Duo quit Social Media Club committee to launch Digital Citizens
Two members of the Social Media Club Sydney organising committee have quit their roles to launch an alternative organisation aimed at attracting a wider audience than marketing professionals.
Mumbrella can reveal that Digital Citizens will launch in Sydney on Tuesday March 9.
It is the work of a committee of five including SMCSYD co-founders Heather Ann Snodgrass and Cathie McGinn. The others are James Fridley, Gavin Costello and Scott Rhodie.
Former Amnesia and Host staffer Snodgrass now works with PR agency Klick; McGinn works at digital agency The Reading Room; Fridley is from a research background; Costello is a technologist at Telstra and Rhodie runs digital PR agency House Party.
In a release to announce the launch of Digital Citizens the group said:
“The intention is to provide an open forum which encourages free and frank debate. Digital Citizens is an inclusive, informal organisation dedicated to knowledge sharing and discussion of social, political, ethical and professional issues related to new technologies and the social web. It’s agency agnostic and the only qualification for participating is the desire to speak.
McGinn said the split with SMCSYD had not been acrimonious, telling Mumbrella: “It was very much focused on the marketing agenda, and we wanted to have a wider debate.”
Social Media Club Sydney launched last year, meeting every six or seven weeks, generally with an audience of 2-300. It is yet to announce its program for 2010. Among the remaining lead members of the SMCSYD committee are co-founders Doug Chapman and Tiphereth Gloria who both work at digital agency Amnesia.
McGinn added: “We wanted to create a place for the exchange of views – the last year has demonstrated that even the professionals get it wrong alarmingly often. We’re all still trying to establish best practice and having open conversations about the digital space is of benefit to us all, whatever industry you work in.”
Snodgrass said: “The hunger for knowledge in this area is something that has really become apparent to me in the last eighteen months. With Digital Citizens, we’re going to do our best to sate that desire in a fresh, interactive environment that encourages not only debate from invited speakers, but from the audience and community as a whole”.
The topic of the first Digital Citizens debate, at Sydney’s Burdekin pub on Oxford Street, is the issue of what happens when people’s personal tweets impact on their jobs and whether they should be allowed to use social media to publicly disagree with their employer or clients.
Participants will include US lawyer and social media advisor Adrian Dayton, Engineers Without fears blogger Matt Moore plus others who have found themselves in hot water when personal tweets or blog postings have been linked to their working lives. Journalist Bronwen Clune will moderate.
The Digital Citizens Twitter profile is @ecitizens.
The Digital Citizens website includes a statement of principles:
- Aim: an inclusive, informal organisation dedicated to knowledge sharing and discussion of social, political, ethical and professional issues related to new technologies and the social web
- Format; the format may change depending on the subject under discussion, but the intention is always to enable free, frank and respectful debate
- We will invite subject matter experts to share their case studies and experience with an emphasis on the exchange of views, rather than a one-to-many format
- The organisers will suggest topics for future events but we encourage the community to submit subjects for discussion, to be selected democratically
- Digital Citizens is agency-agnostic, transparent and open.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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good on you guys. and… it seems the new principles address the issues about what the old guard had become…
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Does Sydney really need two groups of gasbagging social media douches?
And why would one want to expand discourse beyond the marketing agenda? Has not the success of North Korea taught you that an insular and inward focus is the path to riches?
Constant format changes should appeal to the ADD crowd, can’t wait to see how SMCSYD responds! Oh the excitement!
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hmmm…. gasbagging social media douches Adrian, maybe a bit harsh? especially on this site? Afterall… its everything media and marketing… and well social media is on there!!
I like the idea of broadening the scope! Social Media is not just about advertising, and if people feel that SMCSYD had an add focus then perhaps a forum for non-advertising people is not a bad thing! Not saying that is my view… but more forums the better.
Good luck with your new adventure guys… this is not about rival gangs and clubs… its about offering more ways to share knowledge and discussion!
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Does Agency Agnostic mean that they believe in the possibility that agencies might exist?
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Simon, every time you say that an agency dies….
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Social Media Club started with a different vision for what a professional association should be, one that is focused on the value of sharing knowledge with others, a club that is more inclusive then exclusive and creating a space where people from different backgrounds and professions can come together as human voices contributing to the conversation.
The club has not been focused on becoming the biggest, it focused on promoting media literacy, sharing best practices and ensuring that ethics are not lost as social media becomes ‘serious business’. It is a loosely formed organization with enough structure to keep going, but not enough to dictate to people and local leadership around the world what they MUST do. Our approach to let it go in order to let it grow may have seemed counterintuitive to many traditional business minds, but it worked as evidenced by the 160+ chapters now organized around the world.
I provide this info as a little background as I note every local chapter is a little different from the next, just as every local neighborhood is. This is good. This is a chance for us all to learn. The experiences of each of the chapters has informed our growth. Some are focused on one vertical, others diversify and cover all including government, education, social causes, etc. If Social Media Club does not suit the local community’s needs we hope to see it branch out – and if it can’t, other groups will sprout up like Digital Citizens to help fill what void there may be.
Again, this is all good. The idea is to get people together. To get people talking. Sharing. Learning. Educating. Whether that is under the Social Media Club umbrella or another organization is not important. For example: In San Francisco, there are five different organizations that host similar events as we do on a monthly basis. We coexist and support one another and the community benefits.
I think what the Social Media Club Sydney group has done in under a year is remarkable. In fact, they are the largest chapter we have in existence and the fact they can pull off an event for that many people is astounding to me (we get about 100 people monthly in San Francisco). I tip my tap to Doug and Tip and the rest of the SMC Sydney crew and welcome the Digital Citizens in the process.
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yeah adrian.
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Kristie, I have not been to any of the American SMC events so I will grant that my experience is based on what SMCSYD is in reality rather than what it what it theoretically could be.
I think that there are major issues when the people who seemingly rule SMCSYD with an iron fist, and in many cases an biting tongue, are both from the same Sydney agency.
However, regardless of this, for me SMCSYD lost its way when it focused on one way talks from a stage that do little to create a dialogue. Growing out of this is the issue of focus – SMCSYD talks have often been so general, and occasionally misinformed, that for anyone actually working in social media there is little new to learn.
If SMC is designed to attract people who are only interested in learning a repertoire of new buzz words to supplement their tweeting on inspirational quotes and other social media spam garbage, then fine, but as an exercise designed to spread ideas it simply doesn’t work. Numbers of attendees mean nothing when nothing worthwhile is being discussed.
For all it’s numbers and reported success, I think it says something when a short, open, flowing discussion on Twitter or a five minute presentation at a BarCamp event can teach more SMCSYD has in months.*
*Just to note, there have been a small number of interesting speakers, but given the issues with the format they would have been better putting their presentations on a blog and interacting with people through the comments.
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SMCSYD Attendee, thank you for your feedback. I have to admit, in the last year I have not done as good of a job as I would like in pro-actively checking on the pulse of each chapter, so I appreciate when someone takes the time to provide comments as you have.
We strive to make our San Francisco events as interactive as we possibly can, and I encourage that frame of mind in all our chapters. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, but there is always a try in there. We do ask for a level of openness in each city that allows for participation in creating, shaping and managing Social Media Club and I am sure the Sydney chapter would be interested in your feedback and would gladly make the necessary adjustments needed to serve the community at large. Either way, I plan to reach out to SMC Sydney and Digital Citizens to see how we can work with one another to create a top notch educational track.
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Kristie, these opinions are certainly not only my own and have been voiced to SMCSYD both privately and publicly by an increasing number of people for some time.
It’s the lack of response of the organisers (and let’s face it, it really has just been Doug and Tip controlling the show for some time, excluding the other organisers), that results in groups like the Digital Citizens being created.
Natures abhors a vacuum but it abhors bullshit wastes of time more…
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sounds important
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Is this how it felt for Friends Reunited when Facebook opened shop?
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Social Media, splits to not focus on marketing? OMG, what’s the point of calling it social media? Isn’t media a form of marketing?
Social Media is a crock, anyone who claims to be an expert should be treated with the same credibility as a snake oil salesman. An industry that is barely 2 years old, with dubious beginnings should really take a long hard look at these so called “experts”.
Putting ads and brands in a social space is stupid, brands aren’t your friends. I don’t really give a toss about what a brand has to say to me in 140 characters or less, brands shouldn’t have friends. I don’t care more about the brand more if the have a cool page on Facebook.
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Simon
That was gold.
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Kristen
um. When people stop wearing clothes or accessories with brand names showing. Or when they stop refering to their car by manufacturer. Then yes people won’t want to be friends with a brand. But most people do and thus do want to be friends.
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Kristen
“Isn’t Media a form of Marketing?” No. It’s not. A Medium (pl media) is a method of helping to deliver messages. Marketing is what some of those messages look like. Other messages include News, sport, entertainment etc
Social Media is IMHO a more social or collaborative use, e.g. Knowledge sharing, of the media which exist. Be that TV, Radio, Internet or whatever.
The Internet is, despite whatever a News Limited Exec might tell you, the best Medium we know (aside from the pub) for social interaction.
Marketing is part of it. But, in my view, a small part which has been allowed to become seen as the only part.
Gavin
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So committed are we to responding to feedback that we’ve updated the blurb…
Sacrificing the simple joy of alliteration for the sake of not sounding quite so much like douchebags, we’re now “agency neutral”
Alternative suggestions can be submitted here: http://digital-citizens.org (careful now..)
I’d also like to reiterate that Digital Citizens isn’t in any way an attempt to replace SMC Sydney – it’s a different focus and a broader remit. We’re trying to create a space for debate, and this comment thread clearly demonstrates that there is demand for such a forum.
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Seems to me a couple of pretenders have decided to step up and see if they can do more than swan around taking credit for other people’s efforts. Word is they’re being egged on by a few bitter souls with personal agendas. This is so typical of the local marketing community. Will be interesting to see if they can pull it off or whether they’ll crumble at the first barbs of criticism
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Hi Jay,
I’m intrigued by your alleged belief we are ‘pretenders’ considering the amount of experience between the five of us.
None of us are being egged on by anyone instead we all have a strong belief in Digital Citizens and the need for more openness and community within the industry.
As for being able to pull it off. Come along on the night and find out for yourself – not many tickets left I’m afraid.
Cheers,
Scott
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Ummm – I’m looking forward to events by different groups with different focuses. As much as I had issues with some of the format choices for SYDSMC, I think the organizers worked hard to put on a decent events & I hope they do more cool stuff in 2010. And it’s not just these guys – Ignite, TEDx, Interesting South, various Camps (barcamps, startup camps, social innovation camps). A whole bunch of great stuff has happened in Sydney over the last couple of years. We are spoilt for choice.
So either:
– find something that you think is cool & support it,
– or start your own cool thing,
– or shut the **** up. No one likes a whinger.
For the record: social media & marketing are independent domains that overlap. The point of crossover is pretty interesting but isn’t the whole story for either.
God, that was all very reasonable & grown-up wasn’t it? I feel the overwhelming urge to start a fight with someone. In the nude.
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Intriguing that the group is touted as being an open and inclusive forum. Following all of its founding members on twitter I wouldn’t be so quick to attribute that description to them. I would not be surprised that the Social Media Women will surpassed them in attracting membership from outside the ‘fold’. The comparisons will be made, the attempt at suggesting a conflict will also happen at the end of the day participation is the only metric I’ll engage in measuring its success.
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“Free Speech”
I’m confused. As a part of the organisation, I’m interested in how I or my colleagues are not open or inclusive? Feel free to contact me or my colleagues, my address is here and my twitter profile is pretty obvious.
As for ‘membership’ I’m not sure what that means. We don’t have ‘members’ per se. If you use ‘Social Media’ for whatever purpose, you are welcome to get involved, attend, participate. In may ways you already are.
At the event we had an open mic policy. I’d love to know if you were there, and if you got involved in the conversation. Unfortunately as you haven’t told us who you are, I can’t possibly guess
Cheers!
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I don’t live in Sydney anymore and I have been to only one SMCSYD event, but there was so much interaction that night that it must have been an exception to the rule. And it was just warming up when I had regretfully to leave, jus at the end of the formal presentations. Was anybody else there, when David Meerman Scott was being heckled and took it in such good part? Or did I imagine the whole thing? 🙂
Anyway, with all my partisan bias for, personal engagement in and lack of any claim to objectivity about Social Media Club, I think it’s great that so many people in my old home town are so interested in the subject and so keen to get together, in whatever group takes their various fancies.
And I dips me lid to the people who have made SMCSYD a happening thing, albeit not happening just as everyone would wish.
And if anyone is looking for a mellower zone for discussing social media, get yourselves up here to the Gold Coast or to Brissie some time for one of our gatherings.
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