Since I became an internet superstar (and, yes, I’m taking the piss here) I get asked for advice a fair bit. I’m generally happy to do this but I’m reaching saturation point. And I’m also aware that more often that not I’m not the best person to offer the advice.

Post-SXSWi we now have at least six people in the region who have brains full of useful stuff, not to mention those like Phil Campbell and Paul Robert Lloyd and some other people called Paul. And, of course, those big brains who didn’t get to SXSW this year such as Dubber and Nick Podnosh and I’m starting to realise there’s loads of them and I’m going to risk offending those I miss out if I try and list them all so I’ll stop now. You know who you are.

These people will be busy, but not always, and they’ve proven themselves to be willing and able to help others. What we need is some way to help put people’s questions and problems in front of them but in a manner where there’s no obligation to help. In other words something less blunt that email.

I’m guessing the model I’m thinking of is Ask Metafilter where people can post questions about stuff and the community answers them. So let’s try and bash out some details.

• It’s sort of like a brains trust. A club consisting of people in the West Mids who are thinking about the future of social media and digital nonsense.
• It’s incredibly informal. There’s no pressure to actually do anything unless you want to. The idea is we scan the questions during moments of down-time and answer them.
• It’s based around a blog-style website which requires little to no investment.
• Membership of the club is by invite only. Requirements are that someone in the club thinks you’ll be a worthy member and that you’re based or working in the West Midlands.
• The West Midlands angle helps us to build local events out of this (BarCamps, etc) and to influence local policy. Not to mention the prospect of funding monies for trips to SXSW 09.
• Benefits of membership are the raising of personal profile by effort you put into the site and by association.

And probably some more stuff. The main thing is it’s incredibly informal.

Later

Some thoughts on the architecture of the site, to be no doubt improved on by others:

• Users submit their questions in a form. These go into a big list with the most recent at the top. This is not on the front page but is public.
• Members scan the list and, if they decide to address one of them, flag it as “in progress”. This stops others from duplicating the work.
• Once the question is answered it goes to the front page and the user is notified. The user can mark how useful the answer has been to them personally and others can rank it. There’d then be a Digg-style page with the best answers on the site and on each member profile, showcasing our genius skillz. ;)
• A comments thread allows others to add to it, be they members or not. The former are highlighted.
• Most importantly, the answer doesn’t have to live on the site. It can be on the member’s blog and linked through. In fact I see this as being the normal way of working.

Now, somebody go build it.

Okay, here’s one of my favourite stories of how Twitter (or any related social media tool thingy) can work when a critical mass is reached.

At SXSWi Twitter just rules. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is using it to a degree where you can’t really imagine the conference without it.

At 10pm on Monday night, that’s 10pm, Alex, our hero from the last post, is walking down E 6th Street and notices that the Mooseknuckle bar is empty. He pops in and makes a deal with the owner to put some cash behind the bar. He then Twitters this message at 11.22pm.

Indyhall party at mooseknuckle if we get 100 people I’ll open a tab.

Stef noticed the Tweet and we headed down there to be greeted by about 50-odd people. By the time we left this had trippled at least. I found out later that the bar had filled to capacity and, though it pains me to use this metric as it’s kinda tired, Scoble turned up.

Which is not bad. But was it just Twitter doing this? Oh no. Imagine if I’d sent out a Tweet saying I was running a party in Austin. I might have gotten a few people coming along out of curiosity or politeness but nothing on this scale. It worked because Alex has a good reputation and reputation is all in this game. Not only does he have a good collection of people following his Twitter stream but they all know what he’s done for the community and feel part of that and so on.

The technology enables this to happen but it needs to be fueled by something more important – who it’s enabling. Or something like that.

Definition of Mooseknuckle