Brizzle Social Media Prism for Brrism

Is Bristol Britain’s premier digital city?  Maybe.  After all, its home to a cluster of new media industries, part of Silicon Gorge and has recently been named as one of Britain’s Science Cities.  But, despite all that, there’s not been a regular forum for social media people in the city.

This is changing with Brrism, the new Bristol Social Media café that launches at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol on 19^th August at 18:30 (for 19:00 start).

Sign up on twtvite, EventBrite or facebook.  Follow Brrism on Twitter.

Bristol + Bristol accent = Brrizzle

Brrizzle + Social media = Brrism

Brrism is aimed at:

• Bloggers / social media geeks
• Website publishers / managers
• Journalists / Writers
• Artists / musicians
• Photographers / videographers
• Activists / social entrepreneurs
• Businesses/marketers
• Academics/researchers/writers

Meetings organisation will follow the ethos that social media tools themselves follow – a mixture of the pre-planned-predictability coupled with the ability to self-organise on the fly.

The Pre-planned predictability:

• The third Wednesday of the month
• At the Pervasive Media Studio
• 6:30 for a 7PM start
• Finish at 9 followed by drinks at the Watershed
• A meeting theme which will be in the form of a 10-20 minute presentation/web-based-show-and-tell
• A ten minute self-organisation period (i.e. how will the rest of the meeting be run)
• An hour long “open space”
• The venue has Wi-Fi and so live tweeting, video casting, etc  is positively encouraged. (Meeting hashtag = #brrism)
• Wrap-up/wash-up session at the end
• Drinks at the Watershed afterwards
• Meeting resources on delicious

Self-organisation on the fly:

• We’ll decide what groups to split into (and what the groups will discuss) on the night.  NB you are free to self organise!  If you want a group that doesn’t discuss the meeting theme at all then that’s OK too.
• Law of Two Feet states that you can leave any group and join another whenever you like (please be civil about it and remember that “social” is a big part of “social media”)
• You can bring your own food and drink but please respect the Pervasive Media Studio – let’s not abuse their trust in us.
• Next  month’s meeting (theme, organisation, etc) can be discussed via twitter using hashtag #nextbrrism

The key point of all this is sharing is to have energising discussions, learn from each other and to have fun!

The first theme for the first meeting will be “The Starfish and the Spider” and you can get a feel for the book by its Wikipedia article.  I don’t want to pre-empt the discussions (I really am keen to allow the group to set its own direction on the night) but I am hoping it could spawn some interesting conversations on how Brrism itself should be run.

Thanks for reading.  My name is Michael Corbett and you can follow me on Twitter, be my friend on facebook or simply meet me at the Pervasive Media Studio.    I’m looking forward to meeting you.

Many thanks to the Pervasive Media Studio (@pmstudiouk) and Ed Mitchell (@edmittance) without whom this first meeting would not be able to take place.