Weeknotes #1 — So this is content…
We’re going to try something a little different.
One of the problems we have at Sheffield Digital is that a lot of the work we do goes pretty under the radar.
In particular, Mel and Chris spend a lot of time speaking up for, promoting and representing the city’s digital community in various meetings and events that no one gets to know about.
It’s not that these things are not important (they really are). It’s just there is little time left for either of them to write up and share what they have been up to. The Sheffield Digital Podcast has helped with this a lot and is now one of our most important ways of getting information out.
But we’d like to be more nimble. And we like the idea of weeknotes.
What are weeknotes?
There’s probably a proper definition somewhere, but as far as I can tell weeknotes are an informal way to reflect on what’s happened over the previous week.
They are part online journal, part brain dump.
We think weeknotes might be a good way for us to quickly share some of the extra detail of what we’re doing at Sheffield Digital. We’re going to publish them on Medium to start off with, but if this becomes a thing then perhaps we’ll stick them on the Sheffield Digital website too.
To keep it simple, we’ll each write our own weeknotes and then publish them together. Like we have here.
Chris and Mel will report back on the work they’ve done and the people they’ve met and the golden nuggets of news they’ve discovered. I’ll try and add some thoughts of my own around the (other) content we’re working on.
And I am also very happy to use this space to take and share feedback from the wider community. That’s you, dear reader. Presumably.
So let’s get on with it.
This from Mel…
Tuesday
I went to the Channel 4 bid briefing at the Showroom Cinema. There were lots of people there, mostly from the film/TV/music community. The panel was Richard Caborn (former MP), Ed Highfield (Sheffield City Council), film producer Becky Lawson (I think, apologies if I’ve got the name wrong), Mark Herbert (Warp Films) and it was chaired by Brigidin Crowther.
Lasting impressions: tons of enthusiasm in the room and a real commitment to get involved in the bid. But the deadline is very tight and so I’m not sure if that offer will get taken up. Richard is an energetic spokesman. He talked about how Sheffield’s DNA fits with Channel 4’s. Ed talked about being bold and taking risks, which was great to hear from the local authority.
Independence was a big theme, as was the importance of skills and growing a technical talent pipeline (music to my ears). The next step is to get a bid in by 11th May to get onto the shortlist. I left feeling hopeful. #C4Sheffield
Wednesday
I had a meeting with Liz Wallis from Sero to work out the next steps on bringing The Sheffield College’s software developer apprenticeship to reality. Expect a blog post update from me and, if you’ve been involved, an email about how to let the College know what kind of roles you’d like to be able to recruit for (no obligation — we just need examples for marketing to potential candidates).
Thursday night
Went to dinner at the Cutlers Hall as a guest of Sheffield Innovation Programme at the IOD South Yorkshire annual shindig (get me). Jolly pleasant and got to hear a short talk from a former Captain of the nuclear deterrent submarine (scary). Didn’t drink as much as I should have.
Friday
Made a rare appearance at Geek Brekky thanks to staying in town after the dinner. Great turnout and some new faces, although I was once again the only female at the table. Come on ladies — we need to plan a Geek Brekky takeover!
Then an afternoon content strategy session with Chris Dymond and Iain the content king, hence these weeknotes and a pledge to be a bit more opinionated (look out world).
Chris and I are off to check out Kollider’s temporary space at Barkers Pool House in a bit (as I write this). Tom Wolfenden has masterminded the fit out so we know it will look good.
Interested to see who’s there . . .
This from Chris…
This week has felt like there’s been a bit too much to do than I have had time away from the day job. So here are some very quick highlights.
Sheffield’s 5G Urban Connected Communities bid is progressing and additional workshops have been arranged during May, neither of which I can make but I’m having meetings on the side.
Also, the dotSHF coalition is maturing, with the appointment of a coordinator. I don’t think it’s official yet, so I won’t say who it is, but this is very good news.
There’s a(nother) legal challenge underway against the renewal of Spearmint Rhino in the CIQ. I need to get more information about this out to people (we have personal opinions but no formal Sheffield Digital policy on the subject). Individuals who would like to support the challenge can find out more about it along with a template letter of objection here.
I was at the Doc/Fest programme launch on Thursday and had a chat with Dan and Joe who curate and produce (respectively) the Alternate Realities strand, which is looking awesome this year.
We discussed these things:
- Putting out an article about AR explaining what’s going on.
- Sorting out good tour times for local schools and the tech community to check it out (ie when some of the creators are going to be there).
- The possibility of running a meetup during AR, around VR and digital storytelling.
I’m also working to give the UTC Year 10 students cool things to do during transition week, when the engineering students are all at the AMRC. Good chats on this with Doc/Fest, the CMC and the Council :)
Incidentally, we had a great time at the Family Maker Day at Hillsborough College last Saturday. What a brilliant set of workshops for kids, organised by the Sheffield Digital Skills Action Plan.
What else? I had a bunch of conversations around TES Global coming to the city (woot!). Lots of chats with Mel and Iain about Sheffield Digital content. And now I’m about to go and check out Kollider’s space at Barker’s Pool House, which they’re opening while the refurb of Castle House is completed.
Have a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend everyone!
This from me (Iain)…
If you’ll allow a little tooting of one’s own horn, as it were, I reckon this has been a pretty significant week or two for Sheffield Digital.
We interviewed two mayoral candidates on the podcast, which rather nicely complemented the chat I had with Mark Gannon the week before about Sheffield’s 5G Urban Connected Communities bid.
It feels like the podcast has quickly gone from a ‘let’s see what happens’ idea to a place where we can explore some pretty serious digital chit chat.
Some high-fiving should go to Cam Spilman from Paper who pushed for the interview with the mayoral candidates on Twitter.
And a thank you to him for saying this on Slack afterwards:
“I just finished listening to this last night. I thought you did an amazing job with it. This sort of engagement really shows how far the sector has come with the representation of Sheffield Digital. Thank you.”
The other major development of the week was the content strategy meeting we just had, which Mel and Chris refer to above.
I’ll try and report back in more detail soon, but I’ll be quietly making some changes to the Sheffield Digital website over the next couple of months. I’ll be restricted somewhat by the need to use the existing WordPress template, but hopefully the changes will highlight important stuff and make things a bit clearer.
In our meeting, we also looked at how we might be more proactive with our content. That might mean looking at new ways of doing things (weeknotes!) and mixing up the type of things we tend to publish.
Oh! One of my tasks is to improve the route from landing on the Sheffield Digital Slack page to becoming part of the community. It could be much better. We know that. So I’ll be doing something about it.
That’s it for now! Weeknotes out!
