Until now small organizations could not have the same tools as large ones – they could not afford to market or to do market research – they could not afford to advertise, use TV or Radio – they could not afford to communicate all over the world – they could not afford the office tools – they could not afford to have office space – they could not afford to find new staff – the list goes on.
But this has all changed. Not only can small and ultra small organizations do all these things for free now or close to free, but they can do a better job than most large established organizations who dare not change their expensive tools for the new ones.
But if you are not a Geek, how will you learn how to use these new 2.0 or Social Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Office Tools, Blogging etc?
The Queen Street Commons, is putting a learning series together to help you do just that.
The Series will begin on January 13th, 2010 and will take place every Wednesday every week for 8 weeks. The price will be $10 a head per session. There will be a limit of 10 Learners. Please book here - Bonus for those that subscribe to 5 sessions or more will be a free 1 month membership to the Commons.
Here are the details:
- Jan 13th at 12.15pm. Introduction to how best to use Social Media and to many Free Office Tools – What is all this about really? In this session we will introduce you to the big ideas behind this shift to community and this shift to easy to use and often free tools. Our guest will be Gord McNeilly the Co Founder of UFIT. Gord will offer examples of how UFIT use community itself as the main activity of UFIT and show you how they use the tools to support this. Rob Paterson, social media advisor to NPR and to PBS, will be the session leader and will lead you through many of the choices that you will have to use tools that cost very little or nothing. Email. Word processing. Phone. Video Website tools. Etc
- Jan 20th at 12.15pm Marketing and Research Overview – An overview of the use and power of tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging etc to enable you to find out what is going on in your field and to attract communities of support for what you do or stand for. Teresa Wright, political journalist for the Guardian, and Karen Mair host of the CBC Island will be our Guests and will talk about their use of Twitter and Facebook and other social media. Like many journalists, Teresa and Karen are learning how best to use these tools in both their personal and business life. Rob Paterson will be the session leader. His guide to Twitter is here.
- Jan 27th at 12.15pm Setting up your own website – How to use free and simple to use Blogging tools to create your own websites. You no longer have to have a web company set up a great site for you. If you can use email, you too can create and use a site that looks good and is easy to maintain. Patrick Ledwell, well known comedian and “geek” will be our guest and session leader.
- Feb 3rd at 12.15pm Video – How to make your own videos, elementary editing and how to use tools such as YouTube and Vimeo to have your own TV station. Now with simple cameras on your iPhone or such as a Flip camera and free movie editing tools such as iMovie, you can make movies that only an expert could have done before. Many people are finding that video enables them to tell stories about what they do in a compelling way and the web of course makes it easy for people to find and watch what you show. Patrick Ledwell and Rob Paterson will show you many of the simple tools out there that can enable you to use video
- Feb 10 at 12.15pm. Community Tools – Tools such as Ning, that we will also use to support the course are proving very useful in helping groups of people stay connected – what are they and how best can they be used. Rob Paterson will be the session leader. He has been using Ning to coordinate a number of large projects for public TV and Radio and will use this as a template to show you what you might do. We will be using a Ning site to support the course as well. Here you can see how you can create a dedicated world to a project and use all the features of social media inside this world. You can use this for your staff, clients, an interest, a project ….
- Feb 17th at 12.15pm Using a smart Phone such as an iPhone – The New Computer is your phone. The basics of making the most of your smart phone in the mobile world. Rob Paterson will lead this session
- Feb 24th at 12.15pm Running your own Wireless Network – How to use the main elements of WiFi to network all your gear – basic problem solving as well. Jason White – AKA the TechGuru - will lead the session. Wireless is how it all works now. Jason will help us understand the basics of setting up a good local wireless network – how to connect everything seamlessly at your office or home
- March 3rd at 12.15pm Risk Management – What are some of the things you need to avoid and what will keep you safe in this new hyper-connected world. Like every new world, there is some risk involved fro the new person especially. What are the common risks that we can avoid? Rob Paterson will lead this session
The small size of the “class” – 10 - is designed to promote interaction. There will be a class leader but after the key points are put on the table, we will all have a chance to talk about what we need to know and to make a contribution to the class as a whole.
We will also make available an online support community as well so that you can extend the class outside the room.
