Birmingham Social Media Cafe

After all the talk of data we’re going back to basics this week, with a regular Birmingham Social Media cafe meet-up.

We’ll be at the Coffee Lounge from 10am on Friday 28 August 2009.

Most people will be there to meet up, make new friends and have a productive natter over a cup of coffee. Others are planning to have meetings or hang around to get some work done in the company of some bright and interesting individuals. All are very welcome.

Screen WM (our ongoing supporters) will be providing the coffees this week.

If you fancy announcing your attendance then:

• Here’s the Facebook event
• Here’s the Upcoming group
• And of course it’d be lovely to hear from you in the comments

Hope to see you on Friday.

Last night’s event at Fazeley Studios, looking at the many, varied and increasingly important uses of data went very well, thanks to a great turnout and some fantastic talks.

The talks

Dave Harte opened proceedings. Here are the slides from his talk ‘Timely Information to Citizens‘

Dave Harte at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Michael Brunton-Spall spoke about ‘Mashing up The Guardian‘ (or their data, at least).

Michael Brunton-Spall at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Matthew Somerville covered his own and mySociety‘s dealings with data and mashups. He’s kindly uploaded his slides to his website too (featuring some lovely photos of Scotland).

Matthew Somerville at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Paul Bradshaw rounded the event off, speaking about the inspiration behind Help Me Investigate and his own thoughts on ‘database journalism’.

Paul Bradshaw at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Other media

Christian Payne was on hand to interview Michael Brunton-Spall and Matthew Somerville using Audioboo:

A few blog posts have been popping up:

• Stuart Harrison has written a great round-up of the evening and also put all the #dmapi-tagged tweets from the evening into a Google Docs spreadsheet
• Tom Graham from Jadu has posted a write-up too
• Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism Blog – The Guardian kicks off the local data landgrab
• Jamie Garner has rounded up his tweets
• Tom Martin liked the cupcakes

And here’s a Twitter search for #dmapi.

What next?

There certainly seems to be an appetite for similar events, hack days and the like. As I said when summing up, keep an eye on Multipack and the Birmingham Social Media Cafe for future events. For a digest of other digital events in the region visit Digital Brum.

Also, the West Midlands Regional Observatory have just announced an excellent looking event called Sharing Information Digitally, taking place at Millennium Point on 7 October. There’s further info on the event see the WMRO blog.

Thanks

I’m indebted to a number of people who helped the event run as smoothly as it did:

• The speakers – Dave Harte, Michael Brunton-Spall, Matthew Somerville and Paul Bradshaw
• The sponsors – The Guardian, Barefoot Wine and (ongoing supporters of the BSMC) Screen WM
• Kate Manion at Fazeley Studios for providing the excellent surroundings and catering
• Will Perrin (of Talk About Local) for the initial introduction to the Guardian team

Thanks to everyone who attended too.

The Birmingham Social Media Cafe returns to Coffee Lounge on Friday 28 August, 10am to midday. I hope to see you there.

As a special, one-off event, there will be an extra BSMC on Wednesday 19 August from 6pm to 9pm(ish), sponsored by The Guardian.

You can sign up for free on Eventbrite.

As well as the usual chance the usual chance to meet, chat, scheme and share with likeminded souls, the evening will have a theme. We’ll be looking at data – why it’s increasingly important/useful for it to be made available and what can be done with it.

This event will be slightly different from the usual BSMC get-togethers:

• It’ll be at Fazeley Studios, Digbeth,
• in the evening,
• we’ll have a few (nice and snappy) talks; and
• we’ll give you some food and drink.

Speakers will include:

• Matthew Wall, technical architect at The Guardian
• Matthew Somerville of Dracos and mySociety
• Dave Harte of Digital Birmingham
• Paul Bradshaw of Help Me Investigate and online journalism course leader at Birmingham City University

As ever, the chance to chat with the other people in the room will be just as important. I know people have been discussions about organising hack days and the like. Hopefully this event will give people a chance to talk more about that.

There’s a little more info on the Eventbrite registration page. If you’d like to come along then please sign up (it’s free).

The Birmingham Social Media Cafe will be back at the Coffee Lounge on Friday 28 August, 10am to midday (listings soon come).