Harnessing (available) resources for development

Last year, the very first barcamp was held in Sunyani. It was an event that saw stakeholders in the region, meet to network and discuss issues related to its development.
This year, another barcamp beckons. As an agricultural hub of Ghana, there is the need to find out the resources available to us, to improve the sector.

• What information is available to farmers and those in agriculture?

• What role does (or can) ICT play in agriculture?

• What organisations are doing a lot to better the agricultural sector in Ghana as a whole?

• What can I do as an individual to help in the development of my community?

For answers to these and other questions, join us at Barcamp Sunyani on the 9th of November, 2013 at the University of Energy and Renewable Resources, at 9am prompt.

Do follow discussions on twitter via the hashtag #bcsyi. You can also register for the event online.

See you when I see you...

#AASW6 Social media bootcamp

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine informed me about a conference that is going to be held in Ghana -- the African Agricultural Science Week. I had no idea what it was about. All I knew was that, he wanted to know if I was interested in being considered as a social media reporter for the event. Hell yeah!!!
Following my receipt of an invitation letter, I am in Accra to join other social media reporters cover the event. A pre-requisite (of sorts) is for us to undergo a 2-day bootcamp on how to cover this particular event. Today is the first day. The facilitator is an energetic, enthusiastic fellow (who likes to be called Grandpa).

Peter (Grandpa) coaching his enthusiastic team!

We first looked at what Social media is and some of the characteristics it has:

• It is on-line
• It allows sharing and participation
• It is free and easy to use
• It is instantaneous (immediate)
• It promotes networking and personal interactions
• It allows anybody to publish just about anything

We then looked at the plethora of social media tools available. Peter put them into groups in his 'legendary' bucket:

• Picture: Flickr, instagram, picasa
• Video: YouTube, vine, keek, vimeo, blip
• Slides: Slideshare
• File sharing: Google Drive, Dropbox, issuu, scribd, youSENDit(which is now hightail)
• Social networking: Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, renren, weibo
• Microblogs: Twitter, status, yammer, netlog
• Blogs: Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger, Overblog, Vox (which is now typepad)
• Audio(Podcast): Podomatic
• Social bookmarking: Delicious, pinterest, scoop.it, paper.li, storify, diigo, reddit, StumbleUpon, digg
• Webcast: livestream, ustream, Google Hangout on Air
• Collaborative sites: Google sites, Wikis, kstoolkit, teambox, basecamp
• Miscellaneous: survey monkey, feedly, zite, flipboard, dlvr.it, xing, ning

As an individual/organisation, you need to have a strategy to get your message across to your target audience:

Illustrated 'seduction' strategy

Live/Vapour media vs. Permanent media

You can read more about defining a social media strategy here.
One cool thing I learnt was how to identify whether a celebrity sent a tweet by themselves or their PROs. This also works for an account that is being coordinated by a number of individuals. The trick is to check for a signature at the end of a tweet. An example is shown below. It has the signature, ^JG:

Staying cool with a DD Iced Coffee! :) RT @DunkinDonuts: It's going to be a hot one today! What's your tip for beating the heat? ^JG
— Mary Matthews (@mary_matthews59) June 24, 2013

It's been a very insightful and exciting day. The week promises to be great.
You can follow the event's blog for updates, as well as check the organiser's blog.
Don't forget to look out for the #AASW6 hashtag on twitter.