Is the conference dead as a Dodo in the digital age?

Is the conference dead as a Dodo in the digital age?

by | Jun 21, 2013 | activism, mental health, social media | 3 comments

This week I went to two conferences – the first one as an attendee and the second as co-organiser of Digital Innovation in Mental Health, an event delivered in partnership with Transform. The differences of style, format and tone between each event had some strong parallels with social versus mainstream media, and it got me wondering about whether the traditional conference format has had its day. I have found myself quite bored with the format of conferences recently – esteemed speakers, expert panels, questions invited from the floor. It majors on broadcast and hierarchy – people accorded status or expertise broadcasting information to a relatively passive audience. A conference hashtag attached to the event enables a bit of horizontal participation and you might be able to catch the speaker for a quick chat in the break.  But these are add-ons rather than core to the event itself. Sociability is around the perimeters and snatched at the margins. Much more interesting to me is an unconference format – a participant-led day where a framework and structure is offered for people to have the conversations that are important to them at that time. I say the structure is offered because people can opt out at any point and do their own thing – which some people chose to do at various times during our event. There we no presentations or power-points, just a welcome and a supportive facilitator to guide people through the day. An unconference format is nothing new but its potential is a world away from a traditional conference.  People gather together around areas of common interest, and if it’s not working...
#DigitalMH13 live blog – 20 June 2013

#DigitalMH13 live blog – 20 June 2013

by | Jun 20, 2013 | mental health, social media | 2 comments

Below is a live blog of our Digital Innovation in Health event. You can find a storify of all the #DigitalMH13 tweets here. You can find analytics of our Twitter reach via Symplur here. 4.00 – event drawing to an end – do check out #DigitalMH13 to see the conversations on Twitter 🙂 2.45 – Mike summing up the day and reminding us we are each responsible for taking learning away, as well as building on ideas and relationships we have generated. Victoria thanks everyone for coming along and asks people to give feedback to help thinking about future events – if we should have them and, if so, how they would work best. Charlie tells the group he is planning to continue conversations on his Digital First LinkedIn group. Now time for more chatting and networking…       2.25 – lots of fascinating conversations have been taking place and now time to pull everyone together to look at the gallery of illustrations / records before we get to the informal part of the day where people decide if/what/how they want to take things forward. 1.20 – conversations for this afternoon agreed and the themes are… (1) peer support training and development for digital (2) process of doing a digital project (3) does the NHS get it? (4) disruption of professional boundaries (5) digital innovation globally (6) big data (7) social media, technology and social exclusion (8) telehealth.  1.00 – back from lunch and negotiating the next set of conversations for the afternoon.               12.00 – coming back together for a gallery walk of an illustrated...
#LYPFTrecovery – a social media experiment in an NHS Trust

#LYPFTrecovery – a social media experiment in an NHS Trust

by | Jun 9, 2013 | mental health, NHS stuff, social media | 1 comment

Sometimes it’s good to experiment – play about with an idea, try something out, take a bit of a risk and see what happens. I’ve followed with interest when some NHS Trusts have experimented with live-tweeting from A&E and been keen to try something similar. But we weren’t entirely sure about doing the equivalent from our crisis services – the risk of getting it wrong when people are connecting with the NHS at their most distressed, didn’t feel quite right. However, getting conversations going around some of our strategic priorities did seem a better fit. We’re doing a lot of thinking in our NHS Trust about the notion of ‘recovery’ – to what extent it is a useful a concept in mental health, and how we can embed principles of hope, optimism and control so that people who use our services have a positive experience and get the right support to achieve their goals, whatever they may be. At the moment these conversations are mostly taking place between practitioners, in services and with people using our services through surveys and in involvement groups. So we wondered about how we could expand that conversation by stimulating chats in different social media spaces. Like many ideas, this emerged from a natter with a few colleagues at the end of a long day before we set off home. It’s been brewing ever since. So this week we’ve got a calendar of online and offline events and activities to start conversations on various social media platforms about recovery. We’ll be kicking off with a blog post by one of our new peer support workers who shares...