How useful has social media been today?

(Pic via Pete Ashton)

This isn’t yet another post banging on about how great socia media is, ok? It’s a glorified links round-up. Sure, I might want to prove a point, but it’s mainly a round-up of useful scraps of info.

Just wanted to make that clear.

For a bit of background, the Birmingham Post printed a piece by John Lamb, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s Press & PR Manager, today in which he castigated social media – seemingly Facebook updates in particular (although Twitter and MySpace got a mention too). Dave Harte and Jason Hall have pretty much covered my thoughts on the matter.

Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with giving social media a kicking if it’s done right, but John Lamb’s attempt was so clumsy and unbalanced that I’ve been moved to provide some redress.

So, as John cherry-picked the most banal things he heard via social networks (mainly Facebook, I think) over the past week, so I’ve picked out the most useful things I’ve discovered via Twitter in the past 24 hours.

Let the banality begin:

• More Canals Than Venice is a new blog about art and culture in Birmingham (via @bounder)
• Fusions is a space for organisations or individuals to explore new, potential projects, forge partnerships and share funding opportunities (via @wesharestuff)
• The Birmingham Bead Shop is setting up at the Custard Factory (just down the road from my office) and blogging about it (via @getgood)
• In other Custard Factory news, Rooty’s is being refitted and there’s been mention of ‘fine dining’ (via @stevegerrard)
• I could, if I wanted, watch a live stream of today’s AmbITion event in Bristol (via @hadleypaul)
• Karl Binder is developing a website for enabling collaborative writing projects. The working title is Screenbound (via @karlbinder)
• The RSC have a photography-related event with Ellie Kurttz at their open day on Sunday 19 July (via @amyclarke_uk)
• Birmingham Royal Ballet’s press officer now has a Twitter profile (via @tmstvns)
• I saw a frankly hilarious video of Sepp Blatter falling over (via @lovelychaos)
• There’s a bloggers/tweeters/whateverers meet-up in Birmingham on Monday. Birmingam Chamber folk welcome, I’m sure (via @peteashton)
• Following a visit to Birmingham the other week, Citilab Barcelona are arranging their first social media clinic for Sept/Oct (via @cataspanglish)
• The Art of With asks and answers the question – “what do the advent of the web, collaborative practice and open source ways of working mean for the arts and art organisations?” (via @clarered)
• I got some nice responses to my message that I’m off teaching in Guyana this summer
• Tonight’s episode of The Home Show features a guy who looks a bit like me. Only chunkier (via @editorialgirl)

Actually, I’ve only gone back five hours but I reckon that’s plenty.

Of course, I’m not saying everything in that list would be of interest  to everyone, just me – but then I follow people who interest me. Seeing as how all social media does is help people to communicate, perhaps John Lamb’s real problem is his network.