There’s a first time for everything and, this weekend, I joined in for the first time with a Barcamp in my home city of Bradford.  A barcamp is an informal meeting of innovation enthusiasts, where anyone can contribute or lead a session.

I thought I’d be in for a  strange kind of day, possibly filled with seasoned barcamp geeks.  I was pleasantly surprised when about half the room had never been to a barcamp before and even more delighted to find myself being able to advise and contribute, as well facilitating a discussion around community development and technology.

So, it’s that subject that I want to the blog to focus on.

We started by asking whether geographic community still mattered, in a time when so many people in one geographic area belonged not to one but many different communities.  It soon emerged that geographic communities really did matter – especially to young people, many of whom define themselves on the school, college and postcode.  In fact, in Bradford, it emerged that groups of like minded music artists are forming groups and networks based on their postcode.  This, several people felt, was down to the fact that services are delivered to key postcode areas.  If you’re in a deprived postcode, you have neighbourhood services in common with other people there.  So, by defining neighbourhoods, are we actually defining people into communities ourselves?

However, what was also apparent was that people didn’t often define themselves based on the standard neighbourhood definition.  Wards and parishes seemed unimportant, and it was also clear that community facilities now moved to where people wanted them;  pubs, clubs, swimming pools and educational institutions.  However, it was acknowledged that there were also online communities forming, separate from geographic areas.

The SAVE THE ODEON campaign at Bradford was mentioned- a self organised group, almost entirely working through the internet.  A group of community activists that had gone, from almost no message to a loud message in a very short space of time, thanks, almost entirely, to a facebook group.

Another issue raised was the lack of connectivity in communities.  Both in rural areas and inner city areas, connectivity (and the apparent randomness of it that could mean one street could having speeds varying by several MBS from house to house) was a real issue.  Connectivity does exist in community venues, but many times this was either in community centres or libraries.  Both of these present differing barriers to communities trying to get online and the the lockdown and lack of public wi-fi in many of these institutions can also impede people getting online.  There were no online community development workers that anyone had heard of and very little monitoring by community organisations and local government of the social meida spectrum.

I mentioned social media surgeries at this point.  Nick Booth, of podnosh fame, started the concept in Birmingham, giving advice to local voluntary sector organisations around social media.  Recently, John Popham started  a similar trned in Yorkshire and I’ve been down to the Leeds and, later today, the Huddersfield social media surgeries.  I’m organising one for Bradford as well, so I’d better plug that here too.  These surgeries are clearly plugging an important gap, but they are not hitting the individual who doesn’t see why their organisation, or indeed they, should be online.  So how can we achieve more online takeup?

Mike Chitty raised an interesting point with me recently about why we try tos how communities the “benefits” of ICT, rather than simply helping them to achieve whatever they want to do.  This issue was raised at the discussion to, with a really useful suggestion: Why not just get ICT in communities, in pubs, in shops etc.  Then, if peopel can benefit from it, they’ll simply find it.

I agree with this, but don’t think its enough – I think we need to see local government, public sector practitioners and third sector organisations / other community groups engaging sensibly with those already using social media.  That way, people will soon see the benefits, like the Save the Odeon campaign already has.

I’d be interested to know anyone else’s comments on this…