Regarding the reading group, Titus and I chatted briefly at gdldn (last week was pretty chaotic for pulling people together), just enough to touch base but there are still some specifics to figure out, starting with:
- when?
- where?
- what?
As goes without saying, feedback and suggestions are more than welcome. I’m probably more flexible than anyone so feel free to jump in if something doesn’t look right.
When: I’m assuming it’s safe to say Wednesdays are ok? Wednesday also keeps it easy to remember, consistent with gdldn, ie,
- “the week after gdldn”
- “the week before gdldn”
- “two weeks before/after gdldn”
I’m thinking the Wednesday after gdldn might be best, aka second Wednesday of the month? From about 7 – 9 pm?
Where: Coffee Culture seems to be the most often mentioned meeting place for social media peeps in London. For the sake of getting on with it I’ll suggest we meet first at the Dundas location and we can go from there.
Again, the door is open for suggestions.
Otherwise, let’s say the first discussion will be
Wed., Nov. 11 at 7:00ish at the Dundas Coffee Culture
What: The first book is Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody.
Being the first time we get together we don’t need to be overly concerned about sticking exactly to script. If there’s something you definitely want to cover then mention it on Twitter or Goodreads or FriendFeed and we’ll do our best to incorporate it. If we end up missing something it might be worth a few people meeting on extra occasions, which can always be arranged.
The point of these discussions will be to bounce ideas & insights off of each other, to keep learning and moving forward. The emphasis should be as much on experimenting with and applying the principles of social media as merely reading about them.
The book serves as a common point of reference to kick off the discussion and bring it back if things get sluggish or off-track. So don’t worry about reading the whole book — and certainly don’t worry about reading it word-for-word. (Of course the more “homework” you do, the richer the discussion will be, and the more we’ll all get out of it.)
Also, any book we’ll be discuss will have a ton of auxiliary material online in the form of blogs, videos, etc. I started a FriendFeed group as a way to aggregate any relevant links people might stumble on or want to share. Experience leads me to expect nobody will do that but we might as well keep trying new things.
Looking forward to the discussions.
