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.

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