Pete Ashton’s Blog

So lets say you organise an event* and people turn up and they appear to enjoy it and then they go away but you have no idea whether they really enjoyed it and what they thought because you only got a chance to talk to a few of them for a few minutes each. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could immediately find out what they thought. Well, if most of them are on Twitter you can. Here’s a selection of instant reactions to tonight’s blogmeet:

• twm_driver: Back home with a McDonalds after a great time at the blog meet. Saw lots of wonderful people and was made very welcome. Thanks everyone
• hemminac: Good to talk at the blog meet…..not too much about blogging tho! Pause for thought……….
• charlottecarey: finally sitting down, v long day! bloggers mtg v. friendly, much more mixed, bit odd with Lucy in tow & shame had 2 leave so early
• leonardomorgado: Interesting evening with Birmingham Bloggers. Didn’t talk to as many people as I would’ve liked. My fault.
• podnosh: you find the most fantastic people at the Birmingham bloggers meets. This time two chiddlers turned up. Thanks all.
• ruthward: Enjoyed bloggers meet. met some interesting folk. now i just need to blog about it!
• Mach2Designs: Onthebus heading home, proved @john383 wrong and met some interesting people. =]
• editorialgirl: glad I went to the bloggers meet even if I still don’t really know what the point was. Met people - woo! Er… guess that was the point.
• anthonyherron: good to meet bloggers and non bloggers today, will def go again, in Adam and Eve at the mo for filming!

What value does this have? Well, on it’s own not a huge amount. There’s not a vast amount of useful information there other than very quick reactions but what strikes me as interesting is these are responses to a non-existent survey produced as part of a conversation on Twitter. What I’ve done is lifted these snippets out of that conversation and put them in a different context, harvesting them if you like. So rather than handing out comment cards for people to fill in I’ve gotten the same sort of feedback ambiantly which I’m reproducing here.

For more of this sort of thing see Created in Birmingham collective memories.

* I didn’t actually organise this but given I have an interest in it working let’s assume for the sake of argument that I did.

Following on from the coworking crawl last week and in prep for tonight’s bloggers meetup I’ve been working through some of the ideas and thoughts that have been floating around over the last few months about setting up some kind of informal working space for us digital nomad types in Birmingham. I see there being a number of these in the future from cafes that are quiet out of peak times (Jibbering in Moseley for example) to community centers such as the Moseley Community Development Trust building which recently got a grant to develop a coworking space for creative industry types (of which there are many in Moseley) up to purpose build office spaces with formal membership and services along the lines of eOffice on Smallbrook Queensway. And there are many other similar things in the pipeline - the Custard Factory, for example, are interested in developing something along these lines and there are many smaller office/studio complexes that could move into the coworking sphere such as, off the top of my head, The Arch in Digbeth or The Fireworks in Jewellery Quarter.

So space itself isn’t going to be a problem. Initial enquiries by myself and others indicates we might even be able to get free space for an initial period just to see how it works. The important thing, I think, is what we want from that space, not just in terms of equipment and services (wifi, desks, sofas, etc) but socially and in terms of ethos.

Some ideas might be:

• Somewhere that isn’t home but isn’t a full blown office
• Where they are like-minded people to share ideas / resources
• A place where low-level events could take place
• Some sort of digital advocacy / training centre
• A secure base for those who don’t need a permanent office, or already have one out of town
• A real-world space that adjuncts online communities
• A social club

And so on. What I’m looking to do is gather as many of these together as possible and boil them down into a list that can be presented to a landlord or similar. Like I said, the space is probably there for the taking. We just need to know what we’re going to do with it.

The comment box is yours…

I am not the most organised of people. My systems generally revolve around piles of stuff, be they physical piles on my desk or digital piles on my computer. This has served me fairly well over the years when I didn’t have much to organise but of late I’ve been thinking it might be about time to get a proper system in place.

The one everyone seems to bang on about is Getting Things Done, or GTD, but while I may be terribly mistaken that does seem like learning to run before I can crawl. This probably means I’m exactly the sort of person who should put aside a few days to get my GTD in situ but I fear I’ll just not keep it going. What I need is something that fits into my current somewhat random way of working and tidies it up a bit.

Remember The Milk was recommended to me last week by Chris due to its Twitter integration. I use Twitter a lot so it makes sense to have a system that hooks into that, so I signed up. Being Twitter-centric it’s a fairly simple thing - send “d rtm Do That Thing Monday” to Twitter and “Do That Thing” is entered into my Remember The Milk account with a due date of Monday. There are a bunch load of other commands I can send but they’re not essential. What matters is when I think of a thing I need to do I can add it to the list in the same ways I update Twitter, either on my computer or on my phone.

So far it’s like any number of other reminder services, but the killer feature here is the Gmail integration. I use the Gmail web interface all the time having moved over from Apple Mail last year so it’s essentially my desktop. Remember The Milk has a Firefox plugin that slots your to-do list alongside your inbox as if it were part of Gmail itself. It looks like this:

(Taken from the RTM site)

What this means is every time I check my email my todo list is right there in front of me. I cannot ignore it as I do with paper-based lists and pin board, nor can I just never load it up as I do with computer-based lists. It’s always there. So far it’s working and hopefully it’ll get me in the habit of actually doing stuff when it’s supposed to be done and then I can move onto to a proper GTD system.

But what’s interesting here is I never have to visit the RTM site itself. I can add things in Twitter or Gmail and tick them off in Gmail, yet everything is going through the RTM server. This kind of seamless integration is really what “Web 2.0″ is about yet if I’m never going to the RTM website ho can they make money from me? The “Pro” upgrade is aimed at mobile users and I’m not sure I need to review stuff while mobile considering I can submit stuff by text to Twitter, but I can see this being a critical part of their offering. $25 a year isn’t much really, though, so if I manage to keep using this for a fortnight I’ll probably stump up the cash. Actually I notice the iPhone service has a 15 day trial so there you go. But meanwhile I can see me never going to the RTM site itself, just using the services that patch into it. This is how the internet should work.

Shame about the stupid name though, but what can do you do? ;)

Today we’re on a crawl of the wifi hotspots of Birmingham. It’s like a real ale pub crawl only much more nerdy. The idea is to find places with free wireless and see whether they’re good to work in during the day. My companions on this journey, at least at the outset, are Pete Lewis and Simon Hammond. Here’s Simon in the Kitchen Garden Cafe:

We’re eating breakfast before Pete arrives. While a little pricey it was fantastic, particularly the organic sausage, and set us up for the day.

Wifi here is free with a password - “kitchengarden”. If you’ve been here before you’ll know it’s a lovely place and fairly quiet at 10-11am, though I know from experience it gets a bit mental at lunchtime. Talking about it’s potential for coworking Si suggested the upstairs room could be used as a drop in office space in the mornings. That would make sure the rest of the place isn’t full of laptops which, to be honest, doesn’t add to the lovely ambiance of the place. One to ponder.

After this we’re heading to Jibbering Records in Moseley - should be there about 12.30 or so, and then into Digbeth. You’re welcome to join us!

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And on to Jibbering Records in Moseley at 12.30pm. Quiet in here, which is handy as there aren’t a whole load of tables. Very chilled, lovely music and tea at £1 a pop. If I was someone who bought music in physical formats I might check the racks, but I’m not.

This is Andrew Dubber’s favourite place as it acts as a social centre as much as a workplace and, limited space aside, it’s a great example of mixing things up coworking style. It’d be nice to see if this could expand somewhat - maybe into the Dance Centre Cafe next door? I only noticed they’ve got loads of space the other day…

Jibbering is also the home of the Digital is Dangerous campaign, which makes being a digital nomad worker in here rather amusing. At least they’re covering all the bases, I guess!

Great art exhibition at the moment here by Glenn Anderson. Mixing up collage, graffiti and what look like oils to me on a variety of sized pieces. These two massive ones in the corner are particularly impressive.

Next stop, Rootys @ Custard Factory!
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The problem with a coworking crawl is we keep stopping to work which kinda gets in the way of finding new places. It’s now 3pm and it looks like we’ve just covered the 50 bus route, and even then only places we already knew (although Pete hadn’t been to Jibbering before). Still, it doesn’t have to be a one day thing. Maybe, if you’ll excuse the wanky terminology, some of Flashmob/coworking where we descend on an area for a day might be in order? Jewellery Quarter next perhaps?

So we’re in Rootys in the Custard Factory, somewhere I know very well as it was my office last year before it got too cold in the winter. Like most places it gets busy a lunchtime but is quieter in the mornings and afternoon. They have (shockingly fast) wifi, which is great, and not too many working power sockets, which is not so great. Though I notice today there’s a handy extension cord which means more than two people can plug in. For the record there are two main sockets - the ones under the DJ booth (when they’re not being used for DJing!) and one behind the right hand (as you walk from the bar) dividing wall.

The staff here are lovely, especially Rod. I’ve heard people say they can get a bit arsey about people working in here but I’ve never had that problem. I’m guessing, as with all these things, it depends on what you do besides hook up your laptop, and of course it’s always good to buy at least a drink or two. Also it’s worth noting that this isn’t the only wifi place in the Custard Factory. The Kitchen is favoured by some but I think their tea comes in too small a cup. And if you’re sitting outside you can usually pick up a free wifi node. Look for “IT Lab” as that’s the general internet provider on the site.

The nice thing about Rootys recently has been the choice of seating. They have nice rigid chairs with big tables should you want to crack on with the serious work and a few sofas in the corner for slacking. Food wise I generally just go for the sandwiches which are reasonably filling for £2.50. They also do hot food which I gather is really good.

The main advantage of working here, especially if you’re in the “creative industries”, is that many likeminded folk tend to pop in, not just from the Custard Factory itself but also The Arch, Maverick TV and various BCU mini-campuses about the place. It’s perfect for the accelerated serendipity thing that Stef’s always going on about. And speaking of which, he’s here having a serendipitous meeting with Martin from Walkit.com.

Not sure if we’ll go anywhere next. My off-peak bus pass isn’t valid again until 6pm so I doubt I’ll be traveling on, plus there’s stuff at Millennium Point this evening which is around the corner so I’ll probably stay here and actually get some work done. ;)

Quite often I tell people, if you’re not sure about what you’ve written save it as draft and post it later. The trick here is to remember to post it. I wrote this last Thursday and just found it in my drafts and re-reading it I’m not sure why I didn’t just post it there and then. Other than it probably being wrong. Anyway…

Analysis on Radio 4 tonight looked at the current state of government funding of the arts, which as a defaco arts blogger I listened to with some interest. A lot of the ground covered wasn’t new but something did spark a notion which I haven’t thought out properly yet so bear with me. For all I know this is old hat but maybe I’ve got a new spin?

As you’ll know if you’ve gotten me talking recently I’m all about “the conversation”, using online tools to get people talking about whatever they want and letting serendipity kick in. I have this theory that local democracy can be strengthened by, bluntly, getting people to blog, whereby “blog” I mean use the internet to have conversations with each other.

An example I usually throw out is the Birmingham Flickr group which spawned regular meetups involving people who had nothing in common other than they liked taking photos. From this group came new relationships and new projects, notably for me the Created in Birmingham blog. And I’m going to two weddings this year of people I met through the group. All spun out of some photos of Birmingham. Now that’s interesting.

So I want to apply this to the rest of the city, the idea being you pick areas of interest that might seem innocuous and frivolous at first and give the groups that collect around them the tools to talk, ensuring those tools let them talk about other stuff. Off-topic is to be encouraged. Then stuff emerges which wouldn’t otherwise emerge as people taken control of these tools and take them in interesting places.

So that’s my big idea and that’s the filter through which I tend to see everything these days. How can it help “the conversation”? Which is where the arts stuff comes in.

Providing the tools is one part of it. This has been pretty much solved which leaves what I’ve been calling “the objects” - things people talk about and around. There’s a lot of prior art here, most notably with Flickr which evolved out of a game, Game Neverending, where they needed something for people to trade and communicate about. Photos seemed a good solution and thus photo sharing (as opposed to photo storage or publishing) took off. So my thinking was you need to identify the objects people want to talk about, or more accurately around, find the people who do that most actively and give them tools to do so.

There’s a lot more to it, but that’s my big idea in a nutshell.

Where this feature on government arts funding came in was a mention of discussion about art. For some reason this hadn’t really occurred to me but one of the functions of Art is to provoke debate, right? To challenge preconceptions and get people thinking and talking about stuff. If an artwork provokes a reaction, be it positive or negative, then it has in some level succeeded. For art, public art in particular, to be greeted with a big “meh” is for it to have failed. That’s probably very simplistic but let’s follow it through.

If we’re looking to get the population talking, and critically we want that conversation to be authentic, useful and not wrapped up in the nonsense of party politics, then we need to provide venues in and objects around which that dialog can take place and which empower the participants by giving them ownership of them.

And I’m not sure where this goes next. Probably into an analysis of how arts funding with a social aspect currently operates and that can be for another day.

Al Young of Starve in Heaven just emailed me asking for some tips on taking his blog to the next level, specifically in terms of writing style and building an audience. Here’s what I wrote back off the top of my head:

• Write a lot
• Link to people you write about.
• Read other blogs, use their posts as a basis to write your own posts (taking the subjects in interesting new directions of course) and link to them.
• Become a resource for your readers in a niche of your own making. Basically whatever you’re interested in.
• Write a lot more.
• Be patient. It takes months to build up a good readership, if not years.
• Experiment with your writing. Don’t feel the need to find a formula and stick to it. Get creative.
• Relax. Be chatty. Don’t write articles, write conversations. Treat the blog as your living room.
• Keep writing more and more.

Hope that’s of some use.

As someone who doesn’t own a television the BBC iPlayer has had an interesting effect on my viewing habits. Normally if I fancy watching an hour of so of moving pictures I’ll hit the torrents. Now I have a quick glance at the BBC4 page and see if anything catches my eye. Tonight, over dinner, it was Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press which was highly enjoyable as most things with Mr Fry are. (Do check out his podcasts, especially the odd-numbered ones which consist of him rambling about whatever takes his fancy - bliss!)

When you become someone without a TV license you enter into a strange world of moral grey areas as the TV license also funds BBC radio, online and a host of other minor services many of which we, by dint of not having a TV, use a fair bit. Radio 4 is always on when I’m in the kitchen and news.bbc.co.uk is my first port of call for breaking news. I like that these don’t carry advertising and would feel obliged to pay for them were it not that they cost but a tiny fraction of the BBC’s television bill.

But now, with the iPlayer, I’m watching BBC television for the first time in a long time, which might seem somewhat hypocritical to those of you who’ve experienced my rants against TV over the years. In my defense I’d clarify that I object to broadcast TV which dictates when one should watch a program and the context for that viewing. I find ambient television watching to be abhorrent but focussed, deliberate viewing on my terms, well, that’s okay.

Andy Pryke had a similar dilemma recently when watching something on the iPlayer. He said:

Given that I don’t have a TV licence I’d be quite happy to pay to watch good quality stuff like this, but how much? Maybe 50p? Is that too cheapskate of me? I think a TV licence is around £140(?) so that would be the equivalent of 280 hours at my rate, or about 45 mins of TV a day.

50p per program seems about right to me. Go to the prices usually banded around for TV downloads and I’d want to own the damn thing forever but 50p for 7 days access (with the average number of views probably being 1) to a Flash video file is reasonable. The trick would be making sure the system is as simple as it currently is. Any more steps and a HD torrent will make more sense.

So here’s an idea for how the iPlayer might evolve. Let me set up a fund on the BBC site, pay as you go style. I credit this with £10 and after each program I can decide whether or not I want to pay for it and how much with the suggested fee varying depending on the program (£1 for a costume drama, 10p for a gameshow). And, of course, I can just not pay anything at all, which keeps the system nice and simple for those with licenses. And, if it turns out that I might as well just pay for a license fee, I can do so using my BBC iPlayer money as credit.

Of course this would never be implemented because to even acknowledge that there are people without license fees who are not criminals would give out completely the wrong message. Better to just let us carry on watching stuff for free and feeling mildly guilty about it.

Oh, and I’d also like a system like this for stuff I torrent. I’m never going to watch Lost on Sky but I’ll happily throw $1 or so to ABC or whoever for each download if they give me somewhere to send it.

(When I broached this on Twitter @gezd suggested donating to a BBC charity which a nice idea in the interim but I’d rather be contributing to the production of BBC stuff like license fee payers do.)

Cross posted to the Birmingham Post blog

WTFisBrum? is a new low-impact project I started last week. Inspired in no small part, no, entirely ripped off from WTFisTwitter the idea is simple. Record a short video of yourself or someone else explaining what the fuck Birmingham is, post it to YouTube or Vimeo* and tag it “wtfisbrum”. I’ll then find it, check it’s not completely stupid and post it to the blog. In time we’ll hopefully have pages of definitions from the sublime to the retarded.

Motivation came from participating in a similar thing last year where my bit didn’t make the cut because I waffled for too long, which didn’t bother me but the end result seemed a little anodyne and unrepresentative. We’ll see if this does any better. Of if it just falls on it’s arse. No problem either way.

*Those are the two I’m tracking. If you wanna use another service just email me the link.

Why Should We Care About Creativity in the West Midlands?

Typed as the talk happened, so excuse the lack of context, accuracy and typos. My comments in (brackets)

Chair: Robert Yates
Speakers: Soweto Kinch - musician
Stuart Murphy - TV executive, Twofour
Matt Price - writer and editor / curator
Gavin Wade - artist/curator, Eastside Projects

Gavin

Art is an essential public good. Has benefit for society. Considering the unpredictable. How to manage art in the public sphere.

Is art not made for the public, but made by someone as a member of the public?
How art supports culture, how the government supports culture.

Think of Birmingham as no different to anywhere else. Mostly the same but small differences create context. Can put too much focus on making scene and expressing what that scene is. Better to get on with it and hope for best or be more sly - shout in different ways.

Gvt supports culture through intervention. Economic scenario. Arts Council England is an intervention. Another expression of being “the public”. Issue is where subsidies become merely investment - can lose reason why you do art in the first place.

Art as public good. A resource that anyone can draw on. May not be incentive in free market to make something that’s available to everybody. Art gets squeezed out of equation.

Project in 2002: Strike.

Rolls off lots of huge numbers of what would be missing if we had no art. Art has legislative place in society.

Vonnegut: Artist is canary in the coal mine. But being Vonnegut he thinks this is rubbish.

Artist run space is an essential public good. Should be liquid and fit into every crevice. Offering something else.

Eastside Projects open 23rd May. 86 Heath Mill Lane.

Need to examine crevices before filling them.

The process by which we act should be an artwork.

Soweto Kinch

Last album, B19, set in Hockley.

High art or street art? Perceived conflict between two artforms.

Relevance depends on definition of what art is.

early 20th C notion of art for arts sense. Jars with African / Jamaican approach to art.

He sees art doing both. Art that isn’t elitist but can still stand on its own.

Urban art in galleries, etc is a new phenomena.

Art is happening continually. Gleaning art and stories from the mundane. Comedy a powerful asset.

How successful is art is bridging social gaps. Art often inflammatory. Difficult challenge to confront issues that get under audiences skin.

Idea of “white middle class ghetto” where there isn’t any street art.

Art emerges from the ground up. The minute you look at things geographically you miss the point. Look towards people already doing things and validate them.

Matt Price

Why should we care? We have no choice.

We have tiny cultural industries and little turnover compared to what we should have.

Not pessimistic. Much in place for development. Strong public infrastructure in place.

Lot of festivals, strong or moving in right direction.

Need galleries, culture of arts journalism and criticism.

Develop commercially and see increase in creativity.

Not motivated by Bham becoming international phenomenon. But developing economy that relates to international context.

Need to activate region. Support artistic community. Put more resources into those getting success. Need to foster culture of prof development for those producing quality work.

Bigger budgets for regional promotional orgs.

Should be a progression - artists produce works in group shows -> individual shows -> catalogues and journalism -> (something else) -> Artists reps grow -> international context.

We too often fail to make these connections.

Local orgs need budgets to buy works. Tap into international collectors markets.

Social networks, artists networks, commercial networks, public and private networks.

All parts moving together. Awareness, engagement and investment.

Stuart Murphy

(Not really talking about Birmingham ;) )

(Okay, here we go…)

Felt creative pull towards London as kid. That annoyed him.

Clear there are massive regional, cultural and age differences.

Some sweeping generalizations about who likes what TV shows. Hmm…

Less nervousness about the word “local”. Used to mean “crap”.

The middle bit feels anodyne. Universal and local is good.

(I’m not really getting his point, but then he’s from TV and I don’t really get TV.)

Questions from Robert

Gavin: For music, Radio 1 and copyright are a state public good.
Gavin: Art doesn’t have to be a niche. It connects into most aspects of what we do.
Gavin: Need space to do useless things. People don’t intend to do useless things - it’s a function of being human.
Matt: Not try to emulate London but learn from it. Better systems for getting our artists to industry.
Soweto: Fact that he stayed and what he did in Brum made him original and unusual.
Gavin: Artists in Manchester / Glasgow had a passion to stay there and not go to London. Need that passion in Birmingham. Not strategic - the “want” to be there.
Stuart: Value in BBC moving to regions? People in regions were more blinkered, self censoring, etc than in London. BBC can kickstart this.

Question from audience

Audience: How would panel use Gas Hall and Waterhall for touring exhibitions?
Matt: Don’t have budgets.
Gavin: Lovely spaces but need to rip out systems and be more gutsy. Want and deserve more than that.
Matt: Good example was “British Art Show” in surrounding galleries.
Gavin: Need two good things to draw people in. (More is different?)
Audience: Don’t forget Walsall, Wolverhampton etc. Other stuff going on.
Helga Henry: Capital infrastructure investment. Symphony Hall, etc. Build big buildings and big companies came. Midscale investment is missing. Photographic archive. Get reputation for culture by building cultural spaces. Or is scene more vibrant because have to work around that.
Matt: Need $1m a year for collections rather than $1 over five years for three institutions.
Soweto: Draws parallels between lack of small quirky shops in Brum thanks to monumental shops with lack of small quirky arts and large institutions.
Lara Ratnaraja: Is is modesty that stops us going outside?
Gavin: Put a call out for arrogant people. (I need to talk to him about that!)
Audience: In relation to Artsfest, what does Big actually mean? Artsfest as double edged sword.
Matt: Artsfest fantastic family festival but not about promoting nationally or developing cutting edge practices.
Gavin: Don’t know what Artsfest is, which says something. Don’t think Birmingham should do big city wide thing right now. Investment in programs and constant goings on. Then be ready to let loose and do a big project without it looking dodgy.
Jonny Turpie: Birmingham not on radar. Not centre of excellence. Could be centre of excellence in digital. C4 investment.

Robert: Lesson is need to be more arrogant!

Culture and Identity - The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts

Typed as the talk happened, so excuse the lack of context.

Chair: Robert Yates
Speakers: Sam Jacob - FAT, architecture and design
Catherine O’Flynn - author
James Yarker - Stan’s Cafe

Three speeches from panel, then questions from chair, then q&a from audience.

Catherine

Perception of Birmingham - used to be rubbish, now it’s cool.

Didn’t hate old, don’t love new one.

Birmingham is sedimentary.

Living in Brum - perpetual state of nostalgia.

No apparent unifying aesthetic

Beneath this, artists.

Ability to find beauty in forgotten and overlooked places.

Certain DIY aesthetic

Pram, Broadcast, Stan’s Cafe, 7inch

There is thriving artistic scene. Debate is what extent this is identifiable, and what extend it should be.

James Yarker

Theatre company is an excuse. Tour across world but all made in Brum. Born out of and bound up in it.

21 when moved here. Felt real. Where people made thing. Honest. Alien.

Outsiders perception. Modest city. Doesn’t like arrogant or pretentious. So not fashionable. Self contained city - self contentment.

Great art is made here but no need to shout about it. Engrained sense of modesty so engrained attempts to show off miss mark.

Birmingham has no edge. Stan’s Cafe succeed not because of local apetite but because of opportunity to use.

City has voice, just have to listen for it. Choses not to shout at you.

Sam Jacob

Asked, “can you make this into a place”. Odd question.

Birmingham different to Manc and Liverpool. More similar to Rotterdam.

Developers not interested in poetry

How to build coherent narrative? How to go forward.

Best example - Will Allsop. Bizarre masterplans.

Not really designed - more a springboard. Unlocks potential.

Architects not best to unlock potential and draw narratives. Maybe artists?

Questions from Robert.

Catherine:
Examples of forgotten corners? Car park in Bull Ring empty for 20 years. Roundabout at Aston Uni / Fire Station.
Not good for marketeers. Not interested in marketing but not happy with external perception. Lack of identity gives artists more leeway.

James:
“Forward”, not “attack” or “go for it!”
We’re ambivalent about 2nd city, Manchester desperate for it.
Would prefer city to be less contented - want to be challenged a bit more. Would be nice to be bothered.
You do the thing, others do the boasting for you.
Is Birmingham too big? Weird as often feels too small.

Sam:
Why need narrative? Things that are left over become colonized and become desirable. About identity.
Thinks Bham has strong identity.
Examples of cities that shape a good story? Manchester has a story as a method of kickstarting regeneration. Urban Splash marketing spiel starts with Sex Pistols. Youth Culture, etc. But regeneration is a dead end to the story. Need open ended story, which Birmingham has. Always reinventing. Old and new put together with total disregard for history - incredibly refreshing. Doesn’t do wiping slate clean. Have overlapping of histories.

Open to floor:

Floor: Human narrative. Not monumental but important.
Sam: Once you start articulating it then you can build around it. (Blogging?)

Lara Rantaraja: Cultural diversity. Ethic split in talking about city. See Birmingham as city of ghettos. No common identity.
Sam: Worries about bringing people together. Optimistic view is that just happens. Has to evolve. (Again, blogging the story?)
Catherine: Events at MAC, sometimes tokenistic but sometimes really worked.

Floor: Disagree with ghetto. People who live in “ghettos” don’t talk like that. They call themselves Brummies. People do get on when left alone. More an economic issue.

Floor: Is shopping and bars Culture? Lot of arts project that should have carried on. Powers that Be lack vision and guts. Symphony Hall looks like shopping centre, Selfridges looks like an art gallery. PtB need to talk to those with ideas.