The next Cafe meeting is Tuesday, June 24 at 6:30 at Tech Columbus, 1275 Kinnear Road.
Here’s the agenda:
Administrative Stuff
Update on Comfest (Andrew)
Podcast Discussion
Open Space with two different groups (unless everyone wants to do only one discussion topic versus two; if so, we’d opt for the SMART goals one but still break up into smaller groups.
Discussion around “Why are you attending the Café and what is the value of the group to you?”
Discussion around goals and values. Short discussion of SMART goals (Specific; Measurable; Attainable; Realistic; Timely). We’d begin by looking over our mission statement, which we should have ready to send out to everyone no later than Monday.
Upper Arlington students won a national video podcasting contest which asked the question of how German culture has helped to shape American culture. The prize is a 3 week immersion program in which the 2 students who produced the podcast will get to live and study in Germany. Upper Arlington Newspaper (SNP) has the full article here.
I found a few things fascinating about this article. {READ THE REST HERE}
Stefan Langer, the Webmaster for the Worthington Libraries, shared this information with me on how they are using social mediatoencourage people to read this summer.
One ofthe themesof our Summer Reading Program this yearisJust Read It!Since many of our staff members grew up in the 80s,it seemed only natural that we should spoof Michael Jackson’sBeat Itvideo.
It is our hope that this video willnotonlyhelpgarnera different kind of“buzz”for our Summer Reading Program this year,but it will hopefully also increaseawareness of theotheronlineeducationalprograms we offerthrough our Web site(Programsto Go)andYouTube. Just as importantly,we wanted toshow our sense of humor,challenging the stereotype of the stern,intimidating,shushing librarian. Certainly, no one canaccuse dancing librarians of taking themselves too seriously!In this way, we hope our staff will seem that much more approachable.
BesidesYouTube, we’vefeatured this video on several social networking sites, includingMySpace,Facebook,one ofour library blogs, and Worthington Libraries’ownpodcasting/videocasting Web site, Programsto Go.
More and more, public libraries are taking advantage of social networking technologies,tryingtomeet our patronsin the online spaces they are already frequenting.Will this video make a differenceto our Summer Reading Program this year?We’ll find out soon.Registration begins onJune 7th.
Thank you for your time. TheColumbus Social Media Cafe is a great idea!
Here’s a nifty video that demonstrates how Social Media creates a stronger community and increased dialogue. Hats off to leelefever who has posted his work on vimeo.
Blogger Sarah Perez has a terrific post on the ReadWriteWeb blog about using Social Media for Social Change — something that the Columbus Social Media Cafe has been discussing since our initial meeting.
The post details several examples demonstratting how social media is helping to bring about opportunities to make for real change for people in communities across the world. From helping earthquake victims in China through the Red Cross to using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace as vehicles to communicate opportunities for social change.
The post goes on to offer several other examples on how Social Media can inspire the on-line communities it creates to do good.
Reading this post comes off of a conversation I had last night at dinner with three very bright leaders in the Columbus community. We talked about the dangers of hate and misinformation on the web via the blogosphere. One of the people was very concerned that the noise these bloggers create will be so loud that it will overwhelm the voices communicating reason and civil discourse.
The rest of us agreed with that we should be cautious of this noise, but the that power of Social Media is the power of building trusted communities and relationships where the context of individual voices are respected, honored and valued by those members of the community. It is in these communities of interests that we will create the social change we seek to make our community better.
Please read the post, and then offer your thoughts on how the Columbus Social Media Cafe can create Social Change to make Columbus a more vibrant, tolerant, and livable city.
A new (to me) social media tool is out there called Care Pages [CarePages.com] which lets a user keep family and friends in the loop as to how a sick and hopefully recovering loved one is doing. I found out about the site due to yet another person in my circle suffering from cancer (seems like an appropriate weekend for that unfortunately). This was disheartening after just losing one family member this past week to that horrible disease. Hopefully this site doesn’t fall into the category of “need to use” for most of you I think it looks like a good tool for the less technologically minded and those who have other things to worry about than messing with their blog or whatever. I particularly like the security which keeps this site from becoming a gawk fest. Here’s what the company has to say about itself:
CarePages are free, easy-to-use Web pages, brought to you by Revolution Health, that help family and friends communicate when a loved one is receiving care.
I just discovered this blog managed by writer, techie, science-fan and mom Michelle Riggen-Ransom.
Michelle writes about how we’re using technology to better the world. Ideally it will be in a way that is entertaining and not overly earnest.
Given how our discussions among the Columbus Social Media Cafe have focused on using Social Media to help make Columbus better, I thought this might be a good site to bookmark.
