Katie Lips: Social Media Strategist

I delivered a quick presentation at the Futuresonic “Social Technologies Summit” / conference in Manchester UK on Thursday (1st May 08). The theme was ‘participation’:

“How does a project change from small scale to ‘mass user’? Project presentations looking at ‘participation’ from different angles: online participation, social software, social movements, everyday creativity, plus surveillance technologies with no opt-out from participation.”

So I prepared a presentation on my current thoughts about how social media is making community arts projects that I have been involved in, more ‘participatory’. I focussed on the Bold Street Project and how we took a Liverpool Street, put it (in many spaces) online, and then invited a global community of enthusiasts to participate. tenantspin is another example of a community arts project with a ‘bottom up’ and ‘outside in’ approach both to ‘curating’, and to generating creative ideas and (both) process and product.

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At the Intercultural Cities conference the next day my colleague Laura Yates and I also heard form Clare McColgan (2008 Executive Producer at Liverpool Culture Company) on the theme of “Planning and running a city strategy for Intercultural Dialogue” - and she shared her experiences of running the creative programme for Liverpool 08 based on involving communities. Other conversations I have taken part in recently include the Axis Forum on Digital Curating - the start of some really poignant questions on what curating means in a collaborative space.

“Participation” then is a key conference buzzword, not just in the arts but in a wider cultural context. So does Social Media facilitate better or more engaging participation in cultural activities? I hope so, and I believe it does, but only it seems when applied intelligently and when the opportunity, the tools, and the communities of interest are properly understood. I am often approached to add a social media ‘component’ to projects, and sometimes I feel the social aspect (or the online part thereof) is somewhat of an after thought for cultural managers. I believe, as with Bold Street that being open online can facilitate a great amount of high quality participation, but it is less about the tools and more about the attitude and ethos of a project which will determine the success (and amount and quality of participation by a community of interest).

Too often I see failed social media, often blogging, projects, where people assume that turning a blog on is all you need to do to attract the world to participate in a project. Not so. For me, great participatory arts and cultural projects are about people working with people - and technology tools can of course assist, but not replace that. A lot of work goes into connecting people, stimulating conversation, facilitating participation, and enabling a project to achieve a deep impact (in any environment). We have most definitely, and thankfully moved from a world where the web project ended with the ‘go live’ date and moved to a world where the activities of documenting, archiving, advertising and participating are all part of an ongoing multimodal dialogue.

At Futuresonic I met some interesting people who do indeed ‘get this’ specifically I’m hoping to hook up again with Angela Plohman from the Lab for Culture in Amsterdam. I’m also working with several colleagues on a new project ‘Culture Tank’ which aims to become an open think tank for anyone interested in discussing “the culture of 2.0 and how it is changing the dynamics of creativity”. Culture Tank is coming soon.

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I came away form mashup at telco 2.0 last week in high spirits having met some lovely people and had a surprisingly good time. I told my friends I was going to a telco conference; they wondered why and to be honest so did I. Whilst Treasuremytext is a mobile related service, it’s a web thing. We’re web people and not usually seen at telecoms events. So mashup was mashup just that it was at telco, so seeing as we ‘get’ the mashup way of doing things I thought I’d give it a try.  I enjoyed the event, and thinking about the potential of web services in mobile.

My to do list following the event:

• Follow up the great contacts I made with people interested in exploring possible integrations with and extensions of Treasuremytext
• Talk to Tim at from PhoneFromHere about adding ‘phone me’ options to Treasuremytext
• Use ZYB
• Check out clickpass and how we might integrate it to TMT
• Go to more mashup events
• Talk to Simon Grice a lot more!
• Sign up at http://seedfund.co.uk/ 

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Kisky Netmedia has been nominated for a Big Chip Award in the Best Freelancer/Micro Enterprise category. We’re pretty excited about that. About the Big Chip Awards: “Now ten years old, the Chips are far and away the biggest and most prestigious digital awards outside London.”

We won a Big Chip Award in 2004 for Treasuremytext (Best use of Wireless) and this year we’re hoping to attract the judges’ attention as a totally unique agency. Our specialism in Social Media Strategy has seen us grow an impressive client and project list since early 2007. We’ve become well known in the North West and further afield for our Social Media strategy and groundbreaking development projects such as ‘Show Me Social Media!’ sessions, tentantspin2.0, and The Bold Street Project. We’re currently working on some great new projects in Tourism and Social Media, “Facebook Strategies” for leading UK brands, as well as our work in the cultural sector.

More info at: bigchipawards.com

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Is business blogging a risky business? Why are UK companies slow on the uptake? Afraid perhaps? How can they get blogging whilst minimizing the risk and fear?

I’d say it’s much more risky not to blog (or grasp the 2.0 opportunity)!

— I wrote this several months ago for someone exploring why businesses (who are not involved in the web or social media) may not be embracing blogs and online social activity; where they feel the risk is. I wrote some of it for a journalist who approached me asking to comment and for some reason, it never got published. Perhaps they didn’t like what I had to say: maybe it was too promotional on my part, maybe it was a bit to close to the grain as the people I wrote it for also didn’t have a blog! Either way when I reread it I thought it wasn’t so bad, and as more and more of my clients are businesses entering the blog world for the first time, I thought I’d post it. —