You can also add photos to the TAL Flickr group and join in longer conversations at the Google Group.

On Saturday me and Mike were lucky enough to enjoy a day in the sunshine in the name of work, giving something of a mini social media surgery under a tent in a field.  We spent the day introducing people enjoying Fulham Fest to the new community website for the London W14 & SW6 neighbourhoods, a ning site which manager Annette Albert has built up into a fantastic local resource that covers local events, news, groups and information.

We got a fair few signed up to the site and many got cracking with adding to it straight away by poll voting, posting events, starting discussions and joining groups.  What was most rewarding was inducting people who initially had reservations, either because of a fear of the technology or because they could not see how it might be used.  It was just a few simple steps to show people how easy the site is to navigate and discuss issues important to them that the site could help with.

Getting people there who were at first quite reticent enthusiastic about the site really highlighted the benefits of holding a social media surgery as part of a larger, community event.  Many of the people I met on Saturday wouldn’t have come to something solely about social media or using a community website, but by being part of a fun and informal family day we were able to teach in a relaxed, ‘non-training’ atmosphere and get past preconceptions they may have had.

So now I’m all for a social media tent becoming a staple part of local fetes and fairs.  Next time you’re organising a community festival or gathering, think about making space for a couple of laptops next to the face-painters.  It’s a great way of raising awareness of a new hyperlocal site and you’d be helping people discover something new, get involved with local activity and carry on communicating long after the party’s over.

Busker by Dan Green

I was pleasantly surprised to discover an old friend from my home town of Cardiff, photographer Dan Green, has started a brilliant local photography blog Big Little City – ‘a window into the lives of those people who help give cities their unique character’.  The site was born out of his first major exhibition, Cardiff Characters, which he has developed in his online space with pictures of people who epitomise Cardiff and reflect its ‘unique vibrancy and soul’.

The focus will be on highlighting communities and the people who make them tick be they a rugby star, a bus driver, a lollipop man or lady, an artist, waitress, café owner, musician, dancer, or eccentric.

It got me thinking about how people really make a place, and most communities have a few characters that you couldn’t imagine being without – be it because they’re local heroes, a bit eccentric, or just that they and what they do is such a long-standing local institution.

I can think of few from my neck of the woods, Digbeth, off the top of my head.  John Tighe, landlord of my local The Spotted Dog, who won Birmingham it’s Not Shit’s Brummie of the Year 2007 for his fight against a Noise Abatement Order.  His finest hour on Digbeth is Good is a film of him getting his head shaved for charity. Adam Crossley, author of Keep Digbeth Vibrant and Chair of the Digbeth & Highgate Residents’ Association, is always organising great local events with John and starting up quirky local websites.

And then there’s Mr Ralph.  Mr Ralph is something of a Digbeth institution, invariably found in one of the many Digbeth pubs, peddling customised goods from his battered old suitcases.  Rumour has it he holds the last existing Birmingham pedlars license.  I found Mr Ralph quite fascinating so I wrote a blog post about him after he kindly agreed to it, including photos of him and his Mr Ralph branded goods.

Do you have any key local characters like this?  People who really make your neighbourhood what it is?  Talk to them, see if there’s a way you could present them and the great stuff they do online somehow – be it with photography, film or just writing about them with passion.  Perhaps they’d like to contribute themselves, either on a regular basis or as a one-off with a story they want to tell. Try getting them and their voice onto your site, either by letting them speak for themselves or, if they’re a little shy, by telling as much of their story as they’re comfortable with.  That way your site starts talking about ‘who’, as well as about ‘where’ and ‘what’.

By far the most inspirational talk I heard at Open Tech 2009 conference was from Robin, a member of Space Hijackers, who spoke about ‘Community and Democracy in Hijacked Space’.  I’d recommend you listening again if you have the time.

It was a great to hear about play being used as a surprisingly effective and disruptive method of protest.  Space Hijackers, who attempt to ‘corrupt the culture of architecture, and destroy the hierarchies that exist’ by staging hilariously anarchic happenings, got me thinking about putting the fun back into local campaigning, which many hyperlocal sites find themselves involved with.

Obviously, justifiable anger and reasoned argument about issues causing serious damage to the community is a great and worthwhile thing, I’m not denying that.  It’s just that sometimes you’re met with problems so ridiculous the best option may be to fight like with like.

For instance, Birmingham pub The Rainbow has recently faced closure after Birmingham City Council served a Noise Abatement Order in response to complaints from one lone tenant, who lives in an apartment block built long after the pub was.  The council seeing fit to threaten this renowned live music venue because of one complainant, but aspiring to develop the area’s cultural character in their Big City Plan, seemed kafkaesque enough to warrant a game.  After hearing Robin speak, I was pondering on some noisy, twisted version of musical statues, or a loud complaints choir outside the council house.

The fun doesn’t necessarily have be physical, you can have it in your online space too.  Keep Digbeth Vibrant do a great job of tempering their obvious frustration with Birmingham City Council Environmental Health, with quirky creations like the spoof Stella advert above and The Digbeth Whisperer newspaper.

On my site Digbeth is Good, when Birmingham City Council Leader Mike Whitby commandeered a Big City Plan public consultation bus from my neighbourhood for a photoshoot on the other side of town, I initially responded with righteous indignation.  My emails and calls to the press office were met with a wall of silence until the fantastic local satire site Lolitics helped to bring it to a wider audience.  Soon after a lolled image of Mike Whitby appeared, closely followed by several of a walrus bemoaning the loss of his bus, I received an apologetic statement from Director of Planning and Regeneration Clive Dutton.  The increasing amount of attention from other sources the incident was getting seemed to make them realise ignoring me was not making me go away.

So next time you’re met with local plans, politics or problems that would be funny if they weren’t so angering, perhaps just try highlighting the funny.  Point out the silly and match it.  The results this approach gets from The Man may be limited, as he’s not known for his sense of humour, but it will make engaging with the issue much more fun for your readers, and give you a bit of light relief from feeling just plain mad.

This documentary of one man’s journey into the derelict Birmingham Battery building is one of the best YouTube films I’ve ever seen.  Not because of the production skills of creators Living Proof Films (great though they are), but because of the quite emotional narration.  You really do see inside the iconic building from the photographer’s perspective:

You begin to see the building as having a life of its own.  It has characteristics and charms, like a person does.  I must admit, I felt an attraction to the Birmingham Battery.

Although you do learn some things about the building whilst watching it, you are not left feeling you’ve been told all its facts and figures, instead you go on quite an intimate journey with the narrator and learn how he feels about the space.

Expressing a personal preference like this is far from a bad thing – buildings and spaces are not only special because of their architectural or scenic merit, they become special to people because of the responses they illicit or what happens within them.

For instance, many born and bred Brummies I know get quite nostalgic when walking past Snobs nightclub, a nondescript building which contained many a night of youthful abandon and coming-of-age episodes.  During a recent pub conversation no sooner had one person mentioned Snobs than everyone else enthusiastically chipped in with their stories.  It ended with plans to take a group trip there, to share more memories that walking through the nightclub might bring to mind. That’s the great thing about expressing your reactions to a shared space like that – others will be compelled to join in the conversation with their own tales about it.

Jon Bounds highlighted the importance of sharing personal stories about spaces when he created his Campaign for Real Heritage blue stickers, encouraging us to see that what we feel is important about a place holds as much value as the National Trust’s seal of approval, and should be duly marked:

‘…the real people have history too. It deserves recognition, YOUR history deserves a blue plaque.’

Ben Whitehouse spoke of creating a tour of alternative Birmingham landmarks, asking for suggestions of stories rather than traditional tourist spots.

I’d like to put together a list of places around the city (preferably the city centre) that hold personal resonances for people who’ve visited Birmingham, people who live, work and play here.

I’ve been running my own hyperlocal blog Digbeth is Good for just over a year now and, although it initially just contained local news, events and reviews, as my confidence grew it also unashamedly became my own personal journey through the area.  But I found readers reacted rather well to this, sometimes responding in kind with their own take on things.  For instance, an early post about Guardoggy prompted Bobbie Gardner to comment with her encounters of the dog.

So don’t be afraid to get personal with your site, and convey to readers your own reaction to the area as well as news and infomation about it.  You never know, it may encourage readers to chip in with their own stories and your site could become more than an information hub, it could be a place where a community feels free to express itself.

One of my favourite books at the moment is called Watching the English, by Kate Fox. In it she puts forward some very persuasive generalisations about how we use our gardens, including the observation that we will wait for months for an opportune moment to speak to our neighbours in their front gardens rather than knock on their front doors.  This is certainly true for me – memories of a stint selling Avon door-to-door still bring me out in a cold sweat – and it holds true in Stoke-on-Trent, right through to her other observation that except when they are serving as a neutral space to chat about the weather and that awkward planning application you put in, front gardens are for show only.

Anyway, it was looking for a more succint reference to these observations that I stumbled across a new seam of hyperlocal blogging in Britain: the garden blogs. Starting off with the Patient Gardener’s Weblog from Worcestershire, the bloggers have formed a clear community across the country and share delightful photos, drawings, questions and observations. A look through the Patient Gardener’s blogroll quickly takes you as far as California and Nova Scotia, but of course many of you will prefer sticking to England and the chance to peer into some luscious hidden back gardens and allotments. You can even follow the journey of a novice bee-keeper.

There’s always a bit of a perception that blogging is for computer geeks or wannabe politic pundits, but the ease of blogging, linking and adding photography means that there are plenty of communities sharing their passions for each other and the rest of the world. If you’re wondering whether this applies to your hobbies and interests, have a browse round WordPress’s Showcase section or Google blog search. (example). ‘Passion-blogging’ is also a great place to start if you’re not sure you have anything interesting enough to blog about. Regular, enthusiastic, reflective and useful blogging will always find an audience, especially if you make the effort to put friendly feelers out to other bloggers through comments and links to posts you enjoy. And as the gorgeous gardening blogs show, there’s no such thing as too hyperlocal.

Pretty photos courtesy of the Flickr community and Flickriver.

Google’s LocalGov day was a great insight into how the engineers use their own tools. For the hyperlocal blogger this is really useful. I don’t know who you are or what you want to do, but chances are a few of these powerful tools will help you do it really easily – and, of course, for free.

Build a hyperlocal map

There are growing numbers of mapping tools out there and if you like exploring places through photos Flickr has a library of 83 million. However, My Maps on Google has more flexibility and the crossovers to Google Earth and Street View. Create your own little empire or collaborate with others.

Compare stuff

This is very clever. You know when you go through a load of Google searches to compare different fast cars? No longer necessary. I’m looking forward to the chance to impress any small child with my encyclopedic knowledge of beetles, too.

Collaborate with other people

Google Docs is so obvious, so *there*, that you can forget about it. But I’ve played with many different types of collaborative wikis and normally got back the email equivalent of blank looks – apparently the majority of people who visit Wikipedia never realise they can edit it. They’re easy once you know how, but if you want to skip the explaining bit, Google Docs has plenty of ways of sharing and collaborating in familiar environments to most computer users.

Tell the stories of your place in live action

One of the bits that really got me at Google was a video from Sweden. The man pointed at a mountain and bam! the mountain started telling its own story via Wikipedia! It’s not magic, it’s called “augmented reality” – and its cheaper and cooler than breast surgery. (?)
This is the sort of thing developers are building for open source Android phones and if you want to create a handy guide to your own local area for residents and visitors, you can add hyperlocal content for inclusion on Wikitude.

Make videos interactive

Just an easy addition to Youtube that could have really powerful uses and don’t forget you don’t need expensive equipment to create videos, most mobile phone will give you something reasonable enough for a small video. You can use annotations to turn videos into a trail, with choices, do clever things with the navigation or link to other types of content. Here’s an example:

Translate between languages

Google has a range of language tools, from simple copy-and-paste boxes that let you get the gist of what your Chinese cousin is saying to you, to clever little bots that help you look multi-lingual in chat without embarrassing yourself. For those who really want to make sure they’re getting it right, the Google Translate Toolkit enables collaborative human translation with plenty of assistance from machines.

If you’re interested in all the shiny things I picked up at the Google day, follow my linktrail here. I’ll leave you with one more video, the one I’m sending to *everyone* at the moment. If you liked what came before, you might like this…

Directions to the campus can be found here

Stoke is easily accessible from most rail routes, the M6 and even canal.

The conference is not for you to come and be comatised by web 2.0 marketeers telling you how you can monetize 24/365 relationships or transition viral ROI it is for real people, running real hyperlocal sites to network with people who are doing the same thing.

The thing people say to us most when we are talking about Talk About Local (and you may have noticed we love to talk about it!) is ‘I didn’t know anyone else was doing this’  so we are giving you the chance to meet up with all the other people who you didn’t know were doing the same as you!

The format is going to be Unconference, fun, relaxed and informal.    As well and the unconference event, we will be holding social media surgeries where you can come along and speak to friendly developers and experts to get advice about your site or how to fix that niggling problem you just can’t seem to get your head around.

The best bit is it’s free! Yes FREE!

But there is no such thing as a free lunch I hear you cry.

Well actually there is because we will even feed you during the day!

Please click HERE and fill in our very simple pre registration form and we’ll add you to our mailing list, as soon as we have the venue confirmed we’ll drop you a mail with all the details.

The sesions will comprise of:

• An introduction to blogging
• How hyperlocal sites can help you communicate better in your community
• Using blogging as a platform to help with community action and getting your voice heard
• Blogging platforms
• Setting up a blog

If you are interested in learing more about blogging and how to empower yourself online then please fill in THIS FORM

All we need from you is your name, E-mail address and location, so we can arrange a suitable location with our delivery partners UK online centres.  We need about 10 people in one location to make the sessions viable and they are only open to individuals and community groups (corporate training can be arranged).

Once we have enough interest in one area we will arrange a suitable date to run the session.

Bournville has no local newspaper and little going for it on the web – and tons of advertisers who would love to have their services published to the local community. Seems like a sure fire hit? Well it takes time and energy to set up – and it’s only little old me working on it at the mo – albeit with a web of friendly and supportive bloggers in Birmingham and plenty of other hyperlocal experts to take advice from.

However, Hannah has found the time to build up an insightful community blog.  Bournville Village has not only given a local perspective to the story of gunshots in the traditionally peaceful village, which has received some coverage in the Birmingham Mail, but has also shed light on the smaller stories of concern to villagers, such as a pump installation in the Row Heath Park pond to save its fish.

Bournville Village has some quite useful aggregation, with RSS feeds of Twitter mentions and Flickr photos on the site to link villagers up to online activity about their area.  Hannah is also working to take the pressure off ‘only little old me’ by building up a team of authors with different voices and views, and has already found a first recruit in the shape of Birmingham blogger Dave Harte.

….hyper-local, collaborative and aggregation seem to me to be key terms in the future of local journalism online. And I’m excited my home town Birmingham is pioneering such innovative and exceptional work.

Bournville Village is an interesting example of how traditional media training can be translated into creating an informative community site, and Hannah looks set to answer William Perrin’s question to site managers of ‘What would you do with a journalist?‘ by example.