Yesterday evening I sat in a crowded pub in Moseley, an attendee of my first barcamp event. Well it didn’t strictly follow the barcamp format, but it had a collection of short presentations by local webnorati and social media types. It was good, and I’d do it again (photos here).

If you decide not to read all of this post, I urge you to read the final paragraph (but it’d be great if you did look at the rest too!).

One question that has been raised and discussed recently is that of the stability or existence of a ‘local web scene’. Matt bravely volunteered himself to poll the masses at the barcamp, and put the question to the floor, “Well, is there one?”

There was most certainly a mixed response, but the most noticeable thing is that is was nearly all positive. People seemed deeply passionate about the topic, and I thought I’d summarise the salient points.

Clearly some people already believe Birmingham has very much a thriving ‘web community’. A few people highlighted that there had recently been some extremely positive praise by communities in other regions, including specific examples from London and Spain, which came as a surprise to me, although it quickly became apparent that there are two different things we are talking about here.

Firstly is the idea of what the web community is. Someone from the floor pointed out that Birmingham does have a fantastic reputation for Social Media - and this might be considered a group of it’s own - web development and design is another, and perhaps this is why there is some disparity. Despite highlighting this difference (which quickly became apparent through the comments from the floor) this particular contributor suggested that there might be a difference now, but he personally believed that greater overlap of the two web communities would benefit everyone.

There also seemed to be a feeling that, to quote another contributor, Birmingham sometimes feels like “an echo chamber”, a place where a lot is talked about, but sometimes, not all that much materialises. Several people agreed with this point, and others mentioned that although there were pockets of vibrancy, it did seem to lack wide-scale co-operation and joined-up-ness.

Despite this, it was possible to intone that people were not keen on ‘branding’ Birmingham; something which I happen to agree with. Umbrella organisations wouldn’t benefit anyone here and with so many strong identities already here, this should provide the groundswell that lifts the city’s profile alone. Several people commented on the uniqueness of the community, and one person specifically said that they didn’t want to interfere with it’s natural development or an attempt to perhaps ‘commercialise’ the process. There had been suggestions during the evening that some central shared space might benefit the community and stimulating more collaboration.

This however leads onto the second thing I observed. There seems to be a marked difference between the internal and external perceptions of The City. From my very unscientific canvassing of @media attendees last week, it seemed the perceptions of folk involved in the web industry in other cities were not necessarily negative, but certainly nothing more than neutral - mostly responding “I don’t think anything happens there”. Nobody I asked seemed to be aware of anything that was going on up here, and there was general feedback that they didn’t believe the midlands had any web based networks at all- perhaps strange considering we may have more networks here than in many of the major northern cities.

This seemed in stark contrast to many local people who contributed opinions suggesting we have a very strong and feature-packed web scene.

As part of external perceptions, Stuart proposed that we might need to be careful about losing out to Manchester in becoming regarded as the Second Digital City, which seemed to rub some audience members the wrong way, who fairly questioned why we couldn’t be the First Digital City (in a way that seemed to suggest that some people believe we are already in pole position). Although it seemed not to have been received well, I think it actually proved that people are very passionate about this, and would go as far to say it seems people do want to give London and other potential digital destinations a run for their money. I think they were simply irked at being told that we might have no chance of achieving that.

Earlier, Stuart had suggested to me that we are potentially at a tipping point and I very much agree. In three years time, we may either be ‘the place to do digital business’, or we may miss our opportunity because we failed to promote our efforts externally more effectively. It’s a crown up for grabs, and I think it would be a great shame for a city like Manchester to add that string to it’s bow, especially if regionalisation does remain important (and I still believe it will, because great community seems to breed excellent output).

In my view, those who are heavily involved in projects locally (Social Media Cafe, Likemind, Social Media Surgeries, Multipack etc etc) do a great job of engaging local people who are seeking involvement, but struggle to attract wider audiences or change the wider perception that Birmingham doesn’t appear to have a great digital offering. I don’t doubt that groups of people who come to work here leave very impressed, but I don’t necessarily think that is enough to win widespread external regard - especially since Birmingham has a long standing image problem that is still dogged by stereotypical regional perceptions (something I have experienced on a number of occasions in the past few weeks).

Someone made an astute point that perhaps continually asking others might be part of the problem and suggested we might be better acting as amplifiers for the successes of regions existing communities. Perhaps we should be actively talking to people in purely positive terms about the existing scene here. I think as West Midlanders, we tend to be a fairly modest people and I worry that we do indeed miss a trick when representing ourselves to key parties. As the guys from Created in Birmingham interestingly pointed out, we do enjoy being the underdog and I do wonder if it is perhaps a reason why external views on the city are almost inexistent - we simply are not wired to better our lot. 

OK, so I think I’ll sum up my views on this. Clearly ‘scene’ is important and we’re still in the formative stages. In some sectors we are well regarded already, in other sectors more work is needed. Work is needed to promote Birmingham’s digital merits externally to competitive cities and regions, but also we need to engage people within this area who still are not aware of the cauldron of activity that apparently is present in The City. The tools are appearing to do this, and with the launch of Josh’s digitalbrum.co.uk (and the various partner sites) it’s becoming easier to tackle some of these issues.

But no matter your opinions, I would suggest one thing to help grow the outwards facing image of Birmingham and the Midlands as a digital centre. The next time you engage someone from outside the region in discussion, refrain from the negative, refrain from indifference and proclaim some of the great stuff going on here, whether you know the details or not. Reference it, use it, make examples of it. I think a shift in the way we talk about ourselves might just improve the impression we maybe conveying already - whether we realise it or not.

Comments (4)

I’ve been thoroughly booked up the past few days. What with having a bit of a large night out on Friday with George, Will and Gwyz I was on surprisingly good form for Saturday’s Multipack, although I did avoid revisiting the beer.

Hosted entirely in Digbeth (just below Brum city proper) we had a really good turn out and I met a good number of new faces. Kudos to Mr Oxton who made a nice comment about me on his blog for the price of a Guinness.

Matt’s talk on ARIA was a nice little intro to a wider subject that I had previously known little about, whereas Bruce very neatly illustrated some of the finer points of HTML 5 as it stands and the political wrangling that always threatens with web-specs. Stuart rounded off everything with the most technical part - outlining the best bits of ‘new’ JavaScript and what we can look forward to from browser support in the future. I suppose it therefore was only fitting that he had co-ordinated with Apple to release the upcoming beta of Safari so soon afterwards… (I also quite surprised myself when I realised I had understood pretty much all of it).

Other things I took away from the day was a brief and sandwich-punctuated discussion about Microformats and Birmingham Social Media with Andy Mabbett; a chance to examine the new and neatly put together studios of One Black Bear; discuss wacky Japanese architecture with Jon Dennis and discover why exactly Tess was brandishing a thick PHP textbook at the last meeting. And of course it was great to see all the usual suspects as well. Photos here.

The only disappointment was that the sun didn’t last until Sunday but since then I’ve seen Raj, Tom and George, caught up on Lost and Flight of The Conchords (of which episode 5 is a cracker) organised go-karting for the weekend and been pleased by what the accountant had to say about the business helping to pay the rent.

Tomorrow I’m doing my annual attendance at the old school, answering questions on web design for kids about to pick their A-Level subjects. The buffet is usually excellent.

I’m also looking forward to the next couple of months. I’ve organised a trip down to Southampton on business, have a great piece of work coming up which almost makes me envious of myself (if that’s possible) and am eagerly awaiting delivery of rare book purchase (for me anyway) - the Typographic Desk Reference. It will nicely prop up the one other proper design book I own.

I think this photo most adequately sums up last Friday.

Comments (0)

Last weekend was the November Multipack and proved to be pretty packed out… we struggled to find seating big enough to accomodate us all at the Old Joint Stock so eventually moved on to the Windsor. There were some new faces along too which is always good, and I was able to interrogate Mark and Anthony about technical things, so pretty productive really.

Finally I got the opportunity to see Tim Minchin live on Wednesday at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester. It’s an odd building in as much as we initially couldn’t find the entrance, but the converted church made an interesting comedy venue (we we’re all sat tongue-and-groove in the pews) and it was a very enjoyable evening. I was a bit concerned about the acoustics initially as we we’re pretty much the last people to book seats and so were sat right at the back, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. I’d forgotten how hard it had been to get hold of tickets in the first place until I learnt the family next to us (oddly split up with us in the middle) had travelled down from Blackpool - a four hour journey one way - just to get the last few seats for the show.

And tomorrow I go to Manchester for Mike’s birthday. My last visit was exactly one year ago, and I have a feeling it probably will get as messy as last time (Mike is a little predictable when it comes to organising get togethers).

I thought this was quite funny.

Comments (0)

I’d definitely say the highlight of the weekend was slamming my middle right index finger (mostly the nail part) in the front door this evening. I have never been so thankful for frozen peas and arnica in all my life.

Apart from that spectacular and ultimately regretful piece of malcoordination, Saturday and Sunday have been generally all-round less painful. Multipack turned three this month, and so to celebrate Trev  bought a large bag of lovely, crunchy badges with the logo on. I had to leave the meeting early, so missed out on the planned meal, but as usual there was plenty of discussion although once again I proved my ineptitude by forgetting to take any photos, so I can’t prove any of it took place.

The reason for the early departure was another spur-of-the-moment roadtrip; this time Bristol to see James and the new flat. Coincidentally it turned out both Andrew and Paul we’re coming down at the same time, so it ended up as a bit of an unplanned Australian adventure reunion. A few beers in Clifton and some late night Mariocart was definitely a good way to relax, and being probably the last bright weekend we’re going to get this year, I was pleased to get a sunny drive there and back. I managed to completely miss the Grand Prix as Helen and the others indulged in watching an entire three hour X-Factor marathon this morning - a programme which I have discovered is capable of bringing out in me, a Cowell-like vindictiveness and ability to criticise a singer’s choice of song and dress, that until now I wasn’t aware of.

My finger still hurts and I will continue to moan like a hypochondriac child until what I will over-embellish as ‘the horrific bruising’ decides to subside.

Comments (0)

So the weather wasn’t really ideal for Geek In The Park, but that didn’t stop the forty or so alcoholic web-types descending on Leamington for a bit of a social and some icon-making, microformat-implementing fun.

Big thanks must go to Trev for organising the whole things, and of course a tip of the hat to One Black Bear for sponsoring it all. Jon and Drew’s talks we’re really informative and great chance to quiz them about their methods.

Of note, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many iPhones in one place in all my life.

The week since has been pretty intense work-wise for various reasons, and I’m looking forward to some respite - on Wednesday I jet to Spain with Sean to go and upset Devito for a week. Looking forward to it a lot.

Raj interviewed me for a radio production not too long ago and I’m interested to hear the final results sometime soon. I think I was just overwhelmed at how simple it is to get high quality audio using the very expensive stick mic he has. Nice toy.

I went and splashed out on a DualHead2Go last week, and for those not in the know (probably most people), it allows you to add another screen to your iMac or Macbook, that is, when you already have two. The result, three screens. It’s all powered by USB which is useful, but has the unfortunate downside that the two additional screens it allows must sit side by side, turning my dream setup of central iMac with two satellite screens into a total rearrangement of my office. Also, it’s best to attempt it with two monitors of the same shape and size, as my current setup is a little mind bending when it comes to following the cursor. I maybe in the business of buying a new monitor soon. It looks like I’m running the Matrix. Badly.

Today is a beer festival in Worcester, so it looks like I’ll be smashed enjoying it all afternoon.

Comments (0)

Just a brief reminder, but Multipack’s free Geek In The Park event returns next weekend to beautiful Leamington Spa (easily accessible from the Midlands, t’up North and dairn Souf by train* or car).
Trev has secured a great line up of Jon Hicks and Drew McLellen to speak at the evening event (the web bit), so this is a great chance to see two highly regarded faces from the worlds of design and development sharing some of their knowledge, costing you nothing more than the price of a journey.

If you’d like to come along (and please feel welcome to bring your family and friends for a bit of a picnic during the afternoon should the weather be good) you can find details on the website, where you can also sign up for more details.

* Trains from London Marylebone cost approx £16 return (return is valid for 30 days!), but please bear in mind the last train is just before ten so you may miss the very last part of the evening event if you have to go back this way. Trains from Birmingham cost just £7 return and take about 40 minutes.

Comments (2)

The past couple of weeks have been pretty intense - with a number of larger projects on the boil its been a case of buckling in and getting into some serious coding - something I don’t spend a lot of my time doing, but generally ends up being more enjoyable than I would imagine.

Because of this, I unintentionally and yet completely skipped any mention of the last Multipack meet. I also haven’t mentioned any of the social activity that’s been going on, or reviewed any of the new music I’ve been listening too (however I now have a last.fm account after a bit of pressure). Nor have I mentioned that I spent all of yesterday in meetings in London, and that my phone broke and I spent half a day doing the maths on how to best break out of my contract early (unfortunately my optimism has been dashed. I haven’t even had the opportunity to mention that another friend of mine is to become a Dad (congratulations Dan!).

Things don’t look like they are going to be quietening down either. The next few weeks are likely to be busy too, although I’m hoping I’ve found a solution (at least in part) and ultimately I’ve got a week away in Spain to be looking forward too. That said, I’m still pining for something slightly more exotic, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t make some rash travel arrangements before the year is out.

I’m really looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight.

Comments (0)