Tonight is the ninth Digital Citizen’s event – Politics and Digital Activism in the Social Age – and I’ll once again be live blogging the event for posterity and for those who can’t make it. To receive an alert when the show starts all you have to do is enter your email below.

The event, moderated by one of Australia’s leading digital marketers and communicators Kate Carruthers, will be hosted at the Shelbourne Hotel in Sydney on 22nd March at 7pm.

The latest Digital Citizens event will include Labor Parliamentary Secretary for Transport and Roads Penny Sharpe, John Bergin, Director of Digital News for Sky News, Steve Hopkins from Ai-Media and Thomas Tudehope, Director of Engagement and Strategy for SR7.

I’ll be pulling in tweets which use the #digicitz hashtag, or you can participate below. If you’re wanting to ask the Panel a question, just use the hashtag or drop your question in the comments section below during the show and I’ll try and pass on as many to the panel as I can.

So remember, use Twitter or the comment system built into CoverItLive to join in tonight and add your thoughts from wherever you happen to be!

I’ll leave you with that for now. See you on the night, either in person or online!

~Warlach

Tonight is the Digital Citizen’s Christmas party, and while we wont be having a panel I thought it might be a nice idea to still have a live blog, but with a twist: I’ll be setting up the computer at the event an encouraging everyone who comes along to post to the liveblog about 2010, their thoughts on 2011 or anything!

Think of it like a digital guest book blog hybrid thingy with Twitter comments from the the #digicitz hashtag and any comments made in the CoverItLive box below, pulled in too! Mad? Probably, but it’s Christmas.

So, come find me at the event if you want to participate, of just tweet using the hashtag and lets send 2010 out with a bang! See you tonight, either in person or online!

~Warlach

Tonight is the eighth Digital Citizen’s event – Pressing the go viral button: myths, memes, YouTube and the future of TVCs – and I’ll once again be live blogging the event for posterity and for those who can’t make it. To receive an alert when the show starts all you have to do is enter your email below.

I’ll be pulling in tweets which use the #digicitz hashtag, or you can participate below. If you’re wanting to ask the Panel a question, just use the hashtag or drop your question in the comments section below during the show and I’ll try and pass on as many to the panel as I can.

So remember, use Twitter or the comment system built into CoverItLive to join in tonight and add your thoughts from wherever you happen to be!

I’ll leave you with that for now. See you on the night, either in person or online!

~Warlach

Tonight is the seventh Digital Citizen’s event – So you think you’re a Social Media Expert? – and I’ll once again be live blogging the event for posterity and for those who can’t make it. To receive an alert when the show starts all you have to do is enter your email below.

I’ll be pulling in tweets which use the #digicitz hashtag, or you can participate below. If you’re wanting to ask the Panel a question, just use the #digicitz hashtag and we’ll try and pass on as many to the panel as we can.

Note, in the interest of full disclosure one of the speakers tonight, Katy Daniells, is my coworker and while I think she is grand will try my best to avoid any bias. I’ll leave you with that for now. See you tonight, either in person or online!

~Warlach

“Startups, small shops and bootstrappers: the real value in social media and digital PR for small business”

Next step is for us to find speakers. If you have anyone in mind who you have heard speak before, or perhaps has a really interesting story to tell, please let us know. We are especially keen to get speakers from outside of the normal pool, and perhaps a couple of people who have had bad experiences with social media and digital PR.

It’s Beaney here, running this month’s liveblog, covering Crisis and reputation management Digicitz. I’m filling in for Warlach who is your usual CoverItLive-er-er for Digital Citizens.

I’ll be pulling in tweets which use the #digicitz hashtag, or you can participate below. If you’re wanting to ask the Panel a question, please use the #digicitz hashtag, and also chuck in a #question tag so we know it’s for the Panel.

I’ll catch you at the event tonight (either IRL or on the interwebz)!

~ Beaney

The results are in.

The next Digital Citizens event will be

Ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strain):
Creating organisational and cultural change to embrace the social media revolution in the most uptight workplace

Speaker details and ticket info to follow!

Thank You

Firstly, as you know we canvassed for donations last night. And are delighted to announce that last night we raised $640 from the attendees.

Humble is a word which comes to mind when we wrote that number.

We thank you wholeheartedly for generously donating almost $1000 over two events. And we want to be sure you are aware about what we are doing with those donations.

Thanks to those who took the time to come and see us afterwards to discuss opportunities for investing those donations in worthwhile causes. We’ll be following up with you in the next few days to plan our strategies. Once we do that, we’ll be updating you all with the details of where your donations are working.

The Future

When we first asked for donations at Social Media for Social Good, our rationale was partly to ensure we weren’t out of pocket and partly to share your potential generosity with those less fortunate than us. As we felt we were hosting these events for everyones benefit, we felt sure we could cover our minimal costs from those donations and, depending on your generosity, make substantial donations to charity on your behalf.

We realise, however, the arbitrary nature of how we have asked for those donations can’t continue. So for future events we want to change tack.

Partners for Social Good

We would like to ask you and any other interested parties to suggest charities or NFPs we should consider partnering with at each event. Remembering, we would like to reserve some of the donations for Kiva, as we talked about last night.

There is a forum topic on the subject so we can canvas your opinions. Once we get your feedback we’ll add a poll here so you can decide who you think we should partner with in advance of each event.

Partners for Successful Events

Secondly, and while we would love to continue to put our hands in our pockets ourselves and/or ask for donations at the door, we are asking now for sponsors to cover costs of events.

We suggest that sponsorship could be in kind. For example, generously providing Lighting and Video services as the wonderful @bluntnate has done for each of the first three events. Or in Dollars. For example, supporting the panellists and other contributors with food and drink for the evening.

Areas of opportunity to partner with Digital Citizens events we currently see are;

• Sponsor the Panellists
• Sponsor the Bar
• Sponsor Food
• Sponsor the Venue (bearing in mind we love the Burdekin!)
• Sponsor the networking
• Sponsor the streaming feed
• other suggestions

Pay your own way

Alternatively, you might think we should just ask for a small fee at the door. We then use that money to pay for some of the above with the remainder to go to charity. The facts are though, for us to do that involves setting up bank accounts. To set up bank accounts we need to register as some sort of organisation with the ATO/ASIC/etc. and each one of those registrations costs money.

Keep in Touch

Everyone who attends our events is a stakeholder and we’d love your views on the above. You are always free to get in touch with us individually or by commenting on this or any other post or topic.

Again, many thanks for your support up to now and if we don’t talk to you in the next few weeks, make sure you come and say hello on the 15th of June when we do it all over again

Comment from:

It’s ok to admit you failed. It’s ok to admit you learned some lessons. And it’s ok to admit you would do things differently.

Sounds like a life lesson doesn’t it? But that was one of the insights of Tuesday night’s Digital Citizens event, which got me thinking.

There were many more, and I’d encourage you to visit the event’s Coveritlive blog and the forum to have a discussion on the topic. But I was so impressed by the calibre of the night’s discussions that I wanted to try and capture some of them here.

Social media for social good

200 plus people packed into a pub, 4 panellists and a moderator, a cheeky Scott’s-man and a passionate Irish-man plus a couple of gorgeous ladies = digital citizens’ Social media for Social Good event.

The event, the second in Digital Citizens’ newly established lineup, was awesome. There were many insights gleaned from some pretty inspirational men as well as an incredibly engaged audience.

Thanks go to Gavin Costello, Scott Rhodie, James Fridley, Cathie McGinn and Heather Snodgrass for the kind invitation to participate in the panel. I had a blast, and met a lot of wonderful people most of whom I know through social media.

Social media for social good is just one piece of the pie

This seemed to be the common theme from the panel. David Hood (Greenpeace), Mark Chenery(Action Aid) and Nic MacKay (The Human Race) all touched on the need to support your social media activity with other strategies. David explained that Greenpeace have a range of online tactics, as well as more traditional lobbying tactics, when they begin a campaign such as the recent Nestle one.

This is indeed my understanding of the use of social media. It is an earned media, and works best when approached with an integrated strategy. We know there are below-the-line and above-the-line tactics. Social media is a through-the-line tactic (in my opinion). So, to look at it in isolation would be a mistake. Organisations, and in particular non-profits, should look at how they can extend their marketing or community awareness strategy and include a social strategy.

<-Read the full article here

Forcing people online, if it works at all, will create a class of digital refugees, isolated in their new online environment. But by supporting people to come online and form meaningful, effective relationships, perhaps we can create a nation of digital citizens.

Stephen Whitehead wrote on the UK’s National Digital Inclusion Conference, where much was made about ‘forcing’ people into using online service by shutting down the offline. He makes a very good point about how Digital Refugees will be created who fall down the crevice between adaptability and capability, especially if that ‘forced’ migration does not include adequate support and protections.

Experience tells me, no matter what carrot and stick approaches are used to convince people to move to something more modern and more accessible, there’ll always be the reticent bunch. How long do you choose to support them and at what cost? In my humble opinion, if it is public services, the answer is as long as people still need the service delivered in its current form – especially if there is no choice. Though, as with many things, your mileage may vary.

Do we have a similar workshop in Australia which will help more people become Digital Citizens over time rather than creating, in our far flung and diverse continent, more Refugees from Society? There has been some research done by ACMA, but I’m  not aware of any ‘population level’ group, which helps create digital inclusion rather than just reports on it or talks about it.

What are your thoughts? How can we ensure the rush to Online doesn’t leave refugees trailing behind?