Twestival 2010

March 26th, 2010
Picture 16

A year has passed since the first Twestival in Manchester, and although I’m sure you’ll hear much about the money that was raised for @concern and the great work it will do, I wanted to highlight how much things have changed.

In 2009 Twitter was for those who wanted to share and embrace ideas, ask for help or off load their frustrations about the projects they were working on, it was real people sharing real things in a virtual world.  Twestival brought these people together and virtual relationships were cemented in real life. Many of the PR and media types were only just beginning to take the social media space seriously and a few uninitiated PR and marketing types hovered around the edges like fish out of water. (classical example, one PR agency put forwards a gadget as an auction prize that wasn’t MAC compatible – eek(!))

A year on, and we’re in HulaBar – the place is bustling as virtual relationships are cemented into real life. But the question is . . . . where are the Twitter fans of old? The event was full of PR people who are now firmly planted in the Twitter culture. I was asked by an interviewer my twitter name, why i use Twitter and my favourite celeb to follow – after admitting celeb followings isn’t really my thing the girl seemed to be at a loss.

I couldn’t help but think that the place I should have been was over in Madlab, where all the interesting people had got together to talk emerging digital, what’s new and how the landscape is changing.

The Madlab is a community space for people who want to do and make interesting stuff – a place for geeks, artists, designers, illustrators, hackers, tinkerers, innovators and idle dreamers; an autonomous R&D laboratory and a release valve for Manchester’s creative communities.

It’s here where PR and social media people need to be paying attention. It’s here where we’ll understand about what happens after Twitter. It’s here where we’ll learn.

So, I was asked at the event which person I’d recommend to follow this Friday – on reflection I change my answer to this follow @Madlab.

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Journo for a day

March 9th, 2009

Last Thursday I spent the day as a newshound at the Manchester Evening News.

Democracy had bid for the pleasure at Twestival last month and I was the lucky recipient of a day as a journalist with self confessed Blogger, journalist, foodie and social media junky Sarah Hartley.

I met Sarah bright and early at Urbis to take a peak at Channel M‘s Breakfast Show. I was amazed by the levels of calm in the studio; that was until we popped down to the gallery and heard what was going on behind the scenes and in everyone’s ears.

Following a quick dash across the city I met the very charming people at the Newsdesk then headed out to meet journalist Chris Osuh at the County Court.

After a morning learning about court reporting I returned for the 12.30 conference where the editors of each section share their stories for the next day’s paper.

Dianne Bourne of The Diary Page then injected some glamour into the day as the three of us went out for a lovely lunch at San Carlo (apparently a celeb favourite although sadly I didn’t spot any).

Back to it and a whistle-stop tour of the important people of the Newsroom including Business and Sports editors as well as the Sub Editors.

What struck me most was the way the whole newsroom is getting involved in providing online content alongside putting together a paper which is published three times a day.

Quick stop at the 4pm conference then off to the spectacular Great John Street Hotel with Dianne to meet Debbie Rush (Corrie’s Anna Windass) and her lovely family for a Mother’s Day feature.

The cakes that formed part of the afternoon-tea themed interview sustained me until 7.30, and 12 hours after I’d met Sarah I’d definitely got the full picture of life at the MEN.

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