Nick Booth on Trolls

O’l poddy on dealing with online dickwads.

Filed under: Coverage, Post-event, Videos, community, internet, trolls, WxWM

Coverage of WxWM on Rhubarb Radio: Listen Again

Mark Steadman‘s been beavering away to edit the recording of WxWM, broadcast on Rhubarb Radio on Saturday. Listen again on the Rhubarb Radio site.

Filed under: Coverage, Post-event, Coverage, listen again, rhubarb radio, WxWM

Podnosh on sweat, fun and the WXWM experience

Nick Booth (@podnosh) on his WXWM experience from Jon Hickman on Vimeo.

Filed under: Post-event, birminghamuk, nick booth, podnosh, thoughts, WxWM

WxWM | The fuzzy hangover of thanks

I’m in awe of everyone who made WxWM such a success yesterday. The Birmingham social media scene never fails to amaze me with how lovely people are and how willing they are to get together, work hard and support one another. I’m not used to so many people being so fantastic for so long. Birmingham feels unique. Call it cyber-chemistry, call it the right people at the right place at the right time. Call it what you like. I absolutely love it.

A massive thanks to:

• The panel hosts: Charlie Pinder, Jon Hickman, Jon Bounds, Nick Booth, Michael Grimes, Nicky Getgood, Kasper Sorensen, Gemma Harris, Kara Crozier, Ben Whitehouse, Antonio Roberts and Andy Mabbett. You all absolutely blew me away. You guys totally made the event, without a doubt.
• The A-Team, Jaki Booth and Julia Higginbotham, without whom the WxWM live blogging and tweeting wouldn’t have happened as awesomely as it did!
• Nat Higginbotham who was just fabulous and ran round sorting stuff whenever the urge to say ‘Halp!’ or ‘please can you do this?’ occurred. Which was a fair bit.
• To Nick Booth, for gifting us his MacBook and his magic dongle to try and counteract the wifi connectivity problems we experienced for the live blog.
• Ben Whitehouse and Jaki for being food fairies, and Nat for getting the order in in time!
• The three impeccably behaved kids (Donato’s and Paul’s) who were with us for much of the event – they were a pleasure to have there, a credit to their parents and their presence led to a highly entertaining last-minute adjustment to Jon Bounds’ swearing meme panel!
• Mark Steadman and Paul from Rhubarb Radio. They worked so damn hard, were at the venue before I’d arrived setting everything up, were super-professional and absolutely lovely to boot.
• Thanks to Pete Ashton, Jo Geary, Ruth Ward, Fiona Cullinan and the other SxSWMers in Texas for giving their time and energy to talk to us for the live hook-up under very interesting connectivity conditions.
• Thanks to Jez Higgins for turning up before the event and doing manly furniture lugging stuff.
• Thanks to Katie Parry for her gorgeous logo, signs and name badges.
• Thanks to everyone who helped with the set up of the room.
• Thanks to my extraordinary taxi service, Gemma ‘n’ Kara Cabz, for getting me home at the end of a long day.
• Thanks to Peter and the team at the Kitchen Garden Cafe who were an absolute pleasure to work with.
• Thanks to everyone who was there and who exceeded my expectations by ensuring we had a full house. I was so pleased that everyone got stuck in and engaged with the panels so brilliantly:

Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing

Andy Parsons @Andy_Parsons

Antonio Roberts @hellocatfood

Ben Whitehouse @benjaminbrum

Charlie Pinder @pindec

Danny Smith @probablydrunk

Donato Esposito @bostinbloke

Ed Hart @Ed_Hart

Gemma Harris @gem_27

Jaki Booth @parboo

Jon Bounds @bounder

Jon Hickman @jonhickman

Julia Gilbert @catnip

Julia Higginbottom @gabysslave

Kara Crozier @karzy_jones

Karen Strunks @karenstrunks

Kasper Sorensen @kasperbs

Katie Parry @superkoolkp

Mark Steadman @marksteadman

Matthew Somerville @dracos

Michael Grimes @citizensheep

Nat Higginbotham @exsanguinator

Neil (rasga) @rasga

Nick Booth @podnosh

Nicky Getgood @getgood

Paul Hadley @rhubarbradio

Paul Taylor @theaardvark

Shona McQuillan @graphiquillan

Simon Howes @simonhowes

Stef Lewandowski @Stef

Vikki Green @tickvg

(Joined us for the after party) Rachel Simmonite @rachel_simmo

(Kudos to Andy Mabbett for the list)

There are many things to reflect on for how I’d plan the event next time – not least to have a bigger venue! Can I just thank everyone who, whilst it was hot and cramped, didn’t whinge about it once. Not once. That’s a first for a group of people to be so understanding and tolerant in my book. I’m really interested in feedback from anyone who was there – all comments and ideas are welcome. After the event, I got chatting to Stef Lewandowski who made a really great point about how it would have been good if the panels led to tangible actions as outcomes. This isn’t something that had occurred to me, but is certainly something that I’d like to see carried forward to the next event.

During the live link with Texas, Pete Ashton said to me that he thought I’d manage to organise the first barcamp in Birmingham (something he also mentions on his blog). A year ago, I wouldn’t have dreamt that I’d have managed to pull off a Birmingham social media first. All those people I’ve been privileged to meet and befriend over the last year through this very special network has had a hand in this. So thank you to all of you for welcoming me into the fold and giving me the chance to do something for others.

Filed under: Post-event, Birmingham, event, social media, thank you, WxWM