Web Q+As as a way for politicians to engage
POSTED IN consultation, portfolio | TAGS : Birmingham UK, civico, mayor, sion simon 7 March 2012
I’ve been advising on Siôn Simon‘s campaigning for an (and to be) elected mayor of Birmingham for more than a year, but with the referendum on whether the city should have one coming up fast the pace of engagement has got to speed up. To go along with a launch of a ten point plan for Birmingham, I facilitated an ‘#AskSion’ video web chat for people to hopefully get information. We were pleasantly surprised with the number of questions and the intelligence of the debate. I was also really pleased that the web-streaming facilities provided by Civico (another organisation I work with) went without a hitch.
My favourite part of the Civco platform is the ability to share not just the whole video, but any sub-section or clip that you select. It’s a facility that I really believe can help people make sense of the vast amount of content that is often in civic meetings, and can really help spread the messages.
Here for example is an answer to a Twitter question about graffiti from yesterday’s session:
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Buy, or get free, some ebooks I’ve written
POSTED IN portfolio, writing | TAGS : ebook, ebooks, publishing, writing 4 March 2012
I’ve been experimenting with ebook publishing, once the sheer hellish pain of writing something you’re happy with is over the format, upload and sales part is fairly easy. Well, when I say sales I mean ‘putting on sale’ rather than getting people to buy them… that’s a whole other story.
I’ve got two ‘books’ available at the moment:
Poorly Collected Works 2010-11
A collection of writing from various sources. 20,000 odd words from the last year or so, culled from blogs, papers, mags and Dirty Bristow (the literary magazine I founded and edit).
“Exclusively contains all the grammatical errors and jokes edited out by original publishers. It’s a chance to pay money to read what you can for free if you search it all out individually.”
Concrete and Cocktails: a journey to Birmingham’s glitter-stained independent heart.
Can you drink in all of Birmingham city centre’s independent hostelries in one day? Yes of course, although it might not be sensible.
An unchained psychogeographic adventure from the editors of Dirty Bristow: Concrete and Cocktails: a journey to Birmingham’s glitter-stained independent heart.
Concrete and Cocktails free on iTunes. And free on other formats too.
New LP free: with chicken seasoning
POSTED IN found stuff, music | TAGS : chicken, friends of the starts, music 4 March 2012
The Internet has disrupted the musician’s lot as much as that or any artist, perhaps more so. So how do you get people to value an new LP? Maybe give it away with some fried chicken seasoning? Well that’s what mates Friends of the Stars are doing.
Their second LP, “Faith’s Meat Kiosk“, is coming out on 23rd April 2012 and to celebrate the’ve teamed up with Birmingham’s Jack Rabbit to do this:
You can pre-order it now. It comes in a number of flavours, all of which include a download of the “Faith’s Meat Kiosk” LP.
There’s also this charming video for the track Railroad Towns, shot around Lifford Reservoir in Birmingham, directed by Pete Ashton.
Road Trip: Round the Wrekin
POSTED IN misc | TAGS : art, art funding, Pete Ashton, West Midlands 29 February 2012
This post was written by chum Pete Ashton, about a project we applied for together.
A few weeks ago an Arts Council funded commission came over the tootvine which looked pretty interesting. Turning Point West Midlands and Writing West Midlands were looking for a writer and visual artist to undertake a road trip across, you guessed it, the West Midlands and create some art during and about it in return for £4,000. My writer chum Jon Bounds suggested I put my photographer hat on and we apply for this thing, bringing Jon’s frequent writing partner Danny Smith on board as well. It was one of those rare occasions where you read something on an art funding website and think, hang on, I not only understand this but I reckon I could do it.
Neither of us had written a proposal like this before and while Danny has a fine art degree he was bad poorly with the sick and I don’t think he ever went in for that proposal writing thing anyway. But we have friends who can do this sort of thing in their sleep so advice was to hand and in the end we put together something fairly coherent.
Yesterday the rejection emails were sent out and we got one. Apparently there were 78 applications which apparently is a lot. And apparently an organisation which is in part there to assist artists in the pursuit and creation of their art isn’t able to give feedback on individual applications (and I do understand why writing 77 feedbacks isn’t necessarily the best use of public money) so we don’t know if we were in final shortlist or throw in the round filing cabinet right away.
It strikes me that while the whole arts commissioning thing has some fundamental flaws. There exist 77 ideas for a road trip across the West Midlands which will never see the light of day. Even if we apply Sturgeon’s Law and assume 90% of them were shite ideas that’s still 7 good ones. And think about all that time those people spent on their applications, time that could have been spent on something more productive.
More importantly, there are 154 people (2 per application) who aren’t going to do a thing they were intending to do. That strikes me as a terrible shame. Yes, the ideas wouldn’t exist without TPWM/WWM sparking them with the commission but that’s one hell of a bottleneck.
I hate bottlenecks.
We’ve decided to make our application public for anyone to read.
Here’s the PDF and here it is online.
We’re putting it out there for a few reasons.
Firstly to get a bit more feedback on this thing. We’d really value any comments, positive or negative from people in the industry.
Secondly to publicly demonstrate what we’re capable of and willing to do. We’d like to get paid to do this sort of thing more often and we think this document helps that cause.
Thirdly to see if anyone else wants to commission us to do it or something similar. The bid is written with TPWM/WWM’s raison d’etre in mind and we can probably adjust it for other box-ticking requirements.
Fourthly because it seems a shame to spend so long writing something and to only show it to a handful of people. We are natural bloggers after all. To not publish it feels weird to us.
But mainly to test the water for a crowdsourced crowdfunding exercise.
On the one hand we could try raising a sustainable level of cash to enable us to do it. Not necessarily four large but enough to put dinner on the table.
On the other hand it’d be really interesting to get the funders to collectively write the commission. Bear in mind I’m making this up as I type and haven’t consulted Danny and Jon at all, but let’s say we decide on the How but you decide on the Why. You give us our remit, our focus.
Or something like that.
Of course it could be that our idea is shit and should rightly be rejected by all and sundry. And if that’s the case then that’s fine. There are plenty more where that came from.
Final note – please don’t read this as sour grapes or an attack on TPWM/WWM and the whole arts funding setup which has real value in certain situations. It was our first ever application and we’re realistic about our chances. It just seems a shame to waste it.
If you’ve a comment to make, please leave it on Pete’s post for coherence.
My appearance on the Today programme
POSTED IN Conferences & Talks, portfolio | TAGS : Birmingham UK, me, Radio 4, Today programme 28 February 2012
While revamping this site a touch I was struck by how many of the sites and projects I’d linked to had just disappeared, so I’m going to try to make more of an effort to keep the records myself.
So, here’s me on Radio 4′s Today programme on 9/1/12, talking about Birmingham’s regeneration and how it “‘beats space’ as tourist destination”:
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Pier Review review
POSTED IN art, portfolio, writing | TAGS : Danny Smith, midge, pier review, psychogeogrpahy, writing 28 February 2012
I’m currently knee deep in postcards, books about the seaside and still have sand in my good pumps. It’s nearly six months since I spent two weeks traveling around all of England and Wales’s surviving seaside pleasure piers and we’re about halfway through writing the book. It’s hard going, but fun. Here’s the picture side of every postcard we sent (one of each) to each of our funders—the trip was paid for by around thirty people, all of whom are awaiting publication with anticipation I hope.
But what was it about? Well, we were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to the great Andrew Collins and Josie Long on 6 Music, and that’s as good an introduction as any is likely to be.
Listen to Pier Review on 6 Music
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And we followed it up a week later with another slot:
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And we’ve also made our secret blog open to all, you can read some behind-the-scenes stuff now.
And if you promise to find our more and sign up at Pier Review dot co dot uk I’ll let you into the secret that you can read a very early draft of the first chapter.
Why I’m about to spend two weeks in a car in the name of art
POSTED IN my projects | TAGS : Danny Smith, Dirty Bristow, pier 4 August 2011
I write, you know, it’s sort of the core of loads of stuff I do—writing is a founding block of good social web engagement which is where I get most of my living from. It’s also part of teaching or training in a way, you need to be able to construct narratives and find the right words. Journalism, or at least the writing of words to order for publication, is fun too. But the writing that’s most rewarding is where you get to have an idea, and then run with the bugger until it’s done.
Listening to all six hundred and ninety eight Elvis Presley songs in order in one sitting was one of those, but Dirty Bristow was sort of like that on a grand scale, and not just me writing.
When you look around there seems to be a straight choice for writers: the web and freedom (but no guaranteed audience or context) or whatever publication will have you and whatever rules they apply. Not that rules are bad: it’s not just the subject/audience/word count stuff that’s the problem, it’s the context and the pressure of it. Want to discuss South American literature and pop-culture in the same breath? You’ll be too worried that not everyone will get it, waste the word count explaining things and end up with something without the élan you wanted.
So we invented a magazine with as few rules and pressures as possible, it seems (artistically at least) to work. That sorted what’s the next challenge?
Piers.
Or to be specific, nostalgia for a lost and fictional time and piers are a good knob to hang this particular type upon.
Danny Smith, with whom I’d managed to hold out against the advice and make the magazine, said there was something in a book visiting all of the pleasure piers in Britain. He didn’t know how many there were, how long that would take, but it sounded good. I said yes, and then basically a lot of people said ‘no’. Or rather they said “don’t do it”, “I’m not coming”, “that’s stupid”, “why?” or most devastatingly of all for Dan “you’re wasting your life” (his mum).
But we’re going to do it anyway. We’ve researched a bit, and know where they are. We’ve press-ganged a driver—I say so my creative stance isn’t diluted, my friend says “so your drinking isn’t interrupted” and she’s possibly half right. But it’s more so I don’t have to worry so much.
I love new places, but find that travel can be a trial, even if arriving is a pleasure.
I get nervous: sit on a train, is it the right train? Is it working? Have I go the right ticket? What if it doesn’t stop at the right place? What if it breaks down, what if… No, I can’t relax. Not til all decisions have been taken off me—which is sort of why I can cope a lot more easily with the regimented walk/don’t walk watch-the-screens travel by air. I mean, they’re actively trying to make sure you don’t get on the wrong plane—and the consequences of a break-down are a little more final than having to spend the night on Crewe Station.
So if I don’t have to think, and the worst thing that can happen is that I die, I’m good.
I don’t have a point or an allegory for the journey, certainly not one as deeply thought out and involving the A-Team as m’colleague Mr Smith has. Nor am I thinking about group dynamics in a wider sense than I don’t really want to have a row with either of them. I’m not looking for conflict or hardship: the last thing I want is for this tale to turn into one of struggle, of dirty sleeping conditions or danger. We might find some, but I’m more interested in the ghosts of the past.
There’s something we’ve lost culturally, it’s like a love that’s gone and hurts. The empty past leaves you constantly hungry around the heart: it’s true to call it an ache but there are sharp pains too. There’ll be explosions of emptiness, like going over a humpbacked bridge too fast.
Inspirationally, for me the trip is a mirror world version of Drummond and Manning’s Bad Wisdom series. In that two differing writers travel to the unknown, testing themselves and their sanity—we’re hunting the familiar in a county that is changing faster than we can cope with. Except that instead of two independently wealthy ex-pop stars, we’re two people without two pots to rub together; having spent what little spare we had on the magazine itself.
People have been kind, we’ve had offers of support and places to kip as well as a surprisingly quick race to the (low admittedly) Crowdfunding target. Thanks everybody.
If you want to check out something similar, there’s the much smaller scale trip we did around Birmingham’s pubs Concrete and Cocktails that you can download for nowt.
More details of how to help or get involved in this madness are here: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/investment/pier-review-a-book-about-a-journey-to-the-outcrops-of-a-dying-culture-311
Twitter – @Pierreview
Facebook – Facebook.com/PierReview
Winona Forever
POSTED IN art | TAGS : tattoo, winona forever 29 June 2011
Forever? Lasted about three days.
Excellent Engagement
POSTED IN good practice, microblogging, social media, twitter | TAGS : engagement, local sports team, the simpsons, twitter 3 May 2011
Content, interaction, community—that’s what your social media profile is all about. It’s a message that seems to have hit most brands, and organisations right down to the smallest. But from what I’m seeing a lot of at the moment, there are a lot of people finding it hard to think about what to do once they get there.
There’s an episode of the Simpsons (Season Two, Episode 22), stay with me, where Mr Burns would like to be nice to Homer—but he knows nothing about him (nor really cares) so falls on the most bland of engagement:
“Hey there Mr….d’uh….Brown Shoes! How ’bout that local sports team eh?”
(Oddly for a great Simpson’s quote the video doesn’t seem to be on YouTube anywhere, but there is an audio clip here.)
Does that remind you of anything? Here’s a collection of Tweets reminding me of it that I collected on Friday:
It’s not exclusive to Twitter, nor the Royal Wedding: check out any number of Facebook fan pages or any social platform on a Friday lunchtime to see loads of “Hey guys, what are you doing this weekend. Let us know!” type-posts. They’re a close cousin of the way blogs starting up will often end their debut post with a plaintive cry of “what would you like to see?”
It is no doubt amusing to watch them all come in (and to watch the meme or cliche spread), but there’s something deeper I think—and some lessons to learn.
I think it sometimes happens because people are following what the mainstream media started to do a few years ago (‘have your say’). “Let us know!” became their coda to all stories, because they were getting to grips with the idea that people could converse and create en masse without their involvement. They were trying to channel this new thing called UCG through them so they could continue to act as gatekeepers, or perhaps they were genuinely excited by all of those pictures of snow. The TV programmes and the newspapers (and to an extent their associated online spaces) were offering an audience, much like Tony Hart in his gallery, and still do—hence the potential motivation for sharing your content through them.
Most brand social web channels don’t have such a huge audience, or if they have a big one it’s often very tightly around a subject—big wide and generic questions aren’t going to engage that audience. Your dry cleaners, or a skincare brand, aren’t the first place you think of to tell your plans for a Bank Holiday.
Possibly it also comes from a desire to “get into the conversation”, to make a brand seem like it’s one of your mates. Might work, if you’re trying to create a very small community round your social web space—if you’re usually about answering questions and sending out news, isn’t it a little odd? What are your other followers going to do with the information if you get it and and then you spread it?
Most of all, people probably do it because they see others doing the same. That’s one way to learn, but you need to think more deeply about whether any techniques apply to your situation—what they might achieve and how they might look. In essence if you’re attempting to engage around your brand then things closely related, or of direct relevance are going to hold more weight.
As a bonus here’s Mr Burn’s classic funk track ‘Look at all those idiots‘, including wailing guitar from Waylon Smithers. What’s your favourite Simpsons as metaphor for social web engagement story? Let us know!
Ask a stupid question…
POSTED IN consultation, good practice | TAGS : Austin, consultation, Fort Wayne, Harry Baals, Uservoice 13 February 2011
If there was one central point to remember to make online consultation successful it would be that if the question isn’t a good one the best response you’ll get is none. If the object of the exercise has no real meaning or effect then, while no response would be disappointing, it only takes a tiny meme to make silence seem like a success.
Take the administration in Austin, Texas (home, it must be said to large number of Internet culture savvy people) who probably thought that it was a nice piece of harmless PR through engagement to ask the people to come up with a new identity for the city’s waste dept. No-one sensible could care too much about the outcome, so it becomes open for hijack, open for people to have fun with, and easy fun is a great driver of activity. Activity you may have seen on the web this week:
And so the idea of the ‘Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts‘ was born and attracted much attention, narrowly beating the ‘Ministry of Filth’ (although my personal favourite was ‘The Austin Dept. of Are You Going To Eat That?’).
It’s not going to happen, of course, so the outcome is that the consulters look stupid—drawing attention to both the time wasted of rebranding and their helplessness against the weak ties and satire of the web. What’s worse is it shows problems in engament in that numbers of votes for this poll in total dwarf those in other, more well thought through, consultations.
Even worse is when there’s a memetic idea that is simultaneously eligible, fun, and unacceptable to the consulters. That’s what’s has just taken hold in Fort Wayne (who like Austin are using the feedback tool Uservoice—blameless in these instances and a fairly nice solution to the tech aspects of this sort of questioning). What bad luck for the town to have had a mayor and statesman with a vaguely rude sounding name (the man himself pronounced Baals “balls”):
As you can see the comments here are getting heated, there are legitimate reasons for honouring the man and there’s just no way to come out of this well now. Not every question is a good one.