What do you get if you cram a bunch of social entrepreneurs, charity funders and all round do-gooders into a small room in central London?  Well it was all there to see at the People Powered Change Event organised by the Big Lottery Fund and facilitated by David Wilcox and John Popham, aka the social reporters.  sounddelivery was invited to join a select group including representatives from UnLtd, NESTA, the Nominet Trust, Your Square Mile and the Young Foundation (to name just a few) to discuss BIG’s challenges for the future.

After a presentation from BIG’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Linda Quinn, we were tasked to examine a range of ideas to enhance BIG’s current operation.  Everything from Network Building to creating a Social App Store were tossed into the air and either grabbed by an unsuspecting delegate or dumped in the bin.  I gravitated towards a number of issues – improving Internal BIG comms and Socialising Evaluations.  It might not look like much but the picture to the right is what my group came up with: a model for making the evaluation process much more transparent.  It was a challenge to pull all our ideas together and of course people were coming from different perspectives.  The funders amongst us were slightly reticent to allow the evaluation to be so open and visible to the world, while accepting this would be useful for applicants and could lead to less paperwork.

Alice Casey from NESTA talked about one of her pilot projects which involve projects blogging their way through the ups and downs and highlighting success stories along the way.  She argued it was a trial but has been fantastic to get real stories from the frontline and content has ranged from written blogs to pictures and video.  sounddelivery recently ran a social reporting project for Nesta’s Neighbourhood Challenge project to encourage storytelling in the field.

What I think is important with an approach like this is that funders recognise the need to train their funded projects in these social media skills and tell their stories in their own ways and in their own words.  Not everyone is twitter-savvy and ready to jump into a wordpress blog.  At one of the recent training courses I ran at least half of the delegates had never seen YouTube let alone sent a tweet.  I feel this is where organisations like sounddelivery have a role to support and train people in using these tools so they can feel confident to contribute to the many online conversations.

The People Powered Change project is soon coming to an end and all the research from the many workshops will be gathered together into a full and comprehensive report.  The aim is that BIG then discusses this in 2012 with an aim of working out how to take on some if these ideas.  We look forward to being part of this conversation.  So watch this space!

Blog post from Jude Habib, Director - sounddelivery

The BBC needs you!  And I wanted to give you the heads-up on an exciting film-making project that you should all know about which launches today.

On Saturday 12th November the BBC is inviting us to be part of a self-portrait of Britain by turning the camera on ourselves and recording something significant in our lives. This footage will then be used to create a time capsule of Britain, as well as a feature-length documentary, which will be screened on BBC2 next year in the run up to the London Olympics.

The idea is based on Life In A Day, the global, user-generated feature film, which included 80,000 videos that were submitted to YouTube by people all over the world, wherever they were and whatever they were doing. The result was a powerful and inspiring portrait of the world on a single day.

The production company behind it all, Ridley Scott’s Scott Free, has teamed up with the BBC and multi award-winning director Morgan Matthews in order to capture a snapshot of Britain in a day.

And that’s where you come in.   The production team is looking for honest, personal films that provide a real insight into life in the United Kingdom. I know you have access to amazing storytellers and this is their chance to get their voices heard.

They won’t need professional equipment – just the video on their phone or video facility on a digital camera. If they don’t have this, think about how you can help them get access to a camera.

So how should you get started?

Think carefully about the story you are trying to capture and who you think would be the best person or people to capture that.  Then focus on the story they are trying to tell and how they use the camera to capture that story. Encourage them to think about how they can show the story rather than just tell it. As the final result is a TV documentary, pictures are as important as words. Make it personal, meaningful and in the present tense where possible.

So, for example, if you know an asylum seeker who can show what is meaningful about Britain to them or if you are working with carers who can show the truth of their day by filming it fly-on-the-wall style, please do encourage them to film their day on the 12th November.

The Britain in A Day website provides hints, tips and ideas to inspire you to get involved.

And if you use Twitter you can find updates from the project #britaininaday

I for one cannot wait to be part of it and I’m hoping that many of you will be approaching your own networks to get involved.

Good luck!

The  “Hear All About It!” audio trail project, which was funded by the Renaissance East Midlands ‘MuBu‘ scheme,  involved young people creating an audio trail to guide visitors through the museum’s restored period village streets. A key part of the project was to give young people the skills and creative ability to produce the audio trail themselves. The production process included a series of intensive workshops in scriptwriting, storytelling, audio production and drama skills, which were run by Mark and Linda Kempton, the creative writer who was also involved in the project.

The young people then created a series of short audio-dramas based around different features including a stench pipe, tram shelter and a police phone box. The audio guides were made available to download from the museum’s website and are accompanied by an interactive map pinpointing their locations.

The judges were impressed by the engagement of the young people and the potential new visitors that the project would encourage, saying;

“It was an admirable project that engaged a notoriously difficult group (teenagers) and that they demonstrated genuine enthusiasm for the project.  Hear all About It took a creative approach to developing interpretation of street furniture on site which will encourage people to visit.”

Listen to one of the dramas created for the trail, this one focusing on an on-street urinal.

Urinal by Crich Tramway Village

You can download the PDF Press Release announcing the award here.

This is our second heritage award, after our Podcasts From the Past project with the Museum of London won the Digital Access Online Jodie Award.

And remember our next free evening event with TV producers Brian Woods and Jezza Newman of True Vision Productions is taking place on the 20th October.  You can find all the details and book your place here.

Image via Wikipedia

An evening with Simon Berry of ColaLife – Tuesday 20th September.

sounddelivery and the Third Sector PR and Communications Network are delighted to be hosting a Q & A session with Simon Berry of ColaLife

ColaLife is working in developing countries to bring Coca-Cola, its bottlers and others together to open up Coca-Cola’s distribution channels to carry ‘social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements to save children’s lives.

You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries but in these same places up to 1 in 5 children die before their 5th birthday from simple preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea.

ColaLife started as an online ‘movement’ in April 2008 as a simple Facebook group.  It has more than 10,000 online supporters and is now engaging with Coca-Cola, UNICEF and other key stakeholders. A trial of the ColaLife concept is getting underway in Zambia.  ColaLife is an independent non-profit organisation run and staffed by volunteers and became a registered charity on 21 June 2011.

Book your tickets here.  This free event is being preceeded by a special low cost practical training event led by Simon on Social Media for Campaiging.  This will be a hands on and is a must attend for any organisation looking at how they can build a successful campaign and online presence around social media.

 Simon Berry is the key visionary behind ColaLife, and brings a life-time’s experience in cross-sector stakeholder relations, rural development, open innovation and new media. He does most of the public speaking on ColaLife, keeps the blog up to date and does most of the graphics and artwork.

Simon is a recognised innovator/social entrepreneur. He gained community development expertise in South America (early 80s) and has managed innovative projects in the UK and abroad since 1984, when he was commissioned by the British Overseas Development Agency (ODA, now DfID) to manage a politically sensitive co-operation project at Alexandria University, Egypt.

As I walked along Wood Green High Street on Sunday afternoon surveying the damage of looted sports shops the overriding feeling was of sadness that young people would again be tarnished as yobs.  I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on this topic for a while but the disturbances/riots which have taken place over the last few days have intensified my passion about this issue.  And it was a tweet from a

Looting In Wood Green - Image by smokeghost via Flickr

youth project Shed on Monday morning to remind people about positive youth projects that made me question where the collective voice of youth charities was at this time.

Is it just me but I don’t seem to be hearing it.

A great deal of our work at sounddelivery brings us into contact with young people all around the UK.   I am constantly inspired by many of the young people I meet.  More often than not they are passionate, opinionated, articulate, engaging and want to make a difference to the world around them.   Yet we seldom hear their stories.

Last week we ran a young reporters workshop on behalf of NCVYS as part of their Envoy  [Enthusiastic National Voice Of Youth] programme.    I met 14 year old Chloe who has set up Young and Positive as she doesn’t feel Londoners have a platform to voice their opinions without being judged by the negative media stereotypes .  She writes about herself…

“I like reading and writing short stories, I like to volunteer alot. I suppose you could say I’m not your average teenager, or at least I don’t measure up to the stereotype. I’m not involved in any criminal activity, a thug or hoodrat, I don’t smoke or drink and I don’t party to all hours in the morning. I believe that anything is possible, that it’s capable to achieve your dreams, and that if you put your mind to it, nothing can hold you back.”

There are hundreds of people like Chloe around the country yet we seldom hear their voices.

At another workshop for the charity London Youth I met Rowan.   Rowan had been in trouble with the law when he was younger.  But he turned his life around and now he helps others. He’s now at university training to become a youth worker.

There are hundreds of people like Rowan around the country yet we seldom hear their voices.

Looting In Wood Green - Image by smokeghost via Flickr

I do not work on a day to day basis with young people but I have been speaking to several contacts who do.  There was an acknowledgement that charities could be doing better at enabling young people to tell their stories.  It is also clear that cuts in youth services and youth projects have been so swift and swingeing that it has taken many of them by surprise.

There doesn’t seem to be a united voice from charities working with young people on this issue either.  Partly, as I was told by one senior person working for a youth charity,  that competing views and politics amongst youth organisations is stopping that from happening.

So what can organisations be doing?  By providing training skills and a platform for young people to have a voice. By putting internal politics aside and uniting to champion the voice of young people.  What is happening in London and around the country is appalling but all young people shouldn’t be taking the blame.

As BTCV tweeted this morning “May be worth remembering the 1000s of inspirational young people who work to protect and improve our communities today”

I hope this is the start of the fight back for the voice of young people.

POSTSCRIPT:

Since writing this blog post (written on Monday and finished Tuesday morning) there has been a joint statement from several youth organisations including NCVYS London Youth and UK Youth here.  And responses in other publications including Children and Young People Now  as well as comments on TV, Twitter and Facebook.  So I hope that if there is a glimmer of hope that comes out of the situation is that youth charities will be working together and the voice of young people will be stronger than ever.