Kitchen Garden Café in Kings Heath was the meeting ground for likeminded individuals linked by their common interest in blogging and social media. On Thursday 10 January 2008, Nick Booth (Podnosh) arranged for the informal gathering with no agenda but to discuss blog writing, share knowledge and to build a community of blog writers around the Birmingham area. Some of the individuals that I met there were Dave Briggs, Stef Lewandowski (3form, Creative Republic, Type Records), Charlotte Carey (Creative Enterprise), Jon Bounds (Birmingham: It’s Not Shit, UpYerBrum), John Mostyn and Nick Booth amongst others who unfortunately I did not take URL’s from, sorry!
Stef got the ball rolling by asking the question to the group: “What does everyone reckon about the article that was published in the Guardian last week saying there are lots of cities in the UK that have fantastic blogging scenes, and Birmingham wasn’t even on the list?&rquo;
Stef has kindly posted the audio capture of this topic for download.
My personal additions to the discussion were:
- The Guardian article was focusing on cities that have already built up a blogging community where bloggers meet on a regular basis and had someone heading the movement for them. Due to this I think Birmingham wasn’t mentioned but now that there is a community being formed this will likely change in the future
- I feel we should interlink with each other more, referencing each other and also bolster this by using the XFN (XHTML Friends Network) system
One of the key points that came out in context to commercial blogging was that everyone wants to read an honestly written article from someone who cares about the subject they are discussing. The written word has to come from the heart, not off the back of pr guidelines or stringent rules on how the company wishes to be perceived. If the post comes across as less than honest it will be picked up on, sniffed out and discarded as a waste of time to read. I read in someone’s blog recently (apologies I can’t find the reference point, I will update when I do) that if you can’t trust the individuals you put in place to shed good light on your company through the posts they write then you’ve employed the wrong people. The best investment you can make is to find excellent writers who care about the company values and express this in their own creative way.
A common tagging theme was also agreed upon as a great way to increase awareness of blogging in Birmingham. A general tag of “BirminghamUK” to be added to all blog posts regardless of topic will improve visibility and will be added to Technorati. I also hear from Jon that Dave has built BrumSearch (based on Google) off of the back of this tagging consensus, thanks Dave.
Charlotte has also written a blog on the evening which picks up on some interesting questions on the direction and value of blogging. If you also wish to meet with us at the next gathering find out when and where as well as contributing to the Birmingham Bloggers UK facebook group.