It became clear when going through the Week 11 contributions that inspiring youngsters was a theme that had emerged over the previous few days. Sometimes themes emerge organically, with one post sparking off an idea for another one. This one seems to have been mostly or entirely coincidental as several people wrote about babies and young people. Some brought a smile to the face, and some a tear to the eye.
Louise Brown’s friends lost a beautiful baby a few weeks ago and she wrote a moving post this week about Matilda Mae, and how social media friends took part in Celebrating the legacy of Matilda Mae. If you would like to do something practical to help, do read Louise’s post which has links to the charities to which people are contributing.
Angela Rowe’s first post for the Ayrshire Health blog this week was also her first time on Weekly Blog Club. Her very thought-provoking post tackled a tough topic. In The relevance of resilience in healthcare, she considered how some remarkable children and young people manage to get through very difficult, often abusive, home environments and still manage to succeed, and how healthcare services can support them.
Dyfrig Williams also focused on some wonderful youngsters in his post How children and young people are feeding in to the Citizen’s Panel for Social Services in Wales. I think many readers, like me, might find a tear welling up in their eye as they read about one particular young carer and what she manages to do above and beyond being the carer for her mother and younger siblings.
Rachel wrote about the commercialisation of Mother’s Day and shared her alternative approach in Happy Mother’s Day – From the Food Baby. It was the fathers, however, who hit the big ‘Aaaaaaah’ button in their posts this week. Ross Wigham (who has written wonderfully about fatherhood before) shared a momentous moment with his younger daughter in One small step for…..; and John Patterson was also a strong contender for the cuteness crown* when he shared a sweet song he learned from his 3-year-old daughter: The small things.
There was quite a lot of learning going on this week. Chris Bolton thinks that people jump at using the word ‘innovation’ far too quickly and need to learn some alternative words: Expatiation, Innovation, Adaptation, Continuous Improvement and Hyperbole. It’s dictionary time.
Many of you will have enjoyed Samuel-James Wilson’s tales of what he has been learning on his placements in places such as the famous York Minster, and will be very surprised by The Announcement. He will have some very different things to learn. I was thinking about a sense of local place as I anticipated Learning more about Neighbourhood Planning at a seminar provided by Newcastle City Council and led by Planning Aid.
In Learning by numbers, Andrew Jacobs thought back to painting in his childhood, what had been the outcomes when he painted freehand and when he did painting-by-numbers. Does setting up a tight framework for learning with measurable outcomes work, or do people learn better when they have more freedom? Carolyne Mitchell was thinking about design as My perfect cousin taught her and her colleagues something about design and what wider possibilities there could be for public services mobile resources for the public.
Several people considered different aspects of using social media and knowledge of how to use it this week. Kenny McDonald thought about the basics of what is required to share information about your life as it happens in his post about the infrastructure: What the W*Fi?!
Louise Brown provided some guidance on using Social bookmarking for charities. First-time contributor, Liam Barrington-Bush, wrote on the comms2point0 blog about how he was using social media to build up support and funds so he can self-publish his book: how an author is using small conversations and viral campaigning. Louise Psyllides, also contributing to Weekly Blog Club for the first time via the comms2point0 blog, wrote about the pr challenges that face housing in a world where #bedroomtax trends on Twitter.
Dan Slee wrote about FUTURE TACKS: Why every organisation needs a digital comms specialist, including how they need to help colleagues to use social media. I do sometimes wonder if some in universities need access to more social media practical expertise. Louise Atkinson is blogging about her research for her fine art PhD and her contribution this week was exploring the new world of sharing academic material online in the more informal blog form rather than waiting for it to be published in a peer-reviewed traditional journal: Practice as research [Week 23].
Rough Cat shared her experience of learning to hashtag very recently in Every Day’s A #School Day. Ah, where would we be without # to enable us to find tweets from and about a specific event such as a conference, or to indicate a dry or downright sardonic sense of humour. There was more humour from Karen Hart who took up Kate Bentham‘s suggestion for the Week 11 [completely optional] theme – randomness – in ‘Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp’ (Batman and vegetables are included).
Thank you very much to Kate Bentham for doing such a great job (as always) in looking after Weekly Blog Club for Week 10. If you think you’d like to volunteer as a guest curator, all you need to know is here. Thank you very much to all those who have read, Liked, commented on, followed this blog (and our members’ blogs), tweeted and retweeted our posts as well as to those who have contributed posts. If you want to join in, more about how to can be found on our About page. Do join in at any point during the year. If you’re nervous, tell us and we will encourage you.
We are still in March, and the general [entirely optional] theme for March is women because this is the month during which women’s history and issues are the focus internationally. If you want an alternative [still entirely optional] theme for Week 12, how about (thinking back to Andrew Jacobs’ post this week) something memorable that you made when you were a child (let us set ‘child’ as below 16 years old in this instance). We will also welcome with open arms any more #commscamp13 or #ukgov13 posts (we do have one or two contributions already).**
Blog away, my lovelies, blog away….
Janet
Janet E Davis
*Sorry, the alliteration just begged to be let out.
** I apologise for being a bit ruthless and asking one or two people bluntly if they would like to contribute a specific post to Weekly Blog Club.
Summary of Week 11 posts
how an author is using small conversations and viral campaigning by Liam Barrington-Bush on the comms2point0 blog.
FUTURE TACKS: Why every organisation needs a digital comms specialist by Dan Slee.
Expatiation, Innovation, Adaptation, Continuous Improvement and Hyperbole. It’s dictionary time by Chris Bolton.
The Announcement by Samuel-James Wilson.
One small step for….. by Ross Wigham.
Every Day’s A #School Day by Rough Cat.
How children and young people are feeding in to the Citizen’s Panel for Social Services in Wales by Dyfrig Williams.
the pr challenges that face housing by Louise Psyllides on the comms2point0 blog.
The small things by John Patterson.
Happy Mother’s Day – From the Food Baby by Rachel.
The relevance of resilience in healthcare by Angela Rowe on the Ayrshire Health blog.
‘Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp’ by Karen JK Hart.
Celebrating the legacy of Matilda Mae by Louise Brown.
Social bookmarking for charities by Louise Brown.
Learning by numbers by Andrew Jacobs.
My perfect cousin by Carolyne Mitchell.
What the W*Fi?! by Kenny McDonald.
Practice as research [Week 23] by Louise Atkinson.
Learning more about Neighbourhood Planning by Janet E Davis.
