You and your Daemon

This blog post is aimed at people who are attending this Thursday's Brrism event. If you've haven't signed up yet, there are still a few tickets left on EventBrite.

Bristol Social Media events aren't just about social media - they are also designed to be entertaining, fun and encourage networking. That's why we had the Who Are You Hoedown at the last meeting. (If you are interested in hoedown please read the Brrism blog entry or what other people said about it on their blog: Ady Harold, Emma Newman, Team Rubber.)

The hoedown was incredibly well received and the only bad thing I heard said about it was that it was a bit long. So, naturally, we're going to do a another icebreaker - only shorter.

This one's called "You and your Daemon" and, as well as ticking the usual boxes (fun, icebreaking, networky) it also has relevance to the Brrism Branding session that we are running at the tail end of Brrism4.

The way it works will be explained on the night, all you have to do right now is to choose your daemon. In case you haven't read the books or seen the film then a daemon is the animal that represents your inner self, your hidden self. If your inner self is a perfectionist and concerned in getting things absolutely right then you might like to take a look at this YouTube video to make sure you understand the concept. Otherwise choose the first animal that pops into your head - you might find that your subconscious chosen the right one for you.

Once you've decided on YOUR daemon simply fill out this form and we'll make sure you've got a natty little name badge when you arrive at the event on Thursday. See you there!

Brrism4 - Social Media Machinery

As everyone who’s watched this video knows, its very important to “hook your twitter into your facebook and plug your blogfeed into your reader” and, in a tongue in cheek way, we’d have to agree. Plugging things together is important but the real idea behind Social Media Machinery is about using different social media tools in a coordinated way to achieve some sort of objective (business or otherwise).

The fourth Brrism meeting takes place at the Pervasive Media Studio on Thursday 19th November. It's meet at 6:30 for 7 PM start and after 2 hours we'll decamp and carry on the conversation over a drink or two at the Watershed. If a picture paints a thousand words then this photo album will give you an idea of what to expect.
Thanks once again to the fantastic Pervasive Media Studio for the use of their excellent facilities and, once again, you must sign up on EventBrite (see below).

Previous Brrism events have “sold out” so grab your ticket fast but please don’t sign up unless you’re pretty sure you can attend – otherwise you’re denying a ticket to someone else.

Everyone’s welcome, social media expert or beginner alike. And if you are a beginner then we promise that no one will offer to “hook your twitter into your facebook”. Or at least I hope they won’t…

Agenda

• Intro, overview
• Social Media machinery – Developing systems, copying best practice, how to construct the Brrism social media machine (discuss & collect Tweet Seed)
• Google Wave – overview & demonstration (discuss & collect Tweet Seed)
• Mixer
• 1 hour long unconference session where Brrismers can pick up on topics picked up in the Tweet Seed or simply discuss their own stuff.
• Brrism branding – MakeDesignEnjoy have offered to design a Brrism logo. This is where we brief them.
• Washup & decamp to Watershed

What on earth is "Tweet Seed"?

Brrism3 - The one with the Hoedown

I was never a big fan of Friends but the one thing I liked was that they always gave the episodes straightforward titles. Even after all these years you’ll probably remember "The One with Ross's Wedding" or "The One with Joey's Fridge" just because the titles map onto the way that we organize memories in our brains.

The original title for the third episode of Brrism was “Who Are You” but I’m sure it will be remembered as “The One with the Hoedown” judging by the feedback and the blog articles that have been written about it. If you weren’t there you could read Ady’s (from Sticky Media) blog post or Emma’s (from Your Nisaba). The pictures tell their own story. The hoedown generated a huge amount of energy in the room, got everybody got talking and (this is only my impression) improved the sense of community around Brrism.

The Hoedown was the creation of an old friend of mine, Penelope Else, who sweated blood over the format and, ironically, the actual namebadges. All I did was come up with a the name. Thank you very much, Pen, you deserve a round of Twitter applause. (Social Media Experiment: If you enjoyed the hoedown, please tweet with the hashtag #thankspenelope.)

I’d also like to thank Lee Cottier who facilitated the feedback session at the end. I chose Lee to do this not only because he’s a great facilitator but also because I want to stress to people that Brrism is not mine – I’m just the catalyst (if you recall the Starfish and Spider terminology of the first Brrism). The reason why I have had to put so much of me into the event is that groups are a bit like snowballs. You have to push them a long way before they gather enough snow to carry on rolling on their own. But the snowball seems to be picking up pace. People have started to volunteer for Brrism jobs. Not just the sexy ones like volunteering to speak at the next Brrism but also the boring ones. I won’t list all the volunteers here (you’ll get a mention elsewhere) but I’ll pick out Paul Matthews of UWE for a special mention since he has volunteered to bring along the food and drink for the next meeting! You wouldn’t believe how heavy all that beer, nibbles and fruit juice is to carry so I’m totally over the moon.

The results of the feedback session were interesting. Some of you it seems are so interested in social media that you end up boring the pants off your friends/colleagues/partners. I can relate to that and so Brrism is appreciated as a place where we can talk about this interesting new field without fear of stifled yawns or rolled eyes. People also said that they were impressed with the turnout and energy levels. (Yes, I was too!)

From a negative point of view, it seems that Brrism has so many social media channels that attention is diluted, messages get lost and confusion sets in. The group self-solved this problem and we agreed that a Brrism portal (acting as an index to social media channels) is the way forward here and there’ll be another blog post about that soon. There was also talk that the sessions need to have more of a practical element to them. That’s probably true and the reason why the first three Brrisms have had a “high level concept” as their theme has been the result of my experience with the Bristol Knowledge Café (run by Bristol’s own Ed Mitchell). I think the conceptual approach works for the BKC but future Brrisms will be more practically oriented. Again, watch this space for a future blog article about the future format of Brrism.

Thanks for reading so far and, if you came to the meeting, thanks for your input too. I hope you can come to the next one – it'll be held on November 18th at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol.

Post Blog Updates:

Rubber Ductions also wrote a blog post (but there were more people there than their picture suggests!)

We also said at the meeting that we would try an experiment where we would tag our delicious entries with the tag "brrism" if we thought they'd be interesting to other Brrismers.

Who Are You (October's Brrism Meeting)

The persona you project (via social media) dictates the response you'll get. This is hard enough for individuals to get right but its even more difficult for organisations where the "persona" equates to the brand.

The third Brrism meeting takes place at the Pervasive Media Studio on the 21st October. It's meet at 6:30 for 7 PM start and after 2 hours we'll decamp and carry on the conversation over a drink or two at the Watershed. The previous two Brrisms have attracted about 30 people apiece and attendees have ranged from business owners, technical managers, social media newbies and even the local MP.

The meeting will be similar to the first two but with a few minor tweaks. If you attended the last meeting, you'll have received a brief questionnaire and, if you responded, we listened to what you've said. You asked for more mixers/icebreakers/networking opportunities; and you asked for more practicals/how to. We think we've taken this on board and so this is the meeting line up:

• Who are you? Online identities determine the response we get from the social media "universe". How can we see ourselves as others see us? How can we put across what we think we're putting across? This session will comprise of a very short presentation from @KobB coupled with a group exercise that also acts as an icebreaker and mixer.
• Twitter Tools. A quick tour of twitter tools and how they can help you.
• "Ready, Steady, Social Media" - this is a bit like "Ready, Steady, Cook" but involves less food, more social media and a lot more audience participation.
• Knowledge Cafe - (what's this?) this is an informal networking session where you can form your own groups, talk to who you want, and do your own thing. NEW: Give other people a heads up as to what you want to talk about in the Cafe by adding your name to the wiki page.

Its FREE to attend and there's FREE Wi-Fi at the venue so please bring your laptops. You'll get a lot more out of the Who Are You session if you do, plus we'll be doing an informal demo of Google Wave and, if you have a laptop, you might be able to join in. Laptops are also good because tweeting during the event is positively encouraged. Just remember to use the hashtag #brrism. Or, even simpler, just put brrism in your tweets and they'll pop out here. (Where, if you've signed up for the wiki, you'll find you can use threaded replies.)

You must sign up on EventBrite!!! (We were oversubscribed for the first event.)

Can you help?: I'm looking for people to help with the next Brrism. Here are a list of meeting jobs. Plus, if you know someone who would like to speak at the next Brrism please let me know. Note: speakers are not allowed to use the platform to sell anything.