this in addition to a generic mtg. Also what time of day would be good for most women? What would they want to talk about? I agree that, and I felt afterwards, that like all the folks there, I have a responsibility to encourage more women to contribute/turn up.
Missed it…….will hope to make the next one. Looks like it was the kind of fun my ‘real’ friends would consider geeky beyond help - and I mean that in a good way, folks.
Charlotte: yes, coterminous is what I thought too. Would love to be there. Good to ’see’ you around btw, and thanks to Stef whose alter ego I’ve encountered somewhere.
Charlotte - I’d love a women/parents bloggers meet with kids. And the Kitchen Garden would be perfect. Mornings after 10am are best for me. What about others?
I would personally feel more confident in attending one of the bloggers meet-ups if I’d been to something like this first I think.
I also like the idea of having a babysitting rota or something, if that’s causing women to miss out. Or perhaps sometimes the men living with women who blog, could stay at home to babysit sometimes?
Just to chime in on the female blogger business, its certainly not a male geeky thing. My girlfriend blogs about feminism and unsurprisingly has many other female friends who blog regularly, none of which is of a geeky nature. I think its probably more a issue with people knowing about it. People who are less “geeky” probably aren’t looking around for blogger meetups, more likely looking for groups related to their blog’s topic for instance. Thats not to say they wouldn’t want to come.
Perhaps someone could put together a poster for the next one for display at uni’s, coffee shops, notice boards, etc?And a parent/blogger meetup sounds fun! if only I didn’t have to work…and had a child….
Just realised that last bit might sound a bit snarky. It wasn’t meant that way. In fact I quite like the idea of being a stay-at-home dad.
I missed it too, but that was out of illness not disinterest. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can get more women and other groups interested/involved. Although I can see the benefit of setting up different meets to suit people, I still think we need to encourage greater representation across the board, to share ideas rather than keep them separate. A big thing I noticed at SXSW was a real lack of diversity - at every level - and for the first time in my life I felt like I was in a real minority. Surely the beauty of new technology should be its accessibility - I’m going to be blogging about this soon!
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