Fine but show me how the web can solve ‘real’ issues.
There’s a great story over at Pete Ashton’s blog about how his post on the use of street advertising by the Birmingham Rep got a response from the senior staff involved (of both the Rep and the advertising company) and resulted in a solution, an apology and even a donation to charity.
Now the title of this blog post is more to bait comment than suggest that the defacing of a work of art isn’t a ‘real’ issue but I think it might be less of an issue than the systematic decay of the streets where my Mom lives in Alum Rock. I did three things to try to get some movement on this. I wrote to the local councillors for the constituency, I made a request through fixmystreet.com and I blogged about it. The letter got a response to say it was being looked at, the fixmystreet.com request got acknowledged by streatcleansing@birmingham.gov.uk very quickly but with no progress two months later and the blog post got a single comment.
So what’s going on here? How do I work the web in such a way that produces the kind of swift action we saw over the Rep’s adverts?
Another walk through Birmingham
This might develop into an occasional series as and when I take it upon myself to use my legs to get me from meeting to meeting rather than use the car or public transport.
This walk is from Jewellery Quarter to Fazeley Studios, Digbeth: 1.9 miles, allow 30 – 40 mins.
You can track the walk on the map which has some pics I took along the way attached. Here are some additional observations:
- I actually started the walk from my workplace, B1 building but as it’s opposite the lovely Spring Hill library. I’d recommend the casual walker to begin there. It’s on the number 8 circular route or numbers 82, 87, 88 from the city centre.
- Legge Lane in the Jewellery Quarter is narrow, mostly near derelict and really quite appealing. Nice views to the city centre as well. There’s an interesting history of the Ashton & Moore factory which links this part of the walk to the meeting I was heading to.
- Be careful where Legge Lane meets Frederick street. There’s no traffic lights and the road is quite busy to cross. Note the blue plaque to Joseph Gillott, pen maker, on the building on the left after you’ve crossed.
- Don’t go stopping at some city centre Starbucks for a break, try Pickwick’s cafe on Newhall street. Good value sandwiches, soup, jacket potatoes etc. Tell ‘em Dave sent you. They won’t have a clue what you’re on about but if enough of you do it it’ll get them thinking.
- As you continue up Newhall street and pass over my favourite road tunnel pause to reflect how great this junction could be if we managed to take away most of the on-street traffic.
- After you go through St Philip’s Cathedral you’ll find yourself on Upper Bull street. Pop into Tempest records. Take time to browse and purchase a record or two. Are they and Swordfish Records on Upper Temple street the only independent record shops left in Birmingham city centre? Are there any other ‘Upper’ streets left in Birmingham on which one could open another?
- To get behind Dale End there’s a gap to the right of the MacDonald’s, it isn’t signposted so you might miss it. Shed a tear about how they destroyed a great part of the city centre.
- After the scruffy area behind the shops it opens out to the under-development Masshouse area but look to your right to see St Michael’s Church. Services in Polish every Sunday.
- As I’ve said to many people, Fazeley street is a far more preferable way to get to Digbeth. I like it in its current under-developed state. I’m not sure that the Warwick Bar proposals will ever see the light of day now will they?
- Even if Fazeley studios isn’t your final destination do peek inside – they won’t mind (tell ‘em Dave sent you….). It’s a lovely reception area and even better when you’re there to meet Pete Ashton who’s already got the kettle on.
My journey ended here but for the return route you could get on to the canal or return via Digbeth High street and the city centre. I’ll keep the routes coming as and when I have reason to walk them.
Getting Birmingham Businesses online
(pic Dr Craig)
This is part crowdsourcing, part just setting my stall out.
One of the aspects of my new job that I’m wrestling with is the notion that no matter what kind of business you are you need to have an online presence. In Digital Birmingham we have a target for increasing the amount of businesses trading online but ‘trading’ needn’t necessarily imply buying or selling online. It might mean getting customers interested enough to talk to you about a contract over a rival. It might mean increasing your business contacts by using any number of social media networking tools. It might simply mean getting yourself listed in online directories enough times so that you come up high in google when a new customer is fishing around.
But how do you develop a strategy to get Birmingham businesses online? Here’s my take on it as a series of questions that I’d welcome responses on:
What are we measuring?
Pete Ashton has a specific target in mind for Custard Factory clients. He wants 50% of them blogging by next year and at the moment 18 of them are. Anything with content that can be subscribed to counts. So Pete has a baseline to work on, it’s measurable and specific. What’s the appropriate measure for the city as a whole? There are some EU benchmarks which are worth considering and tell us lots about the national picture for e-commerce (UK is 2nd in the EU for enterprises selling goods online) but they only cover part of the story.
So my first question is really: What’s the measurable? Is it an E-commerce one or a ‘subscribable content’ one or something else?
Why should Dean the Builder care?
Dean is knocking a hole in the wall of my living room on Friday (it’s okay, I asked him to). He comes recommended by a neighbour. But Dean is just a phone number and a cheery smile – he’s legit and everything but works alone or in a small team and picks up work based on personal contacts. He’s got tons of work so what’s being online got to do with Dean? There’s plenty of places you can see a generic rationale for getting businesses online but little tailored to specific sectors. Dean is reasonably priced, in fact I think I’m getting a bargain for the work he’s doing. He doesn’t need to advertise for more work but I wonder if there’s a place online where he could pitch for higher value work? Same effort, more reward should maybe be his goal.
So the real question here is: Do we need a sector-specific approach or a wider there’s-something-for-everyone approach?
How do we make change happen?
I like the Social Media Surgery approach. Get some keen people in a room and give away your knowledge for the greater good. Is that scaleable across the city? Seems a tough task if it is. Are there enough online experts to go around? Perhaps instead there’s a staged approach to take. Business leaders could start to use the tools themselves and hope that others follow. Perhaps identify and support a specific business on its digital media journey (no I’m not asking Dean, he’s got a hole to create). I’m unsure a ‘let’s-do-workshops’ approach will work at this scale. It’s a ‘heart-and-minds’ thing isn’t it?
So: what are the specific actions we need to take? On the ground working with businesses or a big fat PR campaign?
Who’s on board?
Which businesses in the city are already doing this stuff? The media/creative industries ones certainly are and they should really be demonstrating to others the benefits of working online. I suspect the business sector as a whole is still very firmly of the belief that websites are brochures. At best they can show off stock. Perhaps you might sell stuff through it. But online as a way to build customer networks, social media as a tool to position yourself as the supplier of choice, as a way to continue the conversation started at the golf course – that thinking seems a way off yet. But there are useful corporate examples out there and maybe a public/private coalition could help drive this forward.
Which brings me to: Who is the ‘we’ that need to make change happen? Digital Birmingham + Chamber of Commerce? + Universities? + Tech firms? + a network of leading bloggers/social media types?
Any thoughts on all this are welcome.