Columbus Social Media Cafe – a quick review

The Social Media Cafe Gains Momentum!

We excited about the potential of the Social Media Café. The group is still growing and acquiring ideas while refining the purpose and defining the projects the group will pursue in the next year. Here are the cliff notes of what has happened to date. Anyone is invited to join us for the next meeting.

Be There and Be Heard
Next Meeting April 29th
OCLC – Kilgour Building
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH 43017
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (?)
See the March 20th post for more details

A review of meetings and posts to date shows these common themes:

Task: Create a central website, which serves as an agora for information and communication. Here are some web sites that have elements of the model for the central site:
http://www.vocalo.org

http://www.npr.org/getmyvote

http://columbus.thedownbeat.org/

Elements of this site:

• A central site, which is a user friendly, serves as a clearing house for blogs, websites, podcasts, videocasts, and etc., that are about and/or created in Central Ohio.

• This site would provide information about all things Columbus. The site would provide a means for people to communicate and comment on issues in the City and/or their community (a community can be a place, a concept, an issue, or a demographic – Short North, Food, Public Transportation, Green issues, Mommy blogging, etc)

• There would be a “loop” of communication. Content on WOSU – radio, TV, or other media might be on the site or vice versa, a topic on the site may become topic for WOSU. So instead of traditional “push” media – the outcome is “conversational media” which allows people to communicate on a topic using many types of media in an interactive manner.

• All the voices in Columbus would have a home here.

• A toolbox of links would be provided so a person could find resources on blogging, podcasting, etc. Additional tools and resources would be provided through the site, which would allow someone without access to technology to add their voice, by alternate means, such as a telephone.

• Some members of the group would do outreach in the community – especially under represented communities with the tools needed to help people add their voices to this forum. For example – going to a nursing home and helping someone add their “2 cents” via a voice recorder to post on the site.
• Creating a site and doing outreach are launching points – there is much for this group to do.

Other Projects the Social Media Café Would Coordinate:

Outreach and training to the Community on the skills needed to add more voices from the community – this may be a workshop at COSI, a library or elsewhere.

Ongoing meetings by the group as a whole and as smaller groups to continue to grow improve and expand on the ideas the group has discussed.

A potential short term goal is a booth at Comfest (June 24, 28, and 29) which would share the mission of the Social Media Café to the community and possibility be the first time we use Social Media for the community to tell their stories about Comfest and more.

After the March 18th meeting – there were the questions the group wants to explore and answer over the next month and beyond. Feel free to post here and share your ideas.

• What should the name of the site be?

(Two possibilities so far – NextVoices, Voices of Columbus)

• What is our mission – what is our mission statement to guide the group and give the public a quick idea of what we want to accomplish?

• What are the collective values for the projects the Social Media Cafe works on and promotes? One common value was the need for inclusion for all communities

• Who are we missing? (We need more people from every segment of our community – all are welcome but we do not know how to find some of you and get you to the Media Cafe Meetings.)

• What smaller groups do we want to form?

(A group to create the central site, a group to locate missing content/voices, a training cadre, etc.)