Organise, Activate and Influence: Social Activism Online in Ireland
Hopefully the next few months will show that people have organised, activated and influenced as a result of the really good conference that was held on Saturday in the EU offices in Dublin. A huge congratulations must be given to Philippe, Ruth and Cian for doing so much work and putting a really good and diverse day together.
Zack was brilliant and insightful as usual and it was nice to meet him after chatting on GMail Chat for years and I was very impressed with Damian O’Broin‘s presentation. You can see it here. He’s one of the best Irish presenters I’ve seen. He should get into training people on how to do it right. (Seriously Damian, most Irish business people cannot do it right. Teach them.)
I met loads of bloggers and non-bloggers too and had a great chat, gossip and bitch with Keith Martin about politics. He’s fairly normal for a guy that’s into politics. That’s rare! The networking was really good and it was great to see a lot more non-political people at it and there was a good gender balance at it. In the audience at least…
There were many views about Irish blogging from people that didn’t blog, some constructive, some moronic. Oh yes, nothing is WRONG with Irish Blogging just because an area isn’t covered by bloggers. We’re not the public service. A gap in the market doesn’t mean all other markets are wrong.
What I would love though is maybe for a group, perhaps the EU, to run an event where members of the media talk and train people to do research the way journalists do, how to verify sources and turn gossip into hard facts or find out what they have will never hold. Bloggers could become an R&D army for journalists if those journalists guide them on how to do it. The vast vast majority of bloggers want nothing more than attribution, they don’t want to be in the papers writing their own columns, they prefer the freedom of a blog. Why not up the quality of all media by getting the amateurs to up their game?
I’d love to see more Europeans come along to the next event and show how they’re using blogs and social media for political and campaigning uses. Be great to see Simon Dickson asked to talk about his work with the UK Gov and Downing Street. Blogs, vids and Twitter for example.
A fantastic event, I don’t want to wait another two years for another though. For those that went or were interested in this, what would you like to see if there is a future event?
Photo above is by Red Mum and some brilliant ones from the day are here.
