Social media surgery for mental health #smsmhealth
Today was our first ever social media surgery – except really it ended up as a day of workshops with all sorts of interesting people thinking about different aspects of social media. We didn’t actually get to do many surgical procedures – it ended up as more of a collaborative and conversational event. It was a complete experiment and, on balance, I think we may have pulled it off. The best bit about it for me was the fabulous mix of people: from those with lived experience of mental health difficulties, occupational therapists, psychologists, public relations professionals, service managers, volunteers, nurses and psychiatrists (and quite a few people who fell into more than one category). And a real mix of sectors – NHS, local authority, voluntary and private sector. This led to the most interesting discussions and different points of view from a group of people with wildly varying degrees of experience using social media. It was a delight to have the event co-hosted by Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Leeds Mind – role modelling good partnerships. We had workshops on topics varying from campaigning (including a live Facebook conversation) from @changeleeds, peer support online from @BPDFFS, the art of blogging from @helenstanding, projects and organisations using social media from @inkwellarts, and the Leeds Wellbeing Web from @leedswellweb, plus me facilitating a discussion about online personal and professional boundaries. So today I learnt a few new technical tricks, had quite a bit of what I already know confirmed, but most of all I learnt that sometimes it’s a good idea to just have a go at...
Snog, avoid but never marry
I think corporates and activists should sometimes snog, occasionally avoid and probably never marry. To extend the metaphor a bit more than is probably necessary… Married life would just make everyone far too comfortable and the frisson of a snog and the tension of uncertainty are more likely to lead to a healthy vigorous debate. I’m approaching mine and @markoneinfour’s Snog, Marry, Avoid? Workshop from a corporate perspective as a result of the steep learning curve we are engaged in at the NHS Trust where I work. We are busy working out how social media enable us to build connections and relationships with people who have a stake in what we do. This isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes we get a hard time on Twitter; we occasionally get negative feedback on Patient Opinion; our chief executive’s blog has been known to get some very challenging comments. And of course social media have the potential to amplify far more than word-of-mouth might do. Mark is right when he suggests that social media are both exhilarating and nerve wracking for institutions. A number of campaigning groups have used social media to raise concerns with our NHS Trust and there’s no doubt such a public forum ensures a quick response. I’m keen to explore how they can perhaps do it more effectively in our workshop. But there are also areas of common ground where activists and corporates can work together, for example on social marketing campaigns where there are themes of mutual interest. I think the key to encouraging more snogging is to increase the engagement of people working within institutions such as...
Public sector bodies versus online activists – Snog, marry or avoid?
Here is a post from @MarkOneinFour about a joint workshop we are running together as part of Social Media Week on 28 September in London. Here’s his take on the topic: Along with Victoria Betton I’m giving a workshop called ‘Snog, marry, avoid? Activists versus corporates in the public sector‘ as part of Social Media Week 2012. The event is about the increasingly obvious new area of interaction between people and public services that is opening in social media and the challenges and opportunities it poses. One of the things that I’ll be touching on is the idea that social media (twitter, facebook, tumblr, blogs) have become the coffeehouses of the 21st century. This is hardly a controversial idea. During the 17th and 18th century ‘Age of Enlightenment’ coffeehouses were spaces where, for the price of a penny, people could meet each other and discuss things. See if this description by historian Brian Cowell sounds like social media to you: The coffeehouses were “places where people gathered to drink coffee, learn the news of the day, and perhaps to meet with other local residents and discuss matters of mutual concern.” The coffeehouses were places where, for the first time, a class of people were hashing out their own ideas and responses to what at the time was the eroding of autocratic rule by Kings and Lords and finding their own voice. As Cowan says “the coffeehouse was a place for like-minded scholars to congregate, to read, as well as learn from and to debate with each other, but was emphatically not a university institution, and the discourse there was...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
