open2media

For me this year’s Circuit Rider conference will be a great opportunity to take forward some of the discussions we had at last year’s event - and again get the benefit of working with a front-line expert.

Last year I had the chance to run a workshop with the amazing US-based blogger Beth Kanter, which included her knock-out presentation on social media, and the first run of the social media game. Reports are available on the social media wiki, together some other guidance we’ll be updating there and on this blog.

| View | Upload your own

More later on how we are planning the game - meanwhile here’s Beth’s slides from last year. I hope Beth may be able to join us virtually. I already know it is going to be a lot of fun developing this year’s workshop with Laura Whitehead. However good the Net, there’s something about being in the same country, sharing the same issues …. and running to catch up with yet another highly productive collaborator! Beth, Laura - how do you manage to do so much good stuff?

How can we support circuit riders to help organisations with developing and integrating social media tools within their organisation? I’ve discovered in my work with organisations, that the newest smallest fledgling groups who were the most receptive to this new way of working and connecting with members and potential stakeholders were eager to learn anything that could help them reach out to new audiences. For the larger well established organisations it would mean a huge shift in behaviour and approach to communications but willing to allocate capacity to develop their own approach if they could encourage wider involvement and acceptance across the organisation. The small to medium sized organisations running and growing steadily for a couple of years were the ones, that most probably have always had issues with their ICT controlling them, rather than them being in control. It is often that category of organisation that found modern fangled media too much to take on board instantly, although were happy to consider it and seek to implement those forms that could be relevant and purposeful practices with it in future strategies.

What tips do you have at increasing sign up within an organisation that you would like to share?