Arif Latif, Donato Esposito, Anna Latif
Digital Birmingham’s ‘Digital Business’ campaign, in partnership with the Birmingham Post, was set up last year to support a business to improve its standing in the community by improving its communication channels, use social networking sites to advertise and get feedback from its customers and attract new ones.
If there’s one area that many commentators think social media can make significant impact on it’s democracy and participation. You only have to read Clay Shirky’s notion of ‘cognitive surplus‘ to see exactly how much power people think can be released. Whether or not you think Shirky over-plays the argument social Media spaces are indeed packed full of people with passionate causes and a desire for change.
But there’s evidence here in Birmingham that citizens want to control the space and the terms under which they participate. The City is currently consulting on the Big City Plan, a strategy to help shape how the city centre is organised. There’s plenty of ways to engage with it, via post, through the facebook group, or at the online consultation. However, a group of bloggers have now decided that the original document was just a little too, erm, overly-intricate, for general consumption so have taken it upon themselves to do a plain english translation.
I’m always looking for examples of how social media can support small businesses. I’ve raised the question before using the local builder as an example. Why on earth would the bloke who knocked a hole in my wall have a reason to use any kind of social media tool?
Well I found a partial answer to that in a video from Herefordshire firm, Wiggly Wigglers (amongst other things they sell worms for composting). Founder Heather Gorringe explains how a shift to social media over tradititional media helped cut her advertising costs without cutting her customer base.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the thinking behind the creation of the World Wide Web, has voiced his concerns over moral panics and disinformation that are spread so easily and quickly through the Internet, and has also come up with a way of decreasing the problem.
More - Reliable websites to be branded by new WWW Foundation
Digital Birmingham is a Birmingham City Council initiative and part of a city wide strategic partnership of more than 30 public, private and voluntary organisations
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