The map over on our bridgend.com has been developed by NativeHQ and the National Theatre of Wales who have been keen to extend the reach and remit of community theatre by investing time and energy into a social media strategy that seems to be paying dividends at the moment.
For us at GEECS, the potential of the map presents us with a great opportunity to continue to develop this resource as a tool for digital inclusion workshops: the concept from the user point of view is so simple - pick a place and add your content, simple as that.
However, from a DI angle, there is so much potential not only to display user generated content that is not necessarily driven by workshop attendance but also to map activity at a national level.
The map has the potential for us to examine digital activity plus a chance to develop innovative and dynamic cross-project and inter-organisational data that can deliver sustainable DI activity based on communities of place.
Just a quick look at the map can stir stories based on place e.g. my first kiss or even as shown on the map "this is where i lost my gerbil down a drain".
This tool offers a powerful storytelling "jumping off" point, it can help participants to develop media rich content and post it quickly, plus perhaps most importantly, it promotes ownership and therefore a level of self-promotion and sustainability through a variety of social media platforms.
After the workshop on Saturday it is becoming apparent that the people involved see the relevance of this tool and posts are now appearing as far north as Caernarfon and Holyhead. I think it is this sense of relevance that creates a great opportunity to promote DI activity, after all, we all like to sit down and reminisce about the places we grew up, the places we went, the places that hold emotion and hold those stories of experience that prove themselves to be so content rich; not to mention the places of gossip of course!
Hopefully this map will be available for our use and development soon.
As an extra I'd just like to extend our thanks for inspiration, help and vision to Tom, Guy, NTW and of course everyone who came on the weekend.
Meantime, if you're in Bridgend any time soon why not go along and see NTW's production Love Steals us from Loneliness running from October 7-16 in Hobos, Bridgend and then post your thoughts over on ourbridgend.com.
Meantime, check out some of the content from the weekend...(there's a story from me too, but you'll have to scroll north to Maesteg!)
One of the great things to come out of this day is the way in which this group viewed and interacted with technology; a great quote form the day - "I bet 100 years ago there were a group just like us saying that electricity was never going to catch on..."
