A community around using social tech for social impact
Making connections
Hello and welcome to the first post, of what I hope will be many more, as the Community Voices project develops.
The Community Voices team is now in place and you can meet the team on the Community Voices blog (http://communityvoicesuk.wordpress.com/) . We'll also be Tweeting via our @CommVoices twitter site.
This week I've been focused on making connections, both in the professional sense and from a marketing point of view. What have I learnt? Well, in terms of marketing, blanket communications can be useful but they don't connect with marginalised communities. They don't address the specific communication barriers that marginalised groups face, be it language or literacy barriers, cultural beliefs or physical factors such as geography. For the uninitiated this form of marketing is called Social Marketing, and it has been used very successfully for health related causes, such as HIV, smoking, etc for some time. There is even an Institute of Social Marketing (http://www.ism.stir.ac.uk/index.htm) . In terms of connecting with isolated and disadvantaged communities to help build cohesiveness or to help empower citizens, this seems to be a new area and not one extensively explored or researched.
On a professional level (and connected with social marketing), we want to connect with digital media experts. What's digital media - well anything that uses digital technology, could be on film, podcast, photo, online or even on mobile. What's an expert? Well, there's loads out there, within communities, working professionally or just using digital media as a hobby. The challenge is to make the connection between the expert and the community - this is where Community Voices comes in. We want to connect local experts with people who want to inspire, engage and empower their community. You can find out more at http://www.mediatrust.org/communityvoices.
I think there's a subject for discussion here!
Aidan
The Community Voices team is now in place and you can meet the team on the Community Voices blog (http://communityvoicesuk.wordpress.com/) . We'll also be Tweeting via our @CommVoices twitter site.
This week I've been focused on making connections, both in the professional sense and from a marketing point of view. What have I learnt? Well, in terms of marketing, blanket communications can be useful but they don't connect with marginalised communities. They don't address the specific communication barriers that marginalised groups face, be it language or literacy barriers, cultural beliefs or physical factors such as geography. For the uninitiated this form of marketing is called Social Marketing, and it has been used very successfully for health related causes, such as HIV, smoking, etc for some time. There is even an Institute of Social Marketing (http://www.ism.stir.ac.uk/index.htm) . In terms of connecting with isolated and disadvantaged communities to help build cohesiveness or to help empower citizens, this seems to be a new area and not one extensively explored or researched.
On a professional level (and connected with social marketing), we want to connect with digital media experts. What's digital media - well anything that uses digital technology, could be on film, podcast, photo, online or even on mobile. What's an expert? Well, there's loads out there, within communities, working professionally or just using digital media as a hobby. The challenge is to make the connection between the expert and the community - this is where Community Voices comes in. We want to connect local experts with people who want to inspire, engage and empower their community. You can find out more at http://www.mediatrust.org/communityvoices.
I think there's a subject for discussion here!
Aidan
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Tags: CommVoices, Marketing, Media, Social, Trust
Add a Comment
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Comment by David Wilcox on October 29, 2009 at 14:52
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Thanks Aidan - how about some openresearch linked to a get-together? Thinking aloud ... Community Voices says where you've got to in your research, what your objectives are, what you want to find out.
We then work out a process to gather more contacts, cases, how-tos through a mix of online and face-to-face. Drop into other peoples' places online and off, invite them to yours, run an event at some stage ... publish work in progress as you go.
I think everyone here would be interested in some way ... but it takes facilitation to make it easy for people to contribute, and to get good content at the end.
I'm helping the Innovation Unit with a similar process, starting soon, on this research.
Glad to chat further if useful. I'm sure the Media Coaches network would be interested, as well as UK folk. Amy has further global connections oo.
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Comment by Aidan Kelly on October 28, 2009 at 18:33 -
Thanks David, this is really useful.
We (at Community Voices) are definitely interested in engaging with organisations and people working in this emerging field. I think it would be great to get a wider European view, and understand what works well in other countries too.
I think a get-together would be good. I'm also interested in sharing ideas around how digital media can be used within disadvantaged communities. As we develop Community Voices, we will learn an enormous amount which we will be actively sharing, but it's good to learn from other people.
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Hi Aidan - it's great to see Community Voices looking for connections and being ready to share ideas. I think that the connecting could extend outside the UK, as I suggest here when writing about the Media Coaches network. You (and anyone else) might like to say hello to Ed Klute and Judith Heykers, featured in the videos, who have both joined this network.
When I was at the recent with conference with Ed and others, we talked about a possible get-together next year between UK and European networks. Worthwhile?
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