What happens at York’s Social Media Surgeries

The first social media surgery in York took place in November 2009 and this past month we held the seventh. As we take a break over the summer months, I am writing this post to explain how we go about planning a surgery and what happens at the event. Hopefully some of the information shared here will be useful to you.

I would like to briefly present my case for organizing the surgeries in York. The format of the surgeries is quite flexible and I hope I can illustrate that they can accommodate a wide range of perspectives and intentions whilst achieving the desired outcome.

For a number of years I worked with various voluntary groups and human rights organizations in India in the capacity of a multimedia designer. As the voluntary sector is the target audience for the surgeries, I was keen to organize them in York to continue my association with the sector.

I also believe that there is far too much emphasis on the operational aspects of social media as compared to demonstrating how it can be adapted to different contexts. In my experience, the former can frighten people and put them off engaging with the www. On the contrary, once people can contextualize an online platform (website, social media) and match it to a genuine need, the subsequent transition to using it is an organic process.

Hosting a SMS is a collaborative effort and it is important to accommodate different points of view.

I have explained my case but I am aware that there are a wide range of opinions when it comes to social media education/ digital literacy initiatives. Furthermore, the surgeries have to cater to different expectations, from people who have no clue where to start, to those who want answers to specific technical questions and others who want to develop a long-term strategy. Therefore, right from the start it was obvious that the surgeries had to be a collaborative effort requiring assistance from other professionals, experts and practitioners, referred to as surgeons.

There are over a dozen surgeons from York and neighbouring cities who have given up their time to offer advice and information at York’s surgeries. This fairly detailed list on Twitter will give you an idea of who they are.

Whilst the surgeons bring a wide range of skills and expertise, it is important that we operate under a common philosophy. There are no set rules. However, a surgeon is expected to offer advice and information via a one-to-one chat with the visitor. It is recommended that the surgeon does not spend the entire session with one visitor. However, there is no pressure to meet a target.

As organizers, we try and create a relaxed environment. Evangelism and one-upmanship is discouraged. The visitor is free to speak to any surgeon (providing s/he is available) and more importantly, a surgeon can refer the patient to someone else if s/he does not know the answer to a question.

The surgeries are open to anyone from the third sector – community groups, voluntary organizations and charities. There are dozens of such groups in York and neighbouring regions. However it is not easy to get access to them for a variety of reasons. We began by publicizing the surgeries via Twitter and Facebook. We also created a hashtag #YorkSMS to track re-tweets (RTs) and get a sense of how the message was spreading. This strategy was useful in two ways – it allowed us to reach out to people who were already engaging with social media and wanted to find out more; it also helped generate word-of-mouth references and attract people who do not have an online presence.

There is always the possibility that no one will turn up, but given the spirit of collaboration and camaraderie, the surgeons don’t mind if we don’t get a huge turnout. It is never seen as a wasted effort.

There is always a possibility that no one will turn up on the day. As organizers we have been upfront about this when asking surgeons to volunteer. However, given the relaxed nature of the event and the spirit of collaboration and camaraderie, no one minds if we don’t get a huge turnout. This doesn’t mean that we are complacent. A couple of weeks ago we spent six hours on foot visiting various community centres (such as Burton Stone Lane) and speaking to the volunteer staff at the charity shops across the city to spread the word.

Earlier this year we received a tremendous boost when Learning City York decided to support us. Learning City York is a city wide consortium which includes the York Council (CYC). Through their support we were able to access an existing and vibrant network of voluntary groups known as the Yortime initiative. We were given access to two excellent locations in York – The Priory Street Center in Micklegate and the revamped York Central Library which is now known as Explore library. And finally, we were able to offer an additional incentive to visitors – free copies of the Yortime Web Guides. These have been written specifically for the voluntary sector to use social media/networks and the www.

When Learning City York (and Yortime) came onboard, I was joined by @mikeleighcooper. He shares the responsibility of organizing/publicizing the event, inviting surgeons and most importantly – documenting the event via audio/video podcasts. Most of the photos and interviews in this post have been taken by him.

Now that there are two of us, we have room to experiment with the concept in the following ways:

Hyperlocal surgeries

The voluntary sector is not restricted to any particular socio-economic background. This is why we were keen to test the idea of holding surgeries at different locations to attract a wider audience, different interest groups and so on. After an initial survey that considered various factors – interest from surgeons, easy access to the internet and even parking facilities, we settles on Priory Street Centre and the Explore library. The next task was to try and find the right frequency. If the event was held too frequently we knew that interest would wane and turnout would drop. So we decided to go ahead with the following – two surgeries a month, on the first and last Wednesday. One at Priory Street and the other at Micklegate. A surgery is held every two weeks (and one month apart at a location). This approach has produced some interesting results, perhaps I will go into the details in a separate post (to prevent this one from getting even longer).

A shared networking space

As I mentioned earlier, we don’t always get a huge turnout at a surgery. There have been times when many people signed on but only a fraction turned up. This got us thinking about how we can use the time during the surgery more constructively. The idea behind using the surgeries as a networking space is based on the following principle – to bring together surgeons from different backgrounds, from IT experts who are used to dealing with customers, to students who are interested in the geeky aspects of social media and others who are just starting up their own business. When you bring together such an eclectic mix of keen, enthusiastic people it is natural that constructive conversations will take place. And so they have. Once again I will go into the details in a separate post, or provide a downloadable case study. What I would like to mention is that at one particular event we managed to get the marketing manager from iPadio to visit York and provide demonstrations on using their service for ‘phlogging’.

An important issue related to the surgery is what happens afterwards? How do we continue to provide support to visitors? Would it be in the form of answering emails, setting up a facebook group, or collating the various issues that have been discussed as a FAQ on a wordpress blog? To be honest we were wary of the pressure that the first option would place us under. After all, we didn’t want to end up running a help-desk for the entire city.

Based on the feedback forms we collected, it seems people were keen on returning to the surgery for further information and advice rather than accessing help online. There is also the tricky business of handling commercial enquiries (setting up a website etc.) generated by the surgeries. These often come via email to me just after an event. As organizers, both Mike and I distance ourselves from them and direct visitors to the list of surgeons who were at that particular event.

The surgeries will resume in September and for the next few months we will continue the format of two events a month at Priory Street and Explore library. In the past couple of months we have been trying to reach out to new audiences. Now our focus is to follow up on the visitors who have attended so far and encourage them to return. We will continue to try and find new ways to promote the event and access different audiences and are looking into the possibility of getting the local radio networks/press to publicize the event. We are also trying to simplify the registration process. Whereas in the past we have asked people to register via eventbrite, from now on we will encourage people to turn up on the day. This might create organizational problems during the event, nonetheless we want to give it a go.

Despite all the effort we have put in, I am pretty sure there is still a sizeable chunk of the voluntary sector in York who have never heard of the social media surgeries. Both Mike and I are up for the challenge, we also have the continued support of Learning City York and Yortime. Most importantly, we have onboard with us some fantastic surgeons who are extremely generous with their time! A special thank you to some of the regulars – John Irving, Kadie Armstrong, Dan Croxen John and Dom Smith.

I will leave you with an interview with visitor Karen Michaelson who runs Circle Dance in York. The interview was conducted and recorded by Mike.

You can contact me via email or twitter if you would like to volunteer as a surgeon or attend the next surgery which will be held on the first Wednesday of September. Alternatively, you can register at the eventbrite website.

If you are keen on hosting a surgery in your city, be sure to get in touch with @johnpopham , @podnosh or @watfordgap who have championed the social media surgeries across a number of cities in the UK. You can also visit this excellent website for more information.