Yes. If you like.

So why bother attending a Tweetup? Many moons ago (back in ’96 or so) I used to hop along to different new media meetups. In fact, at one point I even  found myself coordinating a few for artists wanting to learn more about new media. People swapped ideas and business cards while they discovered new ways to turn multimedia projects into something remarkable.

These days, Tweetups are another good way to swap ideas and business cards. But this time, you get to meet people you have already met…through Twitter. People from all walks of life. Business connections. Personal connections. And a chance to talk about social media and the things you would like to learn from/do business using/create art with new technologies.

These days I don’t get along to as many events as I used to. And while social networking helps to fill the gap between working part time, caring for my family and pursuing my passions, I still enjoy meeting and hearing what people have to say at these tweetups.

So, as someone who doesn’t make it along to every social media shindig, I was thankful for the number of people who supported a fundraising party for Epic Change at Tweetsgiving in Melbourne last November. Stacey Monk dreamed it up and Avi Kaplan coordinated events globally. Regular monthly evening tweetup TweetupMellers offered to host the event (hat tip Sam Mutimer), and weekly city tweetup Social Melbourne promoted it on their Facebook page (hat tip Kate Kendall).  Even Brent Masters from Change The World came along and took some videos of gratitude on the night, featuring @sammutimer, @drwarwick, @digitalkulcha, @howard61, @georgiawatson, @mattimck, @geehall1 and some girl who rants and rambles on a bit at the end.

After meeting so many locals using social media to make a difference, it only seems right to continue the conversation (and to swap more ideas, and more business cards.) Announcing…<drumroll>…. a Melbourne Netsquared local group for those of you wanting to talk about using social media for social good.  At this stage we are looking at a venue in the east as many interested parties find it difficult to get into the city. The first meetup/tweetup is planned for Tuesday April 13th and we already have a number of RSVPs.

You can join and read more about the Melbourne NetSquared meetup group. We will only be meeting every quarter, but to keep the momentum going you can attend a weekly eastern Tweetup #mescm at the same place and time which Patricia Dodd and David Warwick are starting up. Once we can find a suitable venue for coffee and breakfast around Blackburn-ish, with wifi that is.

There are Net Tuesday events all around the worldincluding Canberra and Sydney, thanks to Amy Sample Ward at NetSquared. Thanks Amy for making it so simple to get one started over here! I think it’s a great reason, with a purpose, to Tweetup.

While you might not be able to make every tweetup, you might discover some interesting people if you hop along to SocialMelb (Friday mornings, City) or TweetupMellers (monthly Thursday nights, Windsor) or #mescm (Tuesday mornings, eastern burbs TBD).

There are plenty of tweetups to choose around Australia and the world. You never know what creative projects you might dream up or join in as a result. Personally, meeting people from Twitter has helped me to raise funds for different nonprofits, given me speaking engagement opportunities and introduced me to some wonderful creative do-gooders and resources. It is “social” networking after all

What’s your experience? Have Tweetups been useful for you?

“Perhaps you want to change the world through your community group,  non profit, aid organisation or government agency, or maybe you help people to collaborate  in your workplace. Wherever you work or volunteer, I  hope Wonderwebby can be a place where you can find inspiration, ideas and tips so that you can make a difference  through the use of creative social media.”

As always I’m happy to hear your feedback, as I find About Me pages and bios to be quite difficult to get “just right”! Don’t you?

In a way, writing this blog also helps me to focus my time and energy on the things that I am passionate about. I was asked to speak about some of these passions at the VITTA Careers and ICT Expo earlier this year in Melbourne and I have finally uploaded it to Slideshare. Once again I used the alphabet technique. Truth be told, I knew I had an hour and the letters prompted me to keep my ramblings to a point per minute! Plus it made it enjoyable to present to the teachers who came along. Enjoy!

“Nancy & I met first online when we did a podcast around “blended communities” with Ed Mitchell (from the UK) and then F2F in Seattle last year.” Matt has seen the need for a workshop focusing on online communities emerge as the topic surfaced in many different areas over the last 12 months,  including learning, marketing and government.

Nancy White recently finished a book with Etienne Wenger & John D Smith called “Digital Habitats. Matt explains that  people attending the workshops can expect “practical tools to help them with online community management, based on many collective decades of experience from Nancy, Etienne, John & others. They’ll get a workshop session that will practice what it preaches in terms of interactivity & blended technology use. And finally, well, Nancy is a live wire – there will not be one dull moment (promise). ” (I believe you Matt, Nancy is on my “must meet in real life” list, especially after her inspiring contribution to WorldShapers pp 41-43)

Nancy White also shared what she hopes people will get out of the workshops. ” I’ll offer some of the frameworks we developed in the book – which have particular application I believe for work based groups, communities of practice and virtual teams.”

“I’d also like to put on the table some of the emerging distinctions between online group facilitation and something that, for lack of a better word, I’d describe as network facilitation, which in fact is new and emerging.”

If you’re interested in attending one of Nancy White’s workshops in Australia this November, check out the time and dates over on Innotecture’s blog. As somone who has experienced both the positive and more challenging aspects of participating in and moderating  online communities,  I’m really looking forward to joining in with her Melbourne workshop!

Last year people around the world joined in #Tweetsgiving and helped to raise $11,000 US in less than 48 hours online for nonprofit Epic Change. The funds raised from the last TweetsGiving have now built a classroom in Tanzania where the Twitter handles of donors are painted on the walls!

Epic Change helped a woman called “Mama Lucy”Kamptoni. Mama Lucy once sold chickens, and from what little money she earned built a school near her home in Arusha, Tanzania. She started in 2003 on rented land with only 6 students, and has now built a school that serves over 350 local kids. Last year, the school participated in national exams in Tanzania for the very first time, scoring #1 in the Arusha district, ahead of 116 other schools, including some internationally led with millions in funding.

From Tanzania, Stacey Monk writes,

“The funds raised this year will be used for a dormitory/orphanage, an additional classroom for students to move into Class 7 (the school doesn’t have enough classrooms to have a Class 7 today), as well as the school’s first library and cafeteria. The school has now grown to over 350 local students ages 3-13, and these new facilities are much needed.

We hope that money raised during TweetsGiving will help us find and fund new Epic Change partners and fellows in other parts of the world. Beginning in 2010, our current plan is to begin searching for additional changemakers and social entrepreneurs like Mama Lucy who are transforming their own communities in remarkable ways. We believe there are remarkable people like her who create hope in all parts of the world – and at Epic Change, we intend to invest in their efforts.”

You can continue to donate online and this year you can even help by throwing a gratitude party/Tweetup on November 24th or 25th. From the event details page “Organizers also reach out to local businesses who are willing to make cash or in-kind donations of venue, food, music, and other resources to make your event a success. Epic Change will facilitate online ticket purchase and promote your event on the TweetsGiving community website.

We simply ask that every party provide an opportunity for guests to celebrate and express their gratitude – whether it be for one another, members of your community or unheralded changemakers in the world at large.”

This is where YOU come into the picture. While I’d love to see this happen, Tweetsgiving needs your help. The organisers are leaving it up to each party in each city to come up with a gratitude event idea “You can plan an art project, a concert, an act of guerrilla goodness, a letter writing station, a novel way of highlighting the work of a local changemaker, or something else entirely – we’ll share our ideas with you soon and we can’t wait to see the joyful ideas you all dream up!”

If you have an idea, or would like to be involved in organising a Tweetsgiving event in Australia (or anywhere else) please leave a comment so we can talk about ideas together or get in touch with the Tweetsgiving organisers directly.

Will you join in to create a Big Aussie Tweetup?

Also coming in September – the MarketingNow! Conference which is now free (with a donation) with speakers Darren Rowse (Problogger – who recently inspired me to try and fix up my About Me page), Gavin Heaton (from Age of Conversation), Stephen Johnson, Laurel Papworth, David Armano (who, it turns out, drives the same motorbike as my husband and has the same taste in monkeys.  Yeah that’s the kind of thing you find out through Twitter!) , Jim Stewart and Simon Young.

Unfortunately it looks like I won’t be able to attend either event – but I did manage to get along to Laurel’s Social Media Marketing Workshop a few weeks back, where Laurel shared some great insights based on her professional experience, and helped to get my social networks organised! I liked it when she said “If it works, don’t do it again” (or something like that) which was the approach I took with my fundraising journey for Opportunity International Australia. Just because raising $1300 through blog posts worked one time, doesn’t mean I tried the same thing for the next event.

It was also reassuring to read techniques for social media marketing recommended in David Meerman-Scott’s book World Wide Rave, which I had used in my fundraising blogging challenges. Great suggestions, focused on people. As he says in the book “When you’ve got something worth sharing, people will share it – no coercion required.”

I’m learning – Keep it fresh. Listen and be engaged. Look for fun ways of doing things. Then start again (it’s always new)!