Photo by Mike Rawlins
We at talk about local have just about recovered enough from what was a very busy but brilliantly thought-provoking #tal11 unconference (and a surprise attack from some zombie goth nurses) to give you a collective memory post of links and content that people have kindly published.
Some unusual attendees photographed by Ellie Stonely
Many thanks to all of you who came The Atrium in Cardiff on Saturday 2nd April and made it such a fantastic day. We were pleasantly surprised not only with the great turn-out but the good number of new and local faces who bought lots of new ideas and discussions with them – such as the potential for Welsh language hyperlocal sites with Huw Marshall and Rhys Wynne and the citizen activism discussion with Mark Parker.
Photo by Hannah Waldram
There were also discussions kick-started by some more familiar faces, such as working with the BBC with Philip John and ‘I’m a Hyperlocal Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ with Hannah Waldram. And there was quite a bit from the talk about local team – Karen Strunks started the day talking about her 4am project, Clare White led a very fruitful discussion on hyperlocals using Facebook, I ran a workshop session based on Postcode Stories and William Perrin ended the day discussing the future of hyperlocal.
Photo by Sarah Hartley
The #TAL11 hashtag was very busy on twitter throughout the day. You can view all of the tweets of on the #TAL11 Cover It Live! or on the #TAL11 TweetReach report document. Quite a few have posted photos on Flickr of the day – if you were one of them, please add them to the TAL11 Flickr Group pool. People have also been posting their thoughts and reflections after the event – here’s a few links:
Cardiff gets Hyperlocal – Sophie Patterson of The Atrium wrote a round-up of the day, with a good introduction to terms like ‘hyperlocal’ and ‘unconference’ for newcommers.
Notes from #TAL11 – Hannah Waldram’s notes and thoughts from the day and the sessions she attended, which included hyperlocals working with Rightmoveplaces.co.uk and the Postcode Stories workshop session (short film above).
Clare White pitching by Sasha Taylor
Talk About Local 2011: Community Activism in a Hyperlocal Context – Suzanne Kavanagh’s post with lots of handy hints on the session ‘which provided some thought-provoking insights into what makes an activist and how community activism relates to the role of a hyperlocal blogger or journalist.’ Suzanne wrote a similarly informative post about ‘Doing’ local news from the ground up.
Talk about Facebook: tips from the hyperlocals – Clare White rounds-up her popular Facebook session and has since introduced the talk about local guide to Facebook.
Photo by Sasha Taylor
Reflections from Ally Tibbitt on the day and the Facebook and community development sessions he attended.
Postcode Stories have written about the workshop session.
Fairydust, forensics and funding: Hyperlocal success at #TAL11 – Sarah Hartley’s reflections on the day and the evening’s Unawards, of which Karen Strunks took the above video. The winners of the supposedly ‘glittering’ prizes were:
- Best visitor attraction – Visit Horsham
- Best Media Empire – Philip John, who sportingly wore his Superman costume prize
- Best forensics – Ventnor Blog for their council reporting
- Hottest story of the year ‐ the Phil Woolas story from SaddleworthNews, who have written about their success
- Myth-busting award: Birmingham Mail, who worked with hyperlocal blogs to create local Your Communities pages
- Best rural site: Fenland Farmers
- Best campaign and video – MyTunstall, who have also written about their success
- The site with balls ‐ InsidetheM60
- Sprinkling fairydust in an urban environment – Hannah Waldram for her work with communities in Cardiff
- Best brewed site: Sheffield Forum
- Overall winner - BlogPreston (Joseph Stashko talks about the prize in his post Social Media Training: Why It’s Bulls***)
Photo by Ellie Stoneley
So there we have it – another TAL Unconference and Unawards is over. Please comment if I’ve missed any good links out. As Clare has said, there are plenty of ways to keep the conversations of the day going so be sure to do so if you were inspired into wanting to take action. The talk about local team thoroughly enjoyed the day and going by the posts attendees have written, everyone else did to0, which is why we’re hoping to be back with another one sometime soon – watch this space!
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